This article is published in number 9 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until March 2, 2021
“The Argentines have overturned the ending of this terrible 2020,” he says Karina Nohales smiling. It is part of the Feminist coordination 8M, and is a candidate for the Convention which this year will rewrite the Chilean Constitution. Along with hers, several Latin American feminist organizations celebrated the law on voluntary termination of pregnancy approved by the Argentine parliament last December 30th. The “green tide” of the Campaign for Free, Safe and Free Abortion has achieved a historic result in a region where the right to abort is still to be won almost everywhere. On the continent “mass feminism is breaking in,” explains Karina Nohales, “the Argentines have shown us that one can advance even in the midst of adversity”.
It’s in Chile, which comes from more than a year of intense protests against the neoliberal model and President Piñera, took the example: January 13 the parliamentary discussion of a bill to decriminalize abortion has begun. In 1931 it was allowed in three circumstances: the risk to the life of the woman, congenital defects of the fetus and in case of rape, then revoked during the Pinochet dictatorship. Only in 2017 were they readmitted and in a few years the Chilean movement has accomplished without exception, along with El Salvador, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
In Honduras there are social organizations such as COPINH, known for the environmental activist Berta Cáceres, who was murdered in 2016, which carry on the battle against patriarchy, but the society is still deeply macho. “Here abortion has always been punished, and it cannot even be named publicly”, explains Karla Lara, singer and human rights activist in a country that is the second poorest in Latin America, where there is no basic hospital facilities. , 60% of the population is illiterate and 95% is Catholic or Evangelical. “You can go to the most hidden village, where you can only get there on foot on a dirt road and you will find Coca-Cola and a church there,” he says with a bitter smile. But not only in Honduras the result of the Argentine vote was condemned.
In the neighbor Paraguay, the Chamber of Deputies has called for a minute of silence for the thousands of lives of Argentine brothers who will be lost before they are born. Even Brazilian President Bolsonaro was not long in coming, saying on Twitter: «As long as I am in government, abortion will never be approved. We will always fight to protect the lives of the innocent ”. One of the greatest expressions of contemporary feminism in Brazil was born precisely in opposition to Bolsonaro’s candidacy. Ludimilla Teixeira, founder of the #EleNao movement, says that “her election represented a setback for the civil and reproductive rights of women, fomented racism and discrimination against LGBT people”. An emblematic case of the climate that reigns in Brazil is that of a 10-year-old girl who had an abortion last August in Recife. Although the termination of pregnancy was allowed, because of the repeated violence by an uncle, the girl had to travel 1,500 kilometers to find a hospital available to perform it, and was targeted by groups of religious fanatics who threatened her family. and tried to enter the hospital, encouraged by the minister of Women, the Family and Human Rights, the evangelical Damares Alves. An interesting scenario is the Ecuadorian one, where the political elections were held on 7 February. While Andrés Arauz, Rafael Correa’s heir candidate, has made sure to go to the ballot next April, the conservative Guillermo Lasso, outspokenly anti-abortionist, and the indigenous candidate Yaku Pérez, who said he was in favor of include the cause of the rape as lawful for abortion. Feminist journalist Ana Maria Acosta points out that “many legislators have spoken out in favor of abortion: there seems to be room for broadening the discussion on the issue”.
In Ecuador termination of pregnancy is only permitted in the event of a woman’s life or health risk, and in the case of violence against a woman with
mental disability. In 2013, with the reform of the penal code, a group of parliamentarians tried to broaden the motivation for rape to all
women. “President Correa threatened to resign, it was not even possible to start the debate”, explains Ana, who points out: “In 2019, feminist organizations asked for the integration of four other cases in which to decriminalize abortion”.
This time the motion did not pass either, but the debate has begun. “There is a double standard,” explains Sandra Cardona Alanís, of the Necesito Abortar network, which assists those who want to have abortions in the Mexican state of Nuevo León. “Women who can afford it terminate the pregnancy in the United States, or travel to the capital (where it is legal) but then come back and declare themselves against abortion.”
Throughout Latin America activists point to social stigma as one of the main obstacles to achieving a safe abortion. Yanina Waldhorn, from the Campaign that worked 15 years for legal abortion, from Buenos Aires sends a message to all the others: “Fighting
serves, we are not naive, we know that pro-life movements are not giving up, but feminist ones are also advancing, our demands have entered the international political agendas and are shared: we no longer have borders ».
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