Feminists are Winning on Abortion

Huge progress is being made on women's rights worldwide -- just not in the US. One global feminist leader tells us how US feminists can fight back.

A health worker places a contraceptive subdermal implant in a patient’s arm at a clinic run by Plafam, a Fòs Feminista partner, in Birongo, in the state of Miranda, Venezuela. 2019.

The rights of women and LGBTQ people are under threat worldwide. I’ve written before about a clear and emerging global dynamic: Countries that are moving toward liberal democracy are also embracing human rights, including women’s rights, abortion rights, and LGBTQ rights, while countries moving away from liberal democracy and toward authoritarianism are rejecting human rights norms, restricting abortion, and curtailing the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ people at the same time as their governments also crack down on free speech, stack their courts with authoritarian-friendly ideologues, and put an end to free and fair elections. We see this in the US, and we’re seeing it in places like Hungary, Poland, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Russia, and Uganda, which are sliding toward authoritarianism. The good news is that a great many other nations, particularly in the global south, are moving toward democratic governance, more expansive individual freedoms, and more rights for minority and mistreated groups.

In the mix of this global shift is Fòs Feminista, an international feminist organization that advocates for a broad spectrum of rights around the world. I’ve observed their work and that of their partner organizations in many different countries, and have seen how they build alliances, provide crucial care, and fight for all of our rights. And so in this moment of a great rights rollback in the United States, I wanted to know: Where does America fit into the broader global shifts on reproductive and human rights? What have feminist activists done all over the world to expand access to abortion regardless of its legal status? What can we do to fight back, and to fight in solidarity with so many other feminists the world over?

I posed these questions and more to Katherine Olivera, the Associate Director for U.S. Global Policy at Fòs Feminista (her full bio is at the end of this post). I think you’ll be interested (and hopefully inspired) by what she has to say.

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Jill: Can you give me a brief rundown of Fòs Feminista’s work and mission?

Katherine: Fòs Feminista is an international feminist alliance centered on sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice for women, girls, and gender-diverse people. Together with more than 220 organizations in 40 countries worldwide, we engage in healthcare, education, and advocacy to advance our agenda. At Fòs Feminista, we co-create a world in which all people have the resources, power, and safety to exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights and to live their lives freely.

What are we seeing when it comes to global trends on abortion? Is the world becoming more restrictive on reproductive rights? Less?

Despite the horrific rollback of access in the U.S., globally, the world is opening access to abortion, shedding colonial legacies that limit reproductive freedom. That means that the U.S. is on the wrong side of this trend. La Marea Verde (the Green Wave) of feminists fighting in solidarity for abortion justice is stronger than ever. Argentina, Colombia, Kenya, and Mexico have all recently liberalized their abortion laws — overcoming obstacles that to those outside the feminist movement would have seemed insurmountable.

Since 1994, only four countries have removed legal grounds for abortion: The U.S., El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland are running against the growing international trajectory towards liberalization. During that same time period, 59 countries have liberalized their abortion laws to expand the grounds for legal abortion, including:

• Argentina, December 2020: Congress legalized abortion up to 14 weeks.

• Thailand, February 2021: Abortion is legalized up to 12 weeks.

• India, March 2021 and October 2022: India’s abortion law, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, was expanded to extend the time limit on abortion from 20 to 24 weeks and reduce the number of doctors to give approval from two to one within 20 weeks. The extension now applies to non-married women and persons other than cis-gender women after a ruling that came out in October.

• Ecuador, April 2021: Ecuador decriminalized abortion on the grounds of sexual assault. 

• Mexico, September 2021: The Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that declared criminalizing abortion unconstitutional. Since then, around nine states in Mexico have liberalized their abortion laws.  

• Benin, November 2021: Parliament voted to legalize abortion in most circumstances.  

• Colombia, February 2022: The Supreme Court voted to decriminalize abortion up to 24 weeks.  

• Kenya, March 2022: The High Court declared that abortion-related arrests and prosecution are illegal. 

• Sierra Leone, July 2022: The administration announced support for the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health bill, which would expand access to abortion. Previously abortion care could only be accessed to save the life of the pregnant woman. 

Are there any patterns we see when it comes to nations increasing abortion restrictions versus liberalizing, in terms of governance, democracy, and civil rights more broadly? 

When democracies begin moving toward authoritarian regimes, reproductive rights are among the first rights to fall. These rollbacks are often coupled with the shrinking of civil society and scapegoating of intentionally marginalized communities like women and girls, LGBTQI+ people, and racial and ethnic minorities. These actions are not only a symptom of backsliding democracies and authoritarian governments but a core component of it. 

Notably, while the world is trending in the right direction on abortion rights, there is a clear trend emerging among countries that have revoked abortion rights from their people. Since 1994, only four countries, including the U.S., have removed legal grounds for abortion: the U.S., El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland. Notably, we’ve seen the U.S., El Salvador, and Poland embroiled in high-profile and horrific cases of not only revoking the right to abortion but criminalizing elements of abortion care. 

In comparison, since 1994, 59 countries have liberalized their abortion laws to expand the grounds for legal abortion. Clearly, the U.S., El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Poland are running against the growing international trajectory toward liberalization. 

Do we see abortion restrictions coming hand-in-hand with other civil or human rights issues – for example, LGBTQ rights? Which ones, and why might these issues be tied together?