Abortion is a polarizing political issue across the American continent, yet US-focused scholars seldom interrogate the consequences of abortion politics for democratic institutions. Latin America scholarship has done better. Moving beyond the typical US focus of explaining abortion liberalization or abortion politicization, Latin America scholarship investigates how conservative actors strategically isolate and amplify the antiabortion position as a means of consolidating alliances and deepening elite control over legislative and judicial institutions. More provocatively, this scholarship also suggests that elites use the unique liminal legality of the fetus to blur, and ultimately weaken, national commitments to legal and judicial equality, which powerfully facilitates democratic backsliding. We build these arguments by first comparing abortion politics over time and across the region, and then by focusing specifically on the cases of El Salvador, Peru, Argentina, and Colombia. We conclude that legal access to safe abortion is not only critical for the life, health, and human rights of women and girls around the world; it is also central for creating and maintaining healthy democracies.
This event is presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
LOCATION:CGIS South, Room S216 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20261027T160000Z DTEND:20261027T173000Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR