Defenders of abortion rights in the US and Latin America meet in the face of conservative setbacks

More than a hundred activists defending abortion rights from America, members of the movement known as the “green tide,” began a two-day meeting in Mexico City on Thursday to collaborate more and try to stop the setbacks that have occurred in the United States. and that threaten other countries where conservative governments have advanced.

“The issue of abortion has become one of the strategies that the extreme right uses to break democracy,” warned Paula Ávila Guillén, executive director of the Women’s Equality Center, one of the organizing groups.

Just as opponents of abortion join forces—as happened when politicians such as former US President Donald Trump, Argentine President Javier Milei, and Salvadoran Nayib Bukele met in Washington in February—groups that defend abortion should also do so. reproductive rights, according to Ávila Guillén’s approach.

Since The US Supreme Court will overturn the Roe v. Wade and the right to abortion in the United States in June 2022, more and more states in the country have toughened the laws to terminate pregnancies with regulations that not only criminalize women but also aspire to penalize the entire circle that surrounds them or even who transports them.

Furthermore, centers have multiplied that make women believe that they are going to help them have an abortion but, in reality, they prevent it, confusing the population.

In Latin America the trend is opposite, with progress towards decriminalization of abortion in Mexico and legal changes in Colombia and Argentina.

However, there are also fears that rights that have taken decades to achieve are at risk – for example by Milei’s anti-abortion plans— and, as explained by María Antonieta Alcalde, director of Ipas-Latin America, the proliferation of hate speech, persecution and harassment of activists on both sides of the border is of concern and is especially serious in places that are invisible, such as Nicaragua.

Hence the organizers of the meeting urge collaboration.

At the meeting in Mexico City, in which the main organizations for reproductive rights on the continent participate, the activist platforms want to articulate specific working groups to advance specific topics, such as legal strategies, how to win over public opinion, the destigmatization of the issue of abortion or how to expand networks to facilitate safe abortions, explained Ávila Guillén.

The work between the United States and Latin America began in a very timid way even before the ruling of Roe vs. Wade but it has accelerated in the last two years because, according to one of the pioneers, Verónica Cruz, from the NGO Las Libres, Americans have gone “from being paralyzed by fear” to opening up to learn from Latin America in their successful experiences. to accompany self-managed abortions safely.

From the United States, for its part, the rest of the countries can be taught how to prevent and act against the most convoluted legal strategies of anti-abortion groups.

“For a long time it was very difficult for activists in the United States to try to see or understand what they could have in common with Latin America,” said the Women’s Equality Center representative. Now the borders in the “green tide” are more blurred.

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