3 Nov 2025
MDM,
My body belongs to me! My body, my choice—amplifying the power of feminist and women-led civil society organizations.
We are pleased to announce the launch of a bold new initiative—Movements for Reproductive Autonomy, Equality and Solidarity (MAREAS). A multi-country initiative across Africa and Latin America to amplify the power of feminist and women-led civil society organizations (CSOs).
Across Latin America, a backlash against women’s rights is underway and girls are criminalized for miscarrying
Harriet Barber
June 6, 2024
Camila’s body folds in on itself, eyes fixated on the cuffs of her sweater and thick black hair shielding her face. The 19-year-old, an Indigenous teenager from the Peruvian mountains, sits close to her lawyer, arms touching, in a small office overlooking Lima’s skyline. In clipped and hushed sentences, she begins her story.
At the age of 9, Camila was raped by her father. He ordered her not to tell anyone, threatening to kill her and her mother and brother if she did. For a while, his threats worked and she stayed silent. His vicious assault was the start of years of violence, abuse that would make Camila pregnant at the age of 13 and leave her ostracized from her community.
In a case at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, European groups supported criminalising women who had obstetric emergencies
Diana Cariboni and Tatev Hovhannisyan
3 December 2021
European right-wing groups backed the El Salvador government over the imprisonment and death of a woman for having a miscarriage. But they lost.
One of the groups was the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a branch of the ultra-conservative American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), led by Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow.
Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/europe-us-right-groups-elsalvador-criminalising-abortion/
ISABELLA COTASTEPHANIA CORPI
OCT 24, 2021
An EL PAÍS investigation in five Latin American countries has found that a network of centers affiliated with the far-right US organization Heartbeat International (HI) promote themselves online as feminist support groups and use misleading language in favor of abortion, but in reality they work to manipulate and institutionalize women to get them to carry their pregnancy to term.
Five female reporters and one male reporter went undercover to centers in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Mexico between 2019 and 2021, as a follow-up to an OpenDemocracy investigation into HI’s operations in the region.
The country’s decision will encourage campaigners for more liberal laws but may invigorate their opponents, too
Economist
Jan 9th 2021
Within days Argentina’s president, Alberto Fernández, is expected to sign a law making abortion legal. Argentine women will be able to terminate their pregnancies within the first 14 weeks for any reason. The measure is a big deal. With 45m people, Argentina is the fourth-most-populous country in Latin America, a predominantly Catholic region, and the native country of the current pope. It is now the largest of the few Latin American countries that allow abortion on demand (see map). Argentina’s new law will see the share of women in the region with such access rise from 3% to 10%.
Pro-abortion groups hail it as part of a marea verde (green wave), named for the verdant scarves worn by women’s-rights campaigners, not all of whom advocate greater access to abortion. Argentina’s decision has inspired discussion in Peru, says Susana Chávez, an obstetrician and congressional candidate for the centrist Purple Party. There is “an opening, and parties and politicians are starting to talk about it”, she says. Mexico’s left-wing president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has tried to avoid the issue, seemed to grant the possibility of liberalisation after Argentina’s decision. Women should decide whether the law should be changed, he said.
They Lost Argentina’s Abortion Vote, but Advocates Started a Movement
By Daniel Politi and Ernesto Londoño
Aug. 9, 2018
BUENOS AIRES — They narrowly lost the vote. But as supporters of a bill to legalize abortion in Argentina began to shake off a stinging defeat in the Senate on Thursday, they took consolation in having galvanized a reproductive-rights movement across Latin America and began to consider how to redirect their activism.
A coalition of young female lawmakers who stunned the political establishment by putting abortion rights at the top of the legislative agenda this year seemed to be on the verge of a historic victory with the bill. But intense lobbying by Catholic Church leaders and staunch opposition in conservative northern provinces persuaded enough senators to vote against it.
Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/world/americas/argentina-abortion-laws-south-america.html
Facebook
Google+
Twitter
LinkedIn