TY - JOUR

T1 - Abortion access and Colombia's legacy of civil war

T2 - between reproductive violence and reproductive governance

AU - Daigle, Megan

AU - Duffy, Deirdre N.

AU - Castañeda, Diana L.

N1 - This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in International Affairs following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Megan Daigle, Deirdre N Duffy, Diana López Castañeda, Abortion access and Colombia's legacy of civil war: between reproductive violence and reproductive governance, International Affairs, Volume 98, Issue 4, July 2022, Pages 1423–1448, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac116 is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/98/4/1423/6628389

PY - 2022/7/5

Y1 - 2022/7/5

N2 - In 2022, Colombia decriminalized abortion, making it ostensibly a site of progressive abortion politics. Within hours, however, the ruling was met with intense, high-level backlash that positioned abortion as a threat to the Colombian family and gestured to gendered conflict harms past and present. Colombia's legal framework on abortion has emerged largely due to campaigning that unfolded during periods of intense political violence and insecurity, in a setting where conflict and (post-)conflict exist on a continuum. Combined, this points to the significance of (post-)conflict politics to understanding abortion politics, and vice versa, in the Colombian space. Here, we use interview data gathered in 2018 to argue that the two should be understood in tandem - and, indeed, that one cannot be properly understood without the other, shaped as they both are by a militant conservative nationalism inflected by religion, machismo and natalism, and by the material legacies of conflict. Decriminalization should therefore be understood as part of resurgent conservative reproductive governance, and abortion politics itself as an agonistic space of contestation rather than straightforwardly progressive. Beyond Colombia, it is also indicative of the rich insights on gender justice in conflict spaces that can be drawn from analysing abortion politics.

AB - In 2022, Colombia decriminalized abortion, making it ostensibly a site of progressive abortion politics. Within hours, however, the ruling was met with intense, high-level backlash that positioned abortion as a threat to the Colombian family and gestured to gendered conflict harms past and present. Colombia's legal framework on abortion has emerged largely due to campaigning that unfolded during periods of intense political violence and insecurity, in a setting where conflict and (post-)conflict exist on a continuum. Combined, this points to the significance of (post-)conflict politics to understanding abortion politics, and vice versa, in the Colombian space. Here, we use interview data gathered in 2018 to argue that the two should be understood in tandem - and, indeed, that one cannot be properly understood without the other, shaped as they both are by a militant conservative nationalism inflected by religion, machismo and natalism, and by the material legacies of conflict. Decriminalization should therefore be understood as part of resurgent conservative reproductive governance, and abortion politics itself as an agonistic space of contestation rather than straightforwardly progressive. Beyond Colombia, it is also indicative of the rich insights on gender justice in conflict spaces that can be drawn from analysing abortion politics.

KW - abortion politics

KW - gender

KW - global health

KW - international security

KW - post-conflict peace building

U2 - 10.1093/ia/iiac116

DO - 10.1093/ia/iiac116

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85134407007

VL - 98

SP - 1423

EP - 1448

JO - International Affairs

JF - International Affairs

SN - 0020-5850

IS - 4

ER -