While Roe v. Wade is under attack in the U.S., Latin American women are winning abortion rights | Opinion

Picture a green sea of women cheering and waving bandannas. This was the scene in front of Argentina’s Congress in Buenos Aires at the end of 2020. Abortion had just been legalized in the nation, marking a historic victory in Latin America and a win for the Green Tide movement, symbolized by a green bandanna.

The Green Tide, advocating for abortion rights, is growing in Latin America. Three countries have already legalized the right to abortion, and several others are relaxing rules that restricted it. As the Green Tide spreads across the region, the United States, once a pillar of abortion rights inspiring feminists around the globe, turns back the clock.

Roe v. Wade, the ruling that inspired thousands of feminists in Latin America and around the globe in their fight for abortion, is being reversed. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis just enacted a bill banning 15-week abortions. U.S. states are backtracking and, like medieval knights, condemning women to clandestine abortions. Perhaps the Green Tide movement can offer Americans the hope Roe v. Wade once offered us in Latin America.

Argentina’s achievement at the close of 2020 ushered in a wave of reproductive autonomy for women in Latin America. First, Mexico decriminalized abortion in September 2021, followed by Colombia in February of this year. That same month, Ecuador decriminalized abortion in cases of rape. And in Chile, President Gabriel Boric, who assumed office in March, made an electoral promise as a candidate to decriminalize abortion.

It’s clear that Argentina’s victory has encouraged other governments to act. But behind these advances are years of advocacy work and street protests.

In 2018, more than 1 million women filled Argentina’s streets demanding that a law guarantee safe and free abortion. It would take two more years of hard work before the law passed. As COVID-19 slowed progress around the world, the Campaign for the Right to Abortion continued working tirelessly. Feminist leaders were joined by thousands of young people debating in all manner of spaces the right to bodily autonomy.

Opposition from the conservative right wing took the form of “light blue” organizations, the color that identified fundamentalists. However, after the law passed, such organizations disappeared. Much of the opposition that Latin American women’s and human-rights organizations face comes from governments whose Draconian laws prevent life-saving intervention.

In Peru, an 11-year-old girl who was being routinely raped by a 34-year-old man became pregnant. Despondent, the girl tried to commit suicide, jumping from a building. She survived, but her condition was critical and required emergency surgeries, including an abortion. Ignoring her well-being and wishes, the hospital refused to perform the abortion and ruled out other necessary surgeries fearing the risk posed to the pregnancy. As a result, the young girl was left paralyzed from her neck down.

There are many cases like this from countries across Latin America. Young girls are forced to carry to term babies they are physically too young to bear. Many girls, unable to get an abortion, resort to suicide. The phrase “girls, not mothers” has been used to start conversations about rape and child pregnancy in countries where abortion is criminalized, and girls and women suffer.

As conservative fundamentalism spreads globally, the Green Tide movement is a call to feminists everywhere, but especially to those in the United States. Only through collective action can we reclaim bodily autonomy as women burdened by a patriarchal system. Solidarity between Latin American feminists and our sisters to the north means sharing knowledge.

As Roe v. Wade once was the framework for abortion rights, now, U.S. feminists should look to Latin America for inspiration. The Green Tide has turned reproductive rights not only into a legal battle, but a cultural reckoning.

Susana Chiarotti is Latin America Regional Liaison for the Sisterhood is Global Institute.

This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 4:36 PM.