大象传媒

The abortion rights movement in the United States is in the fight of its life.

Although the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women鈥檚 Health Organization gave advance notice that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, the Supreme Court鈥檚 was still a devastating blow. In the months since, the situation has only become more dire for people in need of abortion care. As of October 2022, abortion is banned or severely restricted in , with 11 additional states and territories threatening to restrict or eliminate access. 

As a result, people needing abortions in the U.S. are looking everywhere to find health care鈥攊ncluding across the border.

For more than 20 years, Mexican feminist group Las Libres has worked to end violence against women and expand access to sexual and reproductive health services in Mexico. In January, the group formed a cross-border network with activists in Texas, helping people obtain medication for self-managed abortion. Once Roe was overturned, the network expanded to build alliances in states where abortion is now banned or severely restricted.

鈥淵ou have a big opportunity in the United States to push this as a collective right, not just an individual right of individual women,鈥� says Ver贸nica Cruz, co-founder of Las Libres, in Spanish. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 going to happen overnight; it could take 10 to 20 years. But however it ends up playing out, the movement in the U.S. right now is more alive than ever.鈥� 

Cruz is speaking from experience: Las Libres was pivotal in the struggle to legalize abortion in Mexico, beginning in 2000 when removing the only exception to the state鈥檚 anti-abortion law鈥攑regnancies resulting from rape. Las Libres organized direct actions and public abortion storytelling for survivors, which was unheard of at the time. 

鈥淲e were really pissed off, and we created a lot of social outcry and indignation, and we started to work to guarantee that women had access to this right,鈥� says Cruz.

Decades of activism eventually paid off. In September 2021, Mexico鈥檚 Supreme Court unanimously ruled that criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, paving the way for abortion to be legalized nationwide.

Decades of activism eventually paid off. , Mexico鈥檚 supreme court unanimously ruled that criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional, paving the way for abortion to be legalized nationwide. 

This victory in Mexico came on the heels of a similar win in Argentina, which legalized abortion in January 2021. In February 2022, Colombia also , one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world.

As the U.S. abortion rights movement regroups, one thing is clear: There鈥檚 much to learn from activism across Latin America. 

Pushing Uphill

While the sociopolitical conditions that fostered the movements in Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico aren鈥檛 identical to those in the United States, there are similarities. 

According to Mayca Balaguer, an attorney in C贸rdoba, Argentina, U.S. activists face an uphill battle given the increasingly complicated hodgepodge of state abortion laws. 

Balaguer sees how the Dobbs decision emboldened anti-abortion forces and created an exhausting atmosphere for those trying to protect abortion access鈥攅specially when state laws are so radically different. When providing abortion care is legal in one state and punishable by life in prison in another, activists on the ground face increasingly high stakes and can feel burnout quicker, Balaguer says.

鈥淚 think that when you get a legal outcome like this, the first thing is diagnosis,鈥� the attorney says when asked about next steps for U.S. abortion advocates. 鈥淪tudy what happened and how you got there. Study everything that happened and try to understand why鈥攁ll the factors. Try to have a map of the situation.鈥�

After joining Argentina鈥檚 fight for abortion rights as a student in 2014, Balaguer then offered her legal expertise to the Campa帽a Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito, which and became a major player in Argentina鈥檚 movement to legalize abortion. 

That movement comprised activists, attorneys, health care providers, advocates, organizers, and everyday women, all funneling their energy toward making abortion legal. Week after week, month after month, year after year, they built a national movement, waving their signature green handkerchiefs up until the very moment in 2020 when the the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Law, which legalized abortion during the first 14 weeks of gestation. 

By contrast, Colombian activists won abortion rights through the courts. In 2021, more than 100 individual activists and 92 organizations to address abortion鈥攚hich the , legalizing abortion through the second trimester. 

It was a striking development in a conservative and overwhelmingly Catholic country. Abortion in Colombia was , when an initial constitutional court ruling decriminalized abortion if the life or health of the pregnant person was at risk, in cases of severe fetal abnormality, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape. That ruling was prompted by activists in what would become the , comprising more than 100 groups fighting for abortion rights.

One of those groups was , which strategized to use the power of law not just to win a case but to 鈥渁ctually achieve sustainable social change,鈥� says Mariana Ardila, the organization鈥檚 former managing attorney. Litigation can be its own advocacy tool, providing an opportunity to organize, gain allies and partnerships, produce educational materials, plan public events, and strategize. 

鈥淭here are many decisions on paper that do not actually transform the reality of women and girls and pregnant people,鈥� says Ardila. It鈥檚 crucial to build a broad movement, she adds鈥攕o that when a good legal decision comes down, the sociocultural seeds for implementing the law have already been planted. And if the ruling goes the other way, advocates have still gained a stronger, more unified movement and begun to tear through disinformation. This is especially important when the subject is abortion, which is still steeped in misinformation and stigma. 

Ardila says flipping the script on common anti-abortion talking points was an important facet of the Causa Justa movement, leading some politicians to publicly support abortion for the first time. A key element of the focused on 鈥渓iberty of conscience.鈥� A version of this argument has long been used against abortion access, permitting the denial of this health care based on religious grounds. 

鈥淏ut we sort of [flipped] the argument and said, 鈥極K, this criminal regulation of abortion is actually imposing decisions on people鈥檚 conscience that [they] may not agree [with], so you are impeding people from actually making decisions according to their individual conscience,鈥欌�� says Ardila. 鈥淭his was actually one of the arguments that the court accepted. For the first time, liberty of conscience was used to protect access to abortion and abortion rights and not to oppose them.鈥� 

According to attorneys and activists in Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina, securing the right to abortion was the result of a multipronged approach: grassroots organizing, strategic litigation, and most importantly, changing the narrative. 

In Colombia, Ardila calls it the 鈥渟ocial decriminalization鈥� of abortion: eliminating stigma around abortion and thus changing how people think, talk, and feel about this form of health care. 

鈥淚f you only fix the law through a lawsuit or through a bill鈥攁nd people still think that [abortion] shouldn鈥檛 be happening鈥攊t鈥檚 very possible that a decision won鈥檛 be implemented or that it will be overturned, [like what] happened in the United States,鈥� Ardila says. 鈥淲e said very clearly: This is not about if abortion is good or bad, if you agree or not, or if you want an abortion or not. It鈥檚 about how to regulate abortion. Do we want to regulate it through criminal laws, which are ineffective to prevent abortion [and] which put vulnerable women in danger? Or do we want to try other means to regulate abortion, like health care laws and social policies?鈥� 

The abortion rights movement has to set the terms of the debate, echoes feminist attorney Sabrina Cartabia Groba, who fought to secure abortion rights in Argentina. Cartabia Groba says the most effective messaging rejected the language of death: the death of 鈥渦nborn babies鈥� or of women from unsafe illegal abortions. 

鈥淲hy is it that 鈥榓bortion鈥� is a word related to death and not to life?鈥� Cartabia Groba asks. 鈥淲e will always have this kind of taboo surrounding abortion, because death is the taboo surrounding it. We need to change narratives to start talking about why women perform abortions. What are the meanings of those abortions in [the lives of] these women? It鈥檚 opportunities. It鈥檚 choice. It鈥檚 freedom.鈥� 

Balaguer prefers to lean into the health care angle. Women do die from unsafe abortions. And it鈥檚 important to make it clear that 鈥渨omen dying is more tragic than babies not being born,鈥� she says. 

鈥淚f you want to focus on the woman deciding, that鈥檚 not nice,鈥� Balaguer explains. 鈥淣o one wants a free woman. It doesn鈥檛 sell.鈥� 

Cruz, of Mexico鈥檚 Las Libres, agrees that shifting narratives is critical to expanding abortion access. She calls these efforts 鈥渢he work of ants鈥�: little by little, people start to understand that abortion is natural, safe, and has always existed. 

鈥淚t is not safe when it鈥檚 stigmatized and when it鈥檚 made illegal,鈥� Cruz says. 鈥淚n the United States 鈥� there鈥檚 a lot of work to be done to really change the narrative and to bring about that whole cultural shift to where abortion is seen as an essential part of life and something that just happens.鈥� 

Balaguer saw this cultural shift happen in Argentina, as people began to recognize abortion as a normal part of health care. 

鈥淭o be able to speak about it and to change the stigma and what people knew about it was crucial,鈥� Balaguer says. 鈥淲hat happened in 2018 is that everybody started talking about this in their homes, in school, and in the institutions.鈥� 

The Struggle Continues

Yet setbacks in global abortion rights movements are . International anti-abortion groups are the catastrophic Dobbs decision. For groups like Las Libres, it鈥檚 a reminder that protecting abortion rights means constantly having to defend them. 

Mexico鈥檚 supreme court , the same week , then the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S. It banned abortion after detecting electrical activity in the embryo, which is roughly six weeks of gestation, before many people even know they鈥檙e pregnant. The legislation also allowed anyone鈥攔egardless of whether they lived in Texas or had any association with a patient鈥攖o who violated the six-week ban or anyone who helped a patient obtain an abortion after six weeks.

These developments are linked, which is why Cruz says her goal moving forward is to 鈥渨ork for universal access to abortion for all people, everywhere.鈥�

Defending abortion access requires personal assessments of the amount of risk each individual is willing to take on, Cruz explains. Las Libres made a conscious decision to provide access to medical abortion, in defiance of the law and despite criticism from other feminist groups. To this day, Cruz says she doesn鈥檛 believe the work Las Libres did was illegal鈥攂ecause .

Cruz encourages U.S. abortion activists to not romanticize the movement. Las Libres had to learn that everyone wasn鈥檛 in the fight together, and that not every group had the same goals. Despite setbacks, threats, and moments of hopelessness, Cruz stands by all of Las Libres鈥� choices. Many of the Mexican supreme court鈥檚 justifications for decriminalizing abortion were the same that her group had been chanting for decades. 

It鈥檚 an instructive lesson for the U.S. as abortion advocates navigate life without Roe. 鈥淭he fight, the struggle continues,鈥� Cruz says. 鈥淚n the U.S. right now, you have a great responsibility to help women.鈥�