BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For many years abortion rights activists in Latin America regarded to our counterparts within the world north to study one of the best litigation and advocacy instruments. We thought of the incremental good points made within the years main as much as Roe v. Wade in america a blueprint for victory in our struggle.
However as a feminist inexperienced wave, referring to the inexperienced bandannas abortion rights supporters put on, sweeps throughout the area, this summer season america Supreme Court docket may roll again abortion rights. Inspiration is now coming from the south slightly than the north, because of the coordinated efforts of many Latin American activists.
Colombia had a blanket ban on abortion till 2006, when the nation’s constitutional court docket mandated that abortion be legally accessible when a lady’s well being and life had been in danger, a fetus had severe well being issues or when a being pregnant resulted from rape. However some girls confronted obstacles to accessing these authorized abortion providers, together with onerous medical necessities to show they qualify. Others who had abortions — or who helped a lady receive one — could possibly be sentenced to as much as 5 years in jail.
Final September, a lawsuit asking the Constitutional Court docket of Colombia to decriminalize abortion was filed by the Causa Justa — or Simply Trigger — motion, a coalition of which the Heart for Reproductive Rights is part. We argued that abortion is crucial well being care that shouldn’t be regulated within the penal system. The court docket additionally requested Congress to create rules to use the ruling. In a transformative shift for the majority-Catholic nation, we at the moment are the third nation in Latin America to decriminalize abortion within the final yr, behind Mexico and Argentina.
The landmark ruling was issued as my colleagues in america are defending the suitable to abortion in a case that would overturn a half-century of reproductive rights. My colleagues in Europe joined in submitting amicus briefs in instances earlier than the European Court docket of Human Rights highlighting the harms of Polands’s near-total abortion ban. A decade in the past, few may have imagined that Latin America, which is residence to a few of the most restrictive abortion legal guidelines on this planet, would develop into a benchmark for advances in sexual and reproductive rights.
Ladies throughout the globe are related by our shared wrestle to beat the discrimination we expertise merely due to our gender. The hard-fought good points in Latin America are the results of many years of organizing, mobilizing, working to shift the dialog round abortion and, most significantly, working collectively to result in change.
In Colombia, Causa Justa filed a lawsuit signed by the Heart for Reproductive Rights, La Mesa por La Vida y La Salud de las Mujeres, Ladies’s Hyperlink Worldwide, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir and Grupo Médico por el Derecho a Decidir on behalf of 90 different organizations and greater than 130 activists. Teamwork is simply one of many methods that buttressed the struggle for our elementary rights, with feminists throughout the area tailoring their strategy to adapt to native challenges.
But it surely wasn’t sufficient to vary our legal guidelines. How individuals thought and talked about abortion needed to evolve, too. The motion sought to socially decriminalize abortion. We fought diligently to destigmatize and fight misinformation about abortion. We took to the streets and social media with our messages. Advocates and celebrities got here out on social media and in public occasions to help a lady’s proper to decide on. In a single video, artists, actors, activists and even non secular leaders defined that ladies who search abortion minimize throughout social, political and spiritual strains.
Having native organizations take the lead was essential. In Colombia, we needed to know what obstacles girls confronted in accessing abortion, and who was criminalized. Mesa por la Vida y la Salud de las Mujeres, a corporation that’s a part of the Causa Justa Motion, fanned out throughout the nation to speak to girls and doc what was occurring.
Researchers discovered that almost all of girls who confronted authorized penalties for having an abortion or for serving to somebody get one had been low-income and lived in rural and distant areas. In addition they discovered that ladies residing in these areas had been extra more likely to have issues from unsafe abortions. Not solely was this data crucial to the lawsuit — it was additionally crucial to altering the dialog about abortion in Colombia.
Our struggle is much from over. In nations like El Salvador and Honduras, abortion remains to be prohibited in all circumstances and penalized. Colombian activists stay united to make sure that the choice of the court docket is carried out. However as a few of the largest nations within the area take a extra progressive stance on reproductive rights, there may be motive to be optimistic.
If america Supreme Court docket rolls again the constitutional safety of abortion this yr, the transfer would reverberate around the globe. Latin American girls will proceed constructing data and dealing throughout borders within the struggle to ensure everybody’s rights. Maybe our strategy may be helpful to our sisters within the world north, to which now we have regarded for therefore a few years for classes.
Supply: NY Times