What Latin American feminists can teach American women about the abortion fight | Verónica Gago

A leader of Argentina's Ni Una Menos movement on how to fight back

When news leaked of the possible overturning of Roe v Wade, tweets and commentaries began circulating calling for people in the United States to learn from experiences in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia - countries that have recently managed to decriminalize abortion - or from Chile, where it is included in the new constitutional project. This call is interesting because it reveals a new and powerful force rising from Latin America, where the right to abortion was won by a mass feminist movement in the streets. It also challenges the conventional map of progress and women's rights. It is no longer an issue of an advanced first world" or global north," while the global south" lags behind. This is a unique political opportunity to reflect on the strategies and arguments for reproductive freedom deployed by the green tide", which fights for abortion rights.

In Argentina, there are multiple reasons behind the expansion of the green tide and the demand for legal abortion from below. On the one hand, there is the long history of activism by the Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion, formed 15 years ago as a nationwide network, defined by its federal character and its emphasis on participatory democracy and pluralism. On the other hand, more recently the feminist movement reached the mass scale with mobilizations for Ni Una Menos. Vivas y libres nos queremos" (Not One Woman Less. We want ourselves alive and free"), against the multiple and interconnected forms of gender-based violence. These were tied to the organization of the international feminist strikes that drew connections between feminized economic violence and precarity and other forms of gender-based violence.

Veronica Gago is a leader in Argentina's #NiUnaMenos movement (Not One More!). She is the author of Feminist International: How to Change Everything