Legal Mobilization and Framing Transformation: The Feminist Turn to the Law in Mexico

Abstract In the early 1990s, feminists in Mexico began developing a new strategic approach to defending abortion rights, which prominently included legal mobilization, or the translation of the movement’s political demands into the framework of legal rights. This turn to the law significantly influenced the feminist discourse on abortion, and later became a defining strategy for influential sectors of Latin American feminist movements. This article examines the socio-legal processes involved in this transition in Mexico, focusing on how the adoption of a rights-based strategy shaped the feminist cultural struggle and the reframing of the abortion issue. The study also addresses the link between framing and the movement’s organizational structure, arguing that the central position of the more legalized sectors within the movement facilitated the hegemony of their framing and the resolution of intra-movement framing disputes.