Abortion Politics and Democratic Backsliding: Lessons from Latin America

Abortion is a polarizing political issue across the American continent, yet US-focused scholars seldom interrogate the consequences of abortion politics for democratic institutions. Latin America scholarship has done better. Moving beyond the typical academic focus of explaining abortion liberalization or abortion politicization, this regional scholarship investigates how conservative actors strategically isolate and amplify the antiabortion position as a means of consolidating alliances and deepening elite control over legislative and judicial institutions. More provocatively, this scholarship also suggests that elites use the unique liminal legality of the fetus to blur, and ultimately weaken, national commitments to legal and judicial equality, thus facilitating democratic backsliding. Legal access to safe abortion is critical for the life, health, and human rights of women and girls around the world, but the Latin America scholarship suggests that gaining and maintaining abortion rights is also critical for healthy democracies.