Women's rights in transition: the collision of feminist interest groups, religion and non‐governmental organizations in three Latin American countries

• Published date: 01 November 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.430
• Date: 01 November 2014

■Special Issue Paper

Women’s rights in transition: the collision

of feminist interest groups, religion and

non-governmental organizations in three

Latin American countries

Richard Elgar*

Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, Washington State University, Pullman,

Washington, USA

This article explores the roles and successes of feminist interest groups, religious interests and non-governmental

organizations in promoting or blocking reproductive policies in three Andean countries—Chile, Ecuador and Peru.

Access to reproductive services and facilities,such as birth control and elective abortion, in the transitional democracies

of Latin Americahas remained as restrictedas under authoritarian regimes.The issue is complicatedby the involvement

of ideologically driven domestic and foreign interests attempting to influence policy decisions. The political outcomes

have significantimplications for the natureof democracy and for women’s representation across Latin America.The evi-

dence shows that successes have been varied for allwomen’s groups involved in the reproductive rights issue. The pri-

mary reason appearsto be that, despite advances in politicalrepresentation in the region, themore established religious

interests and other countervailing forces have managed to maintain the status quo in the face offeminist interest group

demands. Copyright© 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

On 27 October 2009, the Peruvian Constitutional

Court overturned its previous decision to allow

emergency contraception, the ‘morning-after pill’,to

be distributed through the public health system. The

court argued that it could not be proven that this pill

was not an abortifacient and might have the proper-

ties to induce an abortion (El Comercio, 2009). A widely

disseminated article from the Lima office of the news

agency Agence France Presse indicated that the

court had accepted submissions by the Catholic

non-governmental organization (NGO) Sin Compenenda

(No Compromise) to this effect [see, e.g. the Honduran

newspaper La Tribuna (2009)].

This Peruvian decision reflects a common govern-

mental attitude and policy regarding the issue across

Latin America. The region has some of the most strin-

gent anti-abortion laws anywhere, including three of

the five countries in the world that outlaw abortion

without exception (Chile, El Salvador and Nicaragua,

plus Malta and the Vatican City). Moreover, although

virtually all of Latin America has moved towards

some form of democracy, access to reproductive

health services, such as birth control, emergency

contraception and elective abortion, has remained

generally as restricted in the region as it was under

authoritarian regimes (Waylen, 2007). Yet, as a region,

Latin America and the Caribbean is also estimated to

have the highest abortion rate in the world (Sedgh

et al., 2007), and public opinion polls have shown that

large numbers of people in the region favour liberaliz-

ing abortion legislation (Shepard, 2000).

Clearly, there is a contradiction between official

policy and the rights of women in the pluralist

democracies that are emerging or re-emerging in

the region. Thus, in a broader context, sexual and

reproductive health policy is particularly salient as

evidence of democratization and increased pluralism

in Latin America. It has become one of the most

keenly contested arenas of public discourse, with

issues of gender and sexuality confronted by political,

religious and biomedical interests. It is further compli-

cated by the role that the state often takes as another

participant among these interests, using surrogates

*Correspondence to: Richard Elgar, Thomas S. Foley Institute for

Public Policy and Public Service, Washington State University,

Pullman, WA 99164-4840, USA.

E-mail: relgar@wsu.edu

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 14 Number 3 pp 359–368 (2014)

Published online 15 November 2011 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.430

Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.