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Roth C. Abortion access in the Americas: a hemispheric and historical approach. Front Public Health 2023; 11:1284737. [PMID: 38125840 PMCID: PMC10730672 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1284737] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2023] [Accepted: 11/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
This perspective article situates the 2022 United States (U.S.) Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade (1973) within the broader history of abortion rights activism and legislation in the greater Americas. The U.S. public has stereotyped Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) as socially conservative regarding gender issues and anti-reproductive rights. But twenty-first-century LAC presents a more complicated landscape than this dominant narrative suggests. In the past 15 years, political, legislative, and public health advances and setbacks across the region provide both a blueprint for re-establishing access to safe and legal abortion and a warning on the consequences of the criminalization of abortion for the U.S. Employing a narrative approach that summarizes recent interdisciplinary literature, this perspective traces the history of the expansion of abortion access in the Americas. Mexico (2007, 2023), Uruguay (2012), Argentina (2020), and Colombia (2022) legalized abortion on demand within specific timeframes. These expansions coexist with severe restrictions on abortion in various nations including Haiti (1835), the Dominican Republic (1884, 2009), Honduras (1985, 2021), El Salvador (1997), and Nicaragua (2006), as well as some states in the United States (2022). This perspective finds that legalization occurs when feminist activists eschew U.S.-based feminist rhetoric of individual rights and choice to reframe abortion as a form of gender-based violence within a discourse of health and wellbeing as a human right. According to this perspective, restrictions on access to the procedure constitute a form of violence against women and people capable of bearing children and violate human rights.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassia Roth
- Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
- Department of History, Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
- Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute, Franklin College of Arts & Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States
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Ramos S, Keefe-Oates B, Romero M, Ramon Michel A, Krause M, Gerdts C, Yamin AE. Step by Step in Argentina: Putting Abortion Rights into Practice. Int J Womens Health 2023; 15:1003-1015. [PMID: 37455681 PMCID: PMC10349583 DOI: 10.2147/ijwh.s412975] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2023] [Accepted: 05/27/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
In December of 2020, the Argentine Congress legalized abortion through 14 weeks, vastly increasing access to abortion care in the country. The law's passage followed years of advocacy for abortion rights in Argentina - including mass public and civil society mobilization, vocal support from an established pool of abortion providers who offered abortion services under specific legal exceptions prior to the new law, and the growth of community groups such as the Socorristas en Red who provide support for people to self-manage abortions. Aided by ample political will, the number of health facilities offering services increased substantially after the law was passed, and the public visibility around the law has helped assure people seeking abortion that it is their right. Proyecto mirar is an initiative focused on both gathering and using qualitative and quantitative data to inform stakeholders about the progress and obstacles of the law's implementation. In this review, we present an overall summary of the first two years of implementation of the abortion law in Argentina based on proyecto mirar data and contextualized through the historical processes that have contributed to the law's passage and application. While we see increases in abortion services and improved public perception around abortion rights, inequities in access and quality of care persist throughout the country. Specifically, providers in some regions are well trained, while others create obstacles to access, and in some regions health services provide high quality abortion care whereas others provide substandard care. To be sure, the implementation of public policies does not happen overnight; it requires government support and backing to tackle obstacles and solve implementation problems. Our findings suggest that when new abortion laws are passed, they must be supported by civil society and government leaders to ensure that associated policies are well crafted and monitored to ensure successful implementation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvina Ramos
- Department of Health, Economy, and Society, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Red de Acceso al Aborto Seguro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Brianna Keefe-Oates
- Ibis Reproductive Health, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Mariana Romero
- Department of Health, Economy, and Society, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Agustina Ramon Michel
- Department of Health, Economy, and Society, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | - Mercedes Krause
- Department of Health, Economy, and Society, Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad, Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
| | | | - Alicia Ely Yamin
- Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
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