Abortion and Democracy: Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay

Abstract

In the chaos of 2020, with a backdrop of the global Corona Virus (CoVid19) pandemic, and in the midst of the unprecedented and historical political movements throughout south and central America centring abortion rights politics, ‘Abortion and Democracy: Contentious Body Politics in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay’ came to be. Edited by Professor Barbara Sutton and Dr Nayla Luz Vacarezza, this important book astutely chronicles the struggles, challenges, and victories of recent abortion politics in Latin America. This edited collection is organized into four main parts examining abortion politics in Latin America’s Southern Cone of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. It explores how the demand for abortion rights shapes and has shaped political agendas in the region post-dictatorship and analyses how the issue, from the micro to the socio-political level, shapes individual experiences of abortion access, activism, and litigation. Chapters throughout the volume are based on qualitative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, archival research, media analysis, statistical information, visual analysis, and historical-comparative approaches. The book concludes with reflections on where we can go from here with the lessons already learned from the successes and failures of what has come to be known as the ‘Green Tide’.