Abstract
ABSTRACT Abortion is a “public secret” in Latin America. It is highly restricted across most of the continent and yet millions of abortions take place every year. We use the sociological framework of “strategic ignorance” to argue that convenient not knowing, erasure, and concealment simultaneously prevent and facilitate abortions in Latin America. By drawing on interviews with people involved in abortion activism and access across the continent, we examine three sets of actors: the state, abortion providers, and individuals seeking abortions. When wielded by the state, strategic ignorance reproduces the status quo of the criminalization of abortion; however, when wielded by abortion providers and individuals seeking abortions, it creates the conditions for “clandestine” abortions to be procured without prosecution. Strategic ignorance is therefore mobilized by the powerful as well as the less powerful who are resisting state control of their fertility and reproductive lives.
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