Monday, March 14, 2022

Opinion Today: How Latin America made abortion legal

U.S. abortion activists may want to take note.

By Isvett Verde

Staff Editor

In 1973, when Roe v. Wade established a woman's legal right to an abortion in America, it was the culmination of a long, hard-fought fight. Rulings such as the one that struck down a law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults laid the groundwork. By the time the Roe decision was handed down, a handful of states had already legalized abortion.

Though in 2021 the United States saw a record number of abortion restrictions become law in a single year, activists abroad have historically looked to us as a model for their own efforts to make abortion legal.

For decades, women in Latin America have been organizing and working toward making inroads. In the last year, Argentina, Mexico and Columbia have decriminalized abortion.

In a guest essay, Catalina Martínez Coral writes that "few could have imagined that Latin America, which is home to some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, would become a benchmark for advances in sexual and reproductive rights."

These changes are a direct result of activism and mass demonstrations demanding legal abortion. In 2018, the effort came to be known as the Green Wave movement, after activists wearing green scarves took to the streets in Argentina to support the legalization of abortion.

As the United States Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe, and while states curtail access to abortion, abortion rights activists may want to look to their southern counterparts.

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