Sutton Barbara

Abortion and Human Rights for Women in Argentina
Barbara Sutton, Elizabeth Borland
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Volume 40, Number 2, 2019, pp. 27-61
(Article)
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Abortion and Human Rights
for Women in Argentina
Barbara Sutton and Elizabeth Borland
Introduction
Legal abortion is one among several dimensions of a reproductive justice
agenda, and yet it continues to be at the center of controversy in many places
around the world. While in countries such as the United States abortion is le-
gal but contested,1 in places such as Argentina, abortion is largely illegal, with
few exceptions.2 Despite its criminalization, it is estimated that up to 522,000
abortions take place annually in Argentina.3 Abortion is also a leading cause
of maternal mortality, and the clandestinity of the practice especially hurts the
most destitute women.4 In this context, women’s movement and feminist ac-
tivists in Argentina have long advocated for the legalization of abortion. Their
cause gained momentum in the last decade. Unlike the more narrow emphasis
on “choice” that has been prevalent in the United States and other contexts,5
and critiqued by scholars and activists advocating for “reproductive justice,”6
abortion rights activists in Argentina have included expansive frames in their
discursive repertoire, even as they concentrate on legalizing abortion. One of
these expansive frames pertains to the notion of human rights.
The proliferation of human rights discourse as a recognized and shared
language across national borders and cultures—for example, as evidenced by
international human rights treaties—suggests the need to examine how this
frame works in practice and whether it has local resonance in different national
contexts. According to Elizabeth Jay Friedman, from a feminist perspective,
part of the power of the human rights frame derives from its ability to “provide
legitimacy to political demands, given both its political acceptance and its
‘machinery,’ or instruments for its realization.”7 Furthermore, the notion that
“women’s rights are human rights” was increasingly deployed in the global
arena during the 1990s and is still being invoked in prominent activist spaces
in different locales, including the 2017 Women’s March on Washington.8 Still,
as we shall see, this frame is not without critics, including among feminists
who have taken issue with its usefulness both philosophically and in terms
of its concrete application in specific national contexts.9 Thus the question
emerges: Is the human rights frame useful or viable when it comes to
articulating long-standing feminist demands such as abortion rights? If so,
in which circumstances? In the case of Argentina, why have abortion rights
activists chosen to incorporate the language of human rights as an important
component of their discursive repertoire?
Within Argentina, the movement for abortion rights needs to be situated in
the context of broader struggles for social justice, democracy, and gender and
sexuality rights. In the last two decades several progressive laws were passed
in Argentina, including legislation on sexual and reproductive health (2002),
comprehensive sex education (2006), ending violence against women (2009),
marriage equality (2010), and self-determination of gender identity (2012).
These changes followed a historic turning point marked by a severe economic
and political crisis in 2001, when a variety of social movements were agitating
for new and old demands.10 However, despite legislative progress on matters of
sexual and reproductive rights, legalizing abortion has proven more difficult
to achieve. This article examines activist efforts to decriminalize and legalize
abortion, paying special attention to the strategic use of a human rights frame.
The prominent coalition to demand the legalization and decriminalization
of abortion in Argentina is the National Campaign for the Right to Legal,
Safe, and Free Abortion, launched in 2005.11 By its tenth anniversary the
Campaign had the support of more than three hundred organizations as
well as countless individuals from all walks of life. Groups in the coalition
include political parties, labor organizations, academic institutions, human
rights groups, and many more. Activists characterize the Campaign as plural
(comprising a diversity of individuals, social sectors, and political ideologies),
federal (reaching the various regions of the country), self-organized (not
directed by any external entity), and democratic (with the main direction
of the Campaign determined through plenary meetings and collective
discussion). The Campaign’s key slogan, which has unified it when tensions
and disagreement have arisen, is: “Sex education for choice, contraception
to prevent abortion, legal abortion to prevent death” (Educación sexual para
decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal para no morir).12
While the Campaign has advanced a variety of arguments in support of its
goals, arguments based on human rights are an integral part of its discourse.
Why is the human rights frame important? What meanings are attached when
it is used to argue for abortion rights? What is its strategic value? Building on
scholarship on transnational feminism, social movements, and human rights,
28 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

this study uses data from interviews with Campaign activists and from the
Campaign’s website and blog documents to explore those questions. After
discussing the need to attend to the interaction of global and local contexts
and describing the study’s research methods, we show that the movement has
emphasized abortion rights as women’s human rights for five central strate-
gic reasons: connections to national and international law, coalition building,
the advantages of breadth and narrowness of focus, resonance with local dis-
course, and as a tool to dispute the legitimacy of anti-abortion discourse. At
the same time, employing the human rights frame is not exempt from ten-
sions and dilemmas, even among feminists.
The strategic use of the human rights frame in Argentina highlights the
significance of local conditions, historical legacies, and political cultures in
the articulation of seemingly universal principles of human rights protection
in relation to women, and to the thorny and controversial question of abor-
tion in particular. Social movements’ ability to deploy arguments that can res-
onate at the local level has important implications for how likely activists are
to advance their demands. Yet, as Myra Marx Ferree observes based on her
study of abortion rights frames in the United States and Germany, “cultural
resonance and movement success are not the same,” and activists sometimes
choose “radical” over “resonant” frames.13 In addition, a host of other fac-
tors beyond the cultural resonance of frames—from political opportunities
to structural conditions—influence whether movements achieve their goals.14
Still, social movement scholars note that the cultural appeal of frames is a sig-
nificant aspect of movements’ organizational strategy, including as recruit-
ment and public persuasion tools.15 In their review of the literature on collec-
tive action frames, Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow conclude that “for
some movements, framing processes are critical to the attainment of desired
outcomes.”16 In light of this, it seems important to examine abortion rights
activism in relation to the human rights frame, which we argue is resonant in
the Argentine context, and which activists combine with other frames.17
The Significance of Context: Global and Local

In addition to its local resonance, activist claims that “women’s rights are hu-
man rights” can be traced to the transnational women’s organizing that took
place during the late 1980s and early 1990s in relation to United Nations (UN)
conferences. After the 1976–85 UN Decade for Women—and the World Con-
ferences on Women in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), and Nairobi
(1985) that punctuated that period—the emergence of a global set of demands
around women’s human rights took shape and was galvanized around the 1993
Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 29

UN Conference on Human Rights, in Vienna.18 In the context of this confer-
ence, feminist and women’s movement activists highlighted violence against
women as paradigmatic of pervasive human rights violations, something
neglected under dominant understandings of human rights. Feminist crit-
ics argued that while this frame had pretensions of universality, it was in fact
tailored after men’s lives, and it sometimes superseded activists’ desires to pri-
oritize other demands, including economic policies.19 At the same time, the
existence of international laws on human rights was seized as an opportunity
by the transnational women’s moment to demand that human rights protec-
tions be applied and interpreted in ways that recognize the specificity of di-
verse women’s experiences.20
The fulfillment of women’s sexual and reproductive rights is part of this
broader women’s human rights agenda spearheaded by women’s movement
organizations and activists globally.21 The 1994 UN International Conference
on Population and Development (ICPD), in Cairo, “represented a major
paradigm shift” in terms of “recognizing women’s reproductive autonomy and
human rights.”22 Yet the right to abortion was among the most controversial
topics, and it remains difficult to tackle given varied legislation across and
within countries. While in some contexts abortion has been defined as a
crime, in others it has been protected as a right, at least formally. Even in
places where abortion is legal, restrictions have been implemented. For
example, in the United States, measures at the state level have eroded abortion
rights through the stipulation of waiting periods, mandatory counseling, and
other barriers.23
Though restrictions to abortion have advanced in various local contexts,
according to the UN-endorsed 2014 report marking twenty years since the
Cairo conference, progress has been made with regard to abortion rights
internationally:
Since 1994, international human rights standards have substantially
strengthened and expanded states’ human rights obligations regarding
safe abortion. UN treaty bodies have repeatedly condemned absolute
bans on abortion as being incompatible with international human rights
norms and have urged states to eliminate punitive measures against
women and girls who undergo abortions and against health care pro-
viders who deliver abortion services. Human rights bodies have also
strongly recommended that where abortion is legal, states must ensure
that services are available, accessible (including affordable), acceptable,
and of good quality.24
These developments point to the need to pay attention to the evolving human

rights discourse and policy in the global arena, as addressed in international
conferences and codified in treaties. However, it is also important to consider
local contexts, since it is in specific social, political, and cultural settings that
human rights principles are embodied, applied, formulated, and transformed
in practice. Focusing on Argentina and on activist formulations of abortion
rights as part of women’s human rights, the present work shows how the hu-
man rights frame is constructed in local contexts and in interaction with the
international sphere.
In 1999 Neil Stammers called for more attention to what he called the “so-
cial construction of human rights.”25 In the years that followed, other scholars
examined the discursive practices by which people create and deploy human
rights discourse. In political sociology there has been a change in emphasis
from structuralism to constructivism; newer work emphasizes a focus on
human rights as “sociopolitical discourse.”26 This shift can be linked partly
to a political project, as critiques have claimed that abstract or legalistic ap-
proaches to studying human rights discourse have obscured its emancipatory
potential.27 Human rights can be operationalized to point to specific abuses,
helping to address social problems that stir politically consequential emo-
tions.28 Abortion politics are a case in point, particularly if one considers the
heated reactions at various locations on the political spectrum. To see how
human rights discourse can challenge power structures and injustice, schol-
ars argue that one must examine both situated meanings and unintended
consequences.29
Empirical examination of specific cases is essential to understand the sig-
nificance and efficacy of human rights discourse and policy. Among such case
studies is the work of Sally Engle Merry, who analyzes how local actors re-
produce or hybridize human rights models, including about violence against
women, looking at how transnational ideas become meaningful in local set-
tings.30 That is, different communities adapt human rights discourse to fit the
local context, sometimes vernacularizing or altering human rights concepts
or meanings. For instance, David Landy finds that human rights discourse
both constrained and enabled transnational solidarity between Jewish and
Palestinian activists. He argues that Jewish activists appeal to the “universal-
ist nature of human rights language” to justify their criticism of Israel and to
counter critiques from Zionists, while Palestinian activists use human rights
discourse to decry torture of Palestinian prisoners and counter Islamic fun-
damentalism or other claims with which they disagree.31 These case studies
highlight the fact that discourse on human rights that can initially be seen as
universal or transnational can be much more specific to local and contextual-
ized understandings on the ground.

As we see, different movements adopted human rights language as part
of their collective action frames—that is, “interpretative schemata”32 used by
activists to communicate their goals for a broader audience.33 Frames “help
to render events or occurrences meaningful” and “inspire and legitimate
the activities and campaigns of a social movement organization.”34 Certain
movement frames, including human rights, may be enabled by changing
political circumstances and in relation to local political opportunities and
cultural repertoires.35
While rights-based claims might constrain movements since they re-
quire validation by the state,36 they also enable activists to draw on what legal
scholar Martha Minow terms “a rights consciousness.”37 Rights claims and as-
sociated legal mobilization can be both empowering and disempowering for
activists, depending “on the complex, often changing dynamics of context in
which struggles occur.”38 This study takes context seriously in order to con-
sider both meanings associated with human rights in Argentina and strate-
gic logics for employing human rights discourse by abortion rights activists.
Even if feminists in Argentina recognize women’s rights—including abortion
rights—to be part of universal human rights, they operate in a setting where
they must engage with others who think about human rights violations in a
narrower way or mostly in relation to specific events in Argentina’s recent
history.
In the Argentine case, paying attention to context means accounting for
the special purchase that human rights discourse has had in the country, espe-
cially given the legacy of state terrorism that marked the emergence of human
rights frames as politically relevant.39 Indeed, during 1976–83, in a Cold War
context and supposedly in defense of “Western and Christian Civilization,” a
military dictatorship perpetrated large-scale human rights violations, tortur-
ing, killing, forcibly disappearing, and imprisoning massive numbers of peo-
ple with the aim of eliminating leftist political dissidence and movements in
what it called a “war against subversion.” These atrocities were documented
early in the transition to democracy by the truth commission CONADEP,
which released its report Nunca Más (Never Again) in 1984.40 Four decades
after the military coup, Argentina continues to grapple with its painful con-
sequences, including in ongoing trials for crimes against humanity perpe-
trated during the dictatorship. These include crimes that affected women in
particular—from rampant sexual violence to the killing of women who gave
birth in captivity (to newborns who were subsequently given to repressors’ or
connected families to raise them under false identities).41 During and soon af-
ter the end of the dictatorship, a key strategy to counter the military regime’s
rhetoric was the deployment of human rights discourse that became associ-

ated with groups of women who denounced the dictatorship: Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo (mothers of the disappeared) and Grandmothers of the Plaza
Mayo (grandmothers of the appropriated babies and children).42
Considering this Argentine legacy is important, given critiques by schol-
ars who call human rights claims Eurocentric,43 elitist, anti-democratic,44 and
even a form of imperialism that “depoliticizes politics”45 and represents peo-
ple as victims who need rescue, rather than actors with political agency46 (e.g.,
allowing organizations and countries in the Global North to interfere in the
Global South).47 Within feminism, Inderpal Grewal argues that in addition
to the hegemonic Western assumptions that have permeated human rights
frames, it was under the homogenizing construction of the category “women”
(often disregarding differences and inequalities within this collective) that
such a frame gained impetus.48 While recognizing these critiques, this study
shows why Argentine activists use human rights arguments in the struggle
to decriminalize and legalize abortion, including advantages they see in such
discourse.
In order to understand the social construction and deployment of human
rights frames in relation to abortion, this project builds on a previous col-
laborative study that examined abortion rights discourse in Argentina’s an-
nual National Women’s Encuentros (meetings) during the 1986–2007 period.
That study documents the multiplicity of frames deployed in the Encuentros
workshops on reproductive rights, including abortion. These frames included
claims based on the defense of women’s lives, public health, social justice,
choice, bodily rights, pragmatic issues, and human rights. The human rights
frame entailed “a double meaning or resonance: first, with the feminist rally-
ing call that ‘women’s rights are human rights,’ and second, with responses to
the history of human rights violations (for example, torture and disappear-
ance) in the context of state terrorism in Argentina.”49 Although the human
rights frame was present in the period and spaces the Encuentros analyzed, its
use was relatively scant. Even so, it was noteworthy that in women’s movement
documents produced outside the analyzed Encuentros, and particularly after
the period covered by the study, human rights discourse was often articulated
to support abortion rights. In fact, the human rights frame has become one of
the “pillars” of the abortion legalization project and actions by the Campaign.
Data and Methods

This project considers discursive strategies in support of abortion legalization
in Argentina, with a special focus on human rights. Two central data sources
are analyzed: (1) nineteen in-depth interviews with active members of the Na-

tional Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion, conducted
during July and August 2014, and (2) all materials posted on the Campaign’s
website and blog through 2014.50 These documents are a window into how ac-
tivist ideas are articulated to the public. The interviews allow a deeper under-
standing of the behind-the-scenes work and motivations that inform activists’
choices, including their selection of frames as they engage policymakers and
society. To address recent developments, we also analyzed material related to
the Campaign’s latest activities, including the language of the abortion legal-
ization bill released in Congress in 2016.
Interviews were conducted face-to-face, in Spanish, following a semi-
structured format, which allowed flexibility to build on interviewee responses.
The interview guide included questions about interviewees’ activist histories
in relation to abortion and broader political participation, their role and mo-
tivations to join the Campaign, its arguments and claims, commonalities and
sources of discord among abortion rights activists, and general strategies to
influence the public and politicians.51 All interviews were transcribed and in-
ductively coded, though deductive coding was also used for conceptualiza-
tions emerging from the authors’ previous study, in particular regarding the
human rights frame. Special attention was given to the use of the term “hu-
man rights” as well as common associations with human rights abuses stem-
ming from Argentina’s history of military dictatorships. Thus the research was
attentive to terms such as genocide, state terrorism, torture, disappearance,
never again, and rights violations. Each interviewee was also asked what key-
words or concepts they associated with women’s human rights, and the au-
thors inductively coded their responses. Finally, interviewees were asked to
elaborate on the meanings of abortion rights as women’s human rights and
anything else they could tell us about how the argument came about, which
audiences they thought might be particularly receptive, and why.
For the document analysis, 351 website and blog posts from the Cam-
paign—a key means of public communication for the coalition—were cata-
logued and examined. The website was launched in March 2006 and has 283
posts through the end of 2014. The blog appeared in August 2009 and has
sixty-eight posts in that period. Most of these posts are distinct, but there
were four overlapping posts shared between the two sources, leaving us with
347 unique posts. In addition to press releases and declarations, the posts in-
clude notices about movement activities and events (including flyers and pho-
tos), text of proposed legislation, and related news stories and compilations.
Of these, analysis is centered on 195 posts with text written by the Campaign
(rather than re-posts of news articles or commentaries by other organiza-
tions). The focus here is on discourse related to human rights, especially in

the sixty-one press releases and movement declarations. Mirroring the coding
strategy for the interview transcripts, the analysis of documents paid attention
to the use of phrases and terms associated with human rights in Argentina,
and considered patterns in how the Campaign referred to abortion and hu-
man rights.
Abortion Rights as Women’s Human Rights

In 2005, a few months before the launch of the Campaign, Military Bishop
Antonio Baseotto sent a letter to Minister of Health Gines González García
faulting him for his positions on sexual and reproductive health. Baseotto
said,
The multiplication of abortions that you encourage with drugs known
to be abortifacients is an apology for the crime of homicide . . . When
you publicly distributed condoms to young people, I remembered a
text from the Gospel where our Lord asserts that “those who scandalize
the young ones deserve to have a millstone hung around the neck and be
thrown into the sea” . . . [ellipses and italics in original]52
The notion of a person being thrown into the sea for supposed misdeeds is
not just imagery from an old religious text. In Argentina, it vividly evokes
one of the tactics by which the last military dictatorship eliminated those cat-
egorized as “subversive:” throwing people forcibly disappeared into the sea
or river from military airplanes. Referring to Baseotto’s statement, Martha
Rosenberg and Elsa Schvartzman pointed out that he surely knew that “in the
Argentine imaginary, this alludes to the military dictatorship’s death flights.”53
Decades later Baseotto evoked a similar fate for individuals trying to promote
sexual and reproductive health. In one move the bishop’s words threw into re-
lief the connections between the human rights violations of the past and those
that persist today, many of which affect women in particular. In fact, in a 2008
retrospective website post, the Campaign called Baseotto’s statement “fascist”
and said it had “enabled a political context favorable to debate about depenal-
ization and legalization” of abortion because it had “linked a theme as sensi-
tive as forced disappearance of people during the dictatorship with the theme
of abortion” and thus had “driven the human rights movement closer” to the
movement for abortion legalization.54
The Baseotto controversy is a reminder of the role played by sectors of the
Catholic Church hierarchy that were ideologically supportive or complicit
with the dictatorship.55 Women’s movement activists have long asserted the
Church is hypocritical for condemning abortion, while ignoring the horrific

treatment of pregnant women in captivity during the dictatorship.56 These
connections readily fit a human rights frame and often appeared in Campaign
posts referencing the dictatorship. However, there has been an expansion of
the understanding of human rights in Argentina from meanings mainly asso-
ciated with political prisoners under an authoritarian regime (typically imag-
ined as male, except for pregnant women), to those that apply more broadly
in democracy. One of the rights being articulated as a human right is the right
to abortion.
The human rights frame has figured in the Campaign’s central document,
its abortion legalization bill.57 According to a Campaign statement about its
“Fundamentals,” the initially proposed law was based on the “comprehensive-
ness, interdependency, and indivisibility of human rights.”58 The rationale of
the bill presented in Congress in 2016, asserts, “sexual rights and reproductive
rights are human rights and should be recognized as basic rights of all per-
sons” and invokes human rights norms to support the arguments in favor of
the legalization of abortion. Moreover, the first article of the bill places human
rights prominently: “In the exercise of the human right to health, all women
have the right voluntarily to decide to interrupt their pregnancy during the
first fourteen weeks of the gestational process.”59 The Campaign has reiter-
ated the idea of sexual and reproductive rights as human rights in many of
its communications. For example, in a declaration denouncing specific viola-
tion cases in two provinces, the Campaign said that since 2005 it had argued
“that we women have the inalienable right to make decisions in accordance
with our values and beliefs about our body and our lives as part of Human
Rights that are universal, indivisible, and interdependent”60 (capitalization in
original).
The recognition of sexual and reproductive rights as “basic rights of
all persons” is central to this conceptualization. It requires not only the
decriminalization of abortion but also “universal access to public services.”61 In
the Kantian sense, then, abortion rights are thought of as more than “negative
rights” (e.g., non-interference of the state in individual private decisions) and
also as “positive rights” (e.g., requiring affirmative actions from the state to
make safe abortion accessible). In that vein, the human rights frame in the
bill accompanies two other key frames that relate to economic issues and
collective rights: social justice and public health. Both demand more than
non-obstructionist logic from the state, which must guarantee universal
access to public health. Connections between the two sets of claims appear
repeatedly.
In fact, when interviewed about what keywords they associated with hu-
man rights, activists offered a wide range of concepts. These include rights

related to participation, citizenship, democracy and the state; dignity, equal-
ity and social justice; work, family and motherhood; education and opportu-
nities; a full and dignified life; health, sexuality, contraception and abortion;
notions of power, control and responsibility; positive values like love, respect,
friendship, happiness and care; and collective rights related to peace, the en-
vironment and women as a group. The most prevalent keywords that came to
mind in relation to human rights had to do with liberty, autonomy, and the
right to decide (including about one’s body), and there were some mentions of
freedom from violence, torture, misogyny, slavery, and discrimination. While
the latter can be conceived as “negative rights,” in the sense of requiring state
or other actors to refrain from inflicting harm, it is important to note that in-
terviewed activists embedded these concepts in a more comprehensive set of
ideals and demands. In terms of abortion, they see the state as having a crucial
role to fulfill: not only letting women make choices for their own lives, but
also guaranteeing the enabling conditions for women’s decisions and auton-
omy to be possible. Based on these ideals, the Campaign questions why “hu-
man rights do not reach human women.”62
In a country that experienced a dictatorial state that applied a brutal hand
to repress, censor, torture, and kill its own citizens, abortion rights activists
are now saying that the democratic state needs not only to refrain from ille-
gitimate violence but should also recognize, enable, and guarantee women’s
human rights, broadly defined. In that sense, the Campaign has asserted that
the legalization of abortion is a “debt of democracy.” This motto has varied,
though related, meanings that involve both women’s rights and the quality
of democracy. Interviewees articulated a variety of arguments related to the
motto, summarized as follows:
1) Given that gender and sexuality issues were ignored too long in the po-
litical realm, even within leftist movements, it is high time for them to
take center stage in democracy.
2) Some progressive laws on sexual and reproductive rights did pass re-
cently, but the right to abortion is the unresolved debt. What is pending
is a “reproductive democracy” as part of a broader set of rights.
3) Women’s deaths due to clandestine abortions—conceptualized as a
form of violence derived from state policy—are preventable: they
should not continue occurring in democracy.
4) Authoritarianism with respect to women needs to end. That is, there
must be a qualitative difference between democracy and dictatorship
when it comes to abortion rights.

5) Parliamentary deliberation on a controversy that is already being de-
bated in society is overdue; this is about genuine democratic represen-
tation and participation.
6) Democracy is also about inclusion, equality, non-discrimination, and
not just formal rights. Illegal abortion is discriminatory because its
criminalization regulates and penalizes women; thus, the right to abor-
tion is a “debt that democracy has with the women in Argentina.”63
These dimensions are both distinct and overlapping and exemplify the variety
of interpretations that activists have in mind when they assert that abortion
is “a debt of democracy.” While the notion of human rights is broader than
that of democracy as a system of government, these notions are historically
linked in Argentina, namely, in the expectation that democracy would guar-
antee protection of human rights after years of brutal dictatorship. Thus the
claim of abortion rights as part of unfulfilled human rights platforms is one
way to question the quality of democracy and demand that it be more respon-
sive to women constituents. Campaign posts used ethical language to refer to
the legalization of abortion as a matter of human rights, often calling it a “just
cause” for those who support genuine democracy. For example, a 2008 web-
site post about a plan to present the Campaign’s bill in Congress on the Inter-
national Day of Action for Women’s Health (May 28) stated: “We consider the
defense of the right to abortion as a just cause on account of its democratic
and social justice content, which assures the enjoyment of human rights to
women who are currently deprived of them.”64
Since 2010 the Campaign as a whole has increasingly signaled a connection
between abortion rights and democracy, putting pressure on elected represen-
tatives. A 2013 Campaign document illustrates this:
The National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion
will hold activities across the country to claim and demand that parlia-
mentary representatives finally honor this debt of democracy, they
should debate and approve the bill for voluntary interruption of preg-
nancy presented by the Campaign [emphasis in original].65
The year 2013 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the return of democracy to
Argentina, so the connection to democracy was timely. The Campaign con-
tinued to emphasize such language, for example in a 2014 press release that
refers to the need “to debate the bill to legalize abortion, as a great debt of de-
mocracy with Argentine women.”66

Strategic Use of the Human Rights Frame
In her consideration of the use of human rights language in abortion rights
activism in Argentina, Lynn Morgan heeds the necessity to take into account
historical and social contexts when evaluating the wisdom of different activist
frames. Through auto-ethnographic reflections of her visit to Argentina and
her interactions with local feminists, Morgan came to understand that “‘wom-
en’s rights are human rights’ is a powerful claim in post-dictatorship politics
where abortion is not yet legal and the full scope of women’s rights has yet
to be included in the government’s human rights agenda.”67 As also noted in
our previous study on abortion rights frames, “human rights discourse has
a special resonance in Argentina” and the history of “human rights viola-
tions during the dictatorship . . . provides an interpretative frame that filters
through abortion rights discourse.”68
Even so, the use of the human rights frame in support of abortion in
Argentina is not without its critics. For instance, feminist poet and essayist
Laura Klein points out limitations to human rights discourse: “How can we
understand that the same arguments serve to support the prohibition and
the legalization of abortion?”69 Klein notes that supporters and detractors
of the right to abortion both share a common discursive ground founded
in modernity. According to Klein, “if the human rights banner was able to
become, especially since the eighties, the wildcard used by both the left and the
right, feminists and Pro-Life activists, it is because it embodies the dilemma of
the challenge and failure of democracy.”70 The discourse appeals to the realm
of the law and its ability to address social problems. Yet legalistic solutions
are not able to account for the complexities that abortion entails, with which
Klein grapples. At the same time, political actors such as the Campaign aim
precisely to intervene in the legal arena by demanding modification of the law.
While online Campaign documents exemplify how the human rights frame
is articulated in the public sphere, interviewees also commented on why the
frame is valuable to their efforts to legalize and decriminalize abortion. This
research charts several advantages to framing abortion rights as human rights
and linking the Campaign with human rights.
1. It signals the relevance of international law to target demands.

Human rights are part of many international legal instruments, from the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 to principles, declarations,
and conventions concerning specific groups such as children, women,
indigenous populations, minorities, migrants, people with disabilities, older

people, and workers.71 The Campaign demands support because Argentina
has ratified many important international treaties and agreements to
guarantee human rights. Since the constitutional reform of 1994, these treaties
have constitutional hierarchy. Therefore activists use these tools to stress that
Argentina live up to these agreements. Campaign declarations include regular
reference to United Nations and the Convention on the Elimination of all
Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which Argentina has
ratified, including its optional protocol.
In the interviews, activists explained how local-global linkages enrich the
sets of arguments advanced by the Campaign. According to Mariela—an ac-
tivist with a history in leftist organizations—using human rights discourse not
only emphasizes the holistic nature of women’s rights but also elevates Cam-
paign demands, adding new arguments beyond those centered on poverty or
health. From her perspective, human rights discourse is about “making visible
the comprehensiveness of that which is related to the right to abortion, and at
the same time, also the relationship with international organizations. Talking
about human rights is like something superior” (emphasis added). Attributing
superior status to human rights-based demands echoes Rebecca Cook and
Bernard M. Dickens’s analysis of human rights and abortion laws internation-
ally: “The growth of modern human rights law is founded on the claim that
states are not sovereign to exercise unfettered intervention in their citizens’
lives, but are accountable to transcending principles of human dignity that
require their respect for individuals’ rights.”72
Mariela also suggested that it was lawyers who tend to emphasize human
rights arguments within the Campaign. Feminist lawyers play a key role in
making connections between local and international laws, using their profes-
sional expertise and authoritative voice to advance abortion rights arguments
and installing abortion as a matter of human rights.73 In their discussion of
the human rights frame in connection to transnational feminism, Charlotte
Bunch and Samantha Frost argue that the “large body of international cove-
nants, agreements, and commitments about human rights gives women po-
litical leverage and a tenable point of reference.”74 Appealing to human rights
agreements has been a strategy that feminist activists in Argentina have used,
too. Clara, a relatively young activist, noted that in the campaign there are
“lawyers and they cite all the treaties, the CEDAW, [and] now the ruling of
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Artavia Murillo versus Costa
Rica.” The “Artavia Murillo” case—also mentioned by Lili, member of a leftist
political party—focuses on in-vitro fertilization. However, it is relevant for in-
terpreting human rights law in relation to reproductive rights more broadly,
including abortion.75 Attaching arguments to principles upheld in interna-

tional fora puts the Campaign in a position to demand that the state guaran-
tee women’s human rights in order to comply with its agreements and laws at
all levels. As Lili recognizes, using a rights framework has a strategic advan-
tage: “as a human right it is demandable, that is why we say it is a right.” This
is particularly pertinent given that the human rights treaties ratified by the
Argentine state are the law of the land.
Additionally, the Campaign speaks to a civil society that has expressed
high levels of support for human rights on a variety of issues as well as sup-
port for the role of international bodies such as the United Nations in pro-
moting human rights principles.76 According to polls reported in “Public
Opinion on Global Issues,” Argentina ranked among the countries with the
highest levels of support for the notion that the United Nations “actively pro-
mote human rights in member states.” Argentina and Germany’s shared level
of support (91%) ranked second, only behind Kenya’s (94%).77 Argentina also
ranked among the countries with “exceptionally high” levels of support (80%
or more) for freedom of expression, “including criticisms of the government
or religious leaders.”78 Argentina was among countries with the largest ma-
jorities (in Argentina’s case, 78%) supporting the notion that the UN should
promote women’s rights, even when it was suggested that doing so might in-
terfere with national sovereignty.
2. It facilitates alliances with national and international

human rights organizations.
At the national level, by framing abortion rights as part of a broader set of
human rights, the Campaign links its goals with those of the human rights
movement in Argentina (an important part of the progressive sector because
of its role in the restoration of democracy and the subsequent period). Cam-
paign posts included frequent commemorations and events in the human
rights calendar and declarations about court cases concerning disappeared
people. Activists repeatedly stated that their focus is abortion legalization and
that this single issue is the main thing to unite diverse constituencies in their
broad coalition. Therefore it is notable that the Campaign would “sidetrack”
for themes related to the dictatorship, and then draw parallels between hu-
man rights and abortion rights. An example of these connections appears in
a 2010 Campaign declaration: “The full force of human rights means to con-
demn those who committed yesterday’s genocides, because it is part of a fight
in which we are fully committed, as with guaranteeing women’s full right to
decide about their bodies.”79
As a coalition that brings together diverse groups, emphasizing the con-

nections between reproductive rights and other human rights issues is a key
strategy. In fact, when it lists the types of organizations that support or ad-
here to the coalition, the Campaign often highlights prominent human rights
groups. Importantly, it has garnered endorsement from time-honored human
rights organizations such as both groups of Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,80
and has worked to develop ties with human rights organizations that may not
lend their names explicitly but have provided support in more roundabout
ways. Furthermore, prominent human rights activists have adhered to the
Campaign. Laura, a veteran feminist activist in the Campaign, explained:
Many human rights organizations . . . the ones who have defended vic-
tims of state terrorism . . . have joined the Campaign specifically. This
was a more or less gradual process . . . they started as personal endorse-
ment by members of these groups, and in some cases it reached insti-
tutional endorsements. And, yes, it took work—permanently working
with the women—to make visible that restrictions on the right to abor-
tion mean violations of their rights.
Emphasizing that a lack of legal abortion is a violation of rights akin to other
human rights abuses has yielded organizational support.
Another connection to the human rights political culture in Argentina is
the Campaign’s most visible symbol—the triangular green kerchief—which is
reminiscent of the emblematic white headscarf of the Mothers of the Plaza
de Mayo. Laura, an early Campaign member, draws an explicit connection
between these two symbols. She referred to them when she discussed links
between the Campaign and other movements that deal with human rights:
Our symbol . . . is a green kerchief, which is a . . . a kind of borrowing
that we have taken from Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. And that symbol
has had a huge success in its identification and adoption by all kinds of
movements. You see [that] when there are demonstrations in our coun-
try, even by sectors that are not committed with the Campaign, many
use the green kerchief, [which is] perfectly recognized.
Juana, a younger activist, also speaks of solidarity with the traditional hu-
man rights groups that have addressed state terrorism: “On March 24 [Na-
tional Day of Memory for Truth and Justice], for example, there have been
compañeras [sister activists] who have raised their green kerchiefs.” She adds,
“The Secretaries of Human Rights—national and in some provinces—have
supported some trainings [and] activities” related to abortion and specific
“human rights organizations, in their human rights reports, have included a
chapter on abortion.” For instance, the prominent Centro de Estudios Legales

y Sociales included a chapter in its 2012 report that argues that the criminal-
ization of abortion constitutes “institutional violence” against women.81
The human rights frame also allows the Campaign to signal support with
international organizations, and to convey that there is international pressure
for Argentina to guarantee the right to abortion. Interviewees often referenced
cases of judicial rulings obstructing abortions that are legal under the current
Penal Code (i.e., cases that fall within the exceptions to punishment, includ-
ing when the pregnancy is caused by rape or puts a woman’s health or life at
risk), sometimes with a litany of key provisions by name and number. Some
violation cases reached international organizations such as the Interamerican
Commission of Human Rights through legal appeals after claimants did not
find redress in Argentina. The Campaign is attentive to such obstruction rul-
ings, which pre-figure the obstacles that women may face even if abortion be-
comes legal more broadly. The international stage can be the space of redress
when there is not justice at the local level; human rights arguments can be that
bridge, one that may lead to increased attention on the national and interna-
tional stage. For instance, a 2010 press release about a girl who was raped and
had an abortion refers to other cases of non-punishable abortions mention-
ing “an international complaint [demanda] against the Argentine state for not
complying with the law.”82 These types of cases are well documented in hu-
man rights reports,83 and the 2012 Supreme Court ruling on non-punishable
abortions included references to international human rights organizations
and treaties that have constitutional hierarchy.84 One interviewee, Lili, noted
that some international organizations are accessible, and the Campaign has
worked with them so that they “incorporate the demand for decriminaliza-
tion of abortion and legalization in their agendas.” Activists cited two interna-
tional organizations in particular: Amnesty International and Human Rights
Watch. Each had public testimony or reports about abortion and, in the case
of the latter, an appearance before the Committee on Penal Legislation of the
Argentine Congress.85 In 2011 the Campaign also reported its participation in
another public hearing in Congress, in which the rapporteur of the Interam-
erican Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States
spoke about abortion and the need to address the negative consequences of its
criminalization “to ensure compliance with human rights in Argentina and
throughout the American continent.”86
Human rights discourse has been a language of international solidarity that
fits with other Latin American cases (for example, in neighboring Uruguay,
where abortion in the first trimester was decriminalized in 2012). Given
the history of authoritarian governments in the region, and the widespread
illegality of abortion, it makes sense that activists would emphasize Latin

American democracy and the related concept of human rights as part of
their call for transnational solidarity. In fact, in its website and blog posts,
the Campaign celebrated Uruguay’s new law. It also posted information
about related movements in Spain and Brazil and hosted a 2008 event, the
“First Latin American Festival for the Rights, Health and Life of Women,”
which featured performers and participants from Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile, and Spain.87 A 2011 website post argued
that abortion criminalization is a violation of women’s human rights in Latin
America’s Southern Cone, saying, “depenalization/legalization of abortion is a
debt that South American democracies have with their citizenry.”88 The shared
regional experience of authoritarian governments and state violence in the
form of torture, disappearance and irregular detentions may mean that the
human rights frame can foster regional resonance and alliance building.
3. It allows for both breadth and narrowness of focus.

As our earlier study shows, there are many reasons and ways to demand abor-
tion rights. The human rights frame is useful because it allows both broad
arguments (abortion rights are a part of human rights, which are overarching
and international) and specific guarantees that can be invoked in particular
cases of violation. As scholars of coalitions have argued, broad frames support
the diversity necessary for many coalitions,89 so the breadth of the human
rights frame is advantageous for a diverse coalition of organizations and indi-
viduals under its umbrella. Human rights can appeal to different constituents,
including those who have made “Human Rights” part of their organizational
name and those who do not have that explicit label but see human rights as
relevant to their agendas. Interviewees often highlighted movement groups
with a different focus but with whom they have affinity, including LGBT orga-
nizations that successfully pushed bills for marriage equality (2010) and gen-
der identity (2012). Laura refers to human rights as a thread traversing several
movements and causes, with support from the Campaign:
In recent political events like all the work against [human] traffick-
ing . . . against violence, for sexual rights, for equal marriage—which
are all movements based on respect for human rights—the Campaign
has always supported and participated in these movements. That is, it is
part of the overall package . . . human rights and, more specifically, [the]
human rights of women.
Many organizations that emphasize these other aspects of human rights, in
turn, adhere to the Campaign.

At the same time, the coalition’s emphasis on a narrow set of goals—as ex-
emplified by its motto, “Sex education for choice, contraception to prevent
abortion, legal abortion to prevent death”—keeps it clear that adherents are
part of the coalition because of specific and limited claims. Campaign activists
noted that there are many differences between the actors actively involved in
the coalition, and the goals expressed in the motto are among the only things
all have in common. In the words of Olivia, “The agreements are few—those
we have as a Campaign—but they are strong.” Thus, even though many ac-
tivists care about and work for human rights beyond abortion (e.g., various
forms of violence against women, women’s economic and political rights,
and reproductive rights more generally), they are able to narrow the lens and
zoom into abortion as a way to target demands in an effort to keep the coali-
tion intact.
4. It connects with extensively used discourse in Argentina,

particularly during 2003–15.
As already mentioned, in Argentina the language of human rights, which
flourished in response to the last military dictatorship,90 has been a “resonant”
discourse. The administration of former President Néstor Kirchner (2003–7)
and the two subsequent administrations of President Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner (2007–15) made human rights a centerpiece of governmental dis-
course and policymaking, including the reopening of trials for crimes against
humanity committed during the dictatorship. In this context, the human
rights frame allowed the Campaign to speak to the government in the same
language it employed.91 Mariela, who had a trajectory of leftist and union ac-
tivism, explained:
Something about the Kirchnerist decade is that many laws of expansion
of rights have been approved—or of recognition of rights more than ex-
pansion. . . . The group of men and women lawyers who participate in
the Campaign . . . think about the right to abortion as a human right. . . .
Here in our country, we have a very strong history that has to do with
the human rights [violations] of the dictatorship.
The Campaign drew connections to human rights abuses perpetrated by
the military dictatorship and emphasized the need for the government to in-
corporate abortion rights in its “rights expansion” agenda. Many Argentines
and certainly Argentina’s Kirchnerist leaders expressed pride about advances
in judging crimes against humanity, and the Campaign discursively built on
such achievements. In a 2010 declaration, it stated:

Argentina is the first Latin American country that approved marriage
equality, the one currently conducting trials and sending the dictator-
ship’s military [members] to common jails, the one seeking the truth
about sons and daughters of the desaparecidos and desaparecidas [dis-
appeared men and women] who were illegally appropriated. It is time
also to be willing to be among those who recognize the basic right of
women to decide about their bodies, first territory for the exercise of
sovereignty. It is time to be the country in which the president, gover-
nors and legislators, and democracy are willing for human rights to ad-
dress the particular needs of las humanas [human women].92
Here, in rhetoric that parallels the patriotic language of sovereignty favored
by both Kirchner presidents, the Campaign called on elected leaders and the
populace in general to fulfill their duty to recognize women’s basic rights and
bodily sovereignty. Yet for all the resonance of the human rights frame with
the Kirchnerist agenda, the abortion legalization bill was never debated in
Congress during the Kirchners’ administrations.93 The 2015 shift in the exec-
utive branch to right-leaning President Mauricio Macri created further un-
certainty about the future of human rights policies and likelihood of abortion
rights in particular. Interestingly, even under this new government, we see
evidence of activists reaffirming the language of human rights organizations,
just as they criticize the new government. In the fifth plenary meeting of abor-
tion rights activists Socorristas en Red94—coinciding with the fortieth anniver-
sary of Argentina’s last military coup—activists made an implicit connection
between unsafe abortions in the context of criminalization and Argentina’s
history of massive human rights abuses when they stated: “Unsafe abortion is
State terrorism.”95
5. It disputes the legitimacy of anti-abortion groups

that use the human rights frame.
Some interviewees noted that human rights discourse has been deployed
by groups self-defined as pro-life (abortion rights activists call them “anti-
rights”) in order to make claims on behalf of the fetus or embryo and against
women wishing to end their pregnancies. The resonance of human rights
discourse also means that it can be advantageous to anti-abortion groups to
use the frame as well (for instance, a term like genocide, used to characterize
the effects of abortion by its opponents, is particularly sensitive in Argentina
given its usual association with mass disappearances). According to Lynn
Morgan, “using Argentina’s sordid history to cast abortion as a crime against

humanity became a standard tactic of abortion opponents.”96 Interviewees
related that “anti-rights” groups are politically savvy and often leave aside
religious discourse (which may no longer be as resonant) in favor of secular
language with broader appeal, such as human rights. According to Lili, an
activist with experience in party politics,
They do not talk at all about religion. They have appropriated human
rights discourse to place themselves on the opposite side. They are very
intelligent. Then one has to . . . one has to deepen their own arguments,
and refute that. They are specialists at grabbing your fundamentals and
turning them around. They have done the same thing with health issues,
they begin to say that the gene, once there is a distinct gene, there is al-
ready a person, and it is all a pseudo-scientific elaboration.
Similarly, Amanda—a feminist whose main activism has been for reproduc-
tive rights—pointed out that abortion opponents tend to present themselves
as speaking not from religious conviction, but from their professional knowl-
edge as doctors, lawyers, or scientists.97
The Campaign refutes the legitimacy of anti-abortion activists by directly
contesting their use of the human rights frame. For instance, a 2012 press
release from the Campaign states: “Those groups, which once again subject
society to their dogmas of scorn and disqualification towards women, are
resorting today to human rights discourse, when it is well-known that they
took part in all the civil-military dictatorships in our country.” Given that
the Catholic Church has been one of the staunchest opponents to abortion
rights as part of its conservative religious agenda in Argentina,98 and given
that sectors of the Church’s hierarchy have been accused of complicity or
tacit support of the last military dictatorship, activists make these links to
disqualify conservative sectors opposed to women’s abortion rights—often
assumed to be religiously inspired—from using the human rights vocabulary.
The dispute around the legitimate use of human rights discourse and
abortion is illustrated by the contested evocation of Nunca Más (Never
Again), a phrase associated in Argentina with the report produced by the
truth commission that documented the crimes of the dictatorship.99 Pablo
Gudiño Bessone notes,
In a sense, the “political use” that the Catholic Church, the pro-life ac-
tivists and the feminist collective attribute to Nunca Más should be seen
as the activation of a political strategy oriented to gain supporters; as
an attempt to engage society with the topic of abortion by bringing up
memories of a past crisscrossed by horror and violence. In this, we can

observe the presence in the public sphere of a political discourse that
aims to be accompanied with the moral weight that memory has ac-
quired during the years of democracy; its conversion into an object of
dispute and a struggle for re-appropriation due to the signifying role
that its activation generates.100
Human rights discourse is both resonant and contentious, and, as we see, so-
cial actors at opposite ends of the political-ideological spectrum can use it
flexibly in a democratic system. Thus the Campaign is not about to let abor-
tion opponents adopt it without a fight.
Implications of the Use of the Human Rights Frame

Several implications stem from the Campaign’s use of the human rights
frame. The first is related to how this frame allows activists simultaneously to
demand the respect of negative rights (that the state refrains from intruding
into women’s private decisions and from exposing them to harm via a violent
abortion law) and the fulfillment of positive rights (that the state guarantees
equitable access to abortion and related reproductive health services and in-
formation). This is consistent with the way transnational feminists articulated
women’s rights as human rights, for instance, in relation to violence against
women. As Sonia Corrêa, Rosalind Petchesky, and Richard Park argue in re-
counting this history and the development of sexual rights in the context of
UN conferences, “negative and affirmative rights are inseparable.”101
In the case of abortion rights demands in Argentina, both sets of rights
are seen as inextricably linked. A concern with limiting a punitive state that
unfairly curtails women’s self-determination is extended to abortion. In
this sense, the interviewed activists associated women’s human rights with
values such as autonomy, choice, and liberty. Yet, the human rights frame
entails more than a concern with state repression or restrictions on citizens’
freedom to make decisions about their own lives and bodies. As such, the
Campaign demands an active intervention from the welfare state: not only
decriminalizing abortion but also devoting public resources (e.g., funding,
infrastructure, training health practitioners) to make abortion rights effective.
Given that Argentina already has a public health system—along with private
and social security insurance102—the Campaign demands that women’s health
services include the provision of abortions that are free of charge. In this way,
the human rights frame complements economic and social justice arguments
because it is mostly low-income people who use public health services, making
the notion of choice meaningful beyond those who can pay for services.103

Therefore, a more robust approach to autonomy, choice, and liberty emerges
with the human rights frame (in combination with other frames).
A second implication relates to what the Argentine case tell us about the
notion of human rights as a Western and depoliticized construct. Rather
than conceiving human rights language as Eurocentric or not radical enough,
Campaign activists use the human rights frame as a pliable tool that has lo-
cal political meaning; a way to push notions of rights under democracy to be
more inclusive and to tackle injustices affecting women in particular. The use
of this frame evokes the specific political history of Argentina—including the
groups that emerged in resistance to state terrorism—and extends it to the
realm of abortion.104 This shows the importance of examining the application
of human rights frames in specific social and political contexts. In Argentina,
activists themselves make the case. Amanda, a university-educated Campaign
activist, explained the usage of the human rights frame evoking Argentina’s
dictatorial past and decrying the influence of conservative groups, past and
present:
Thus, we started saying that we would not assert the name they use,
the famous Pro-life groups; so we talk about the Anti-rights groups,
because they oppose, they oppose all rights; because they are the same
sectors that allied with the dictatorship and opposed human rights; and
they oppose all rights, and women’s right to decide, too. Then, this dis-
course that may sometimes seem abstract, theoretical, formal, liberal,
bourgeois, individual—about human rights—begins to take on another
meaning, a historical meaning, a meaning about the recovery of history,
and of the history of each [woman] who we are talking about. I worked
in comedores populares [soup kitchens], and people are sensitive to the
discourse of human rights, because in [our] society [the notion of] what
are human rights has been worked on a lot. Then it is no longer a theo-
retical pipe dream, academic, sophisticated, of a particular social class.
It is recognized in the work with popular [poor/working class] sectors,
so that they recognize themselves as human rights activists, in their so-
cial, cultural and political demands. This implies that women in those
sectors also recognize themselves as human rights activists when they
speak of the right to abortion.
Rather than a depoliticized or exported frame, we see in this explanation a
human rights notion steeped in local political meanings that can be used by
activists to communicate in a language that many in the local population can
understand and embrace.
A third implication in the use of the human rights frame—which might be

conceptualized as a tension depending on the message that activists wish to
emphasize with respect to abortion—is that in Argentina this frame carries
the heavy connotation of a legacy of death and sorrow. This is also echoed
in the Campaign’s demand for “legal abortion to prevent death.” A tragedy-
inflected emphasis appears in performative tactics that Campaign activists re-
counted, including references to artistic installations displaying empty shoes
that symbolized the absence of women who died due to botched clandestine
abortions. Because of the history of state terrorism, activists in Argentina al-
ready have experience representing the absent presence of people killed by
state violence (e.g., by drawing silhouettes on public spaces representing the
people forcibly disappeared by the state). The specter of death, then, presents
a challenge to activists who also wish to address abortion beyond pain and
want to embrace positive dimensions of abortion as part of movement tactics.
For instance, some activists in the Campaign took note of the joy that charac-
terized marriage equality activism, and considered it in relation to abortion.
Recent movement activities and approaches have moved beyond the pain
evoked by representations of human rights violations (such as the empty
shoes) to weave positive, though still complex, affects into demands for abor-
tion rights. One can see it in some performative and activist practices (for
example, the Campaign’s call in a flyer to “sing and dance for legal abor-
tion”)105 and a recent work of fictionalized abortion narratives,106 based on the
real testimonies of women assisted by Socorristas en Red. As Nayla Vacarezza
points out with respect to such narratives, “To feel dueña de si misma [self-
ownership], relieved, joyful for having aborted, does not imply that to abort is
invariably a happy experience, as in the flat and full happiness that capitalist
consumer society offers.”107 Instead, Vacarezza refers to “a happiness that was
conquered with difficulty alongside other [women], in a context not devoid of
opposition forces, often with pain, amidst doubts, fears and knowledge about
the body’s vulnerability.”108 The complexity of emotions emerges here, even as
happiness is claimed for an experience so often depicted in merely negative
terms.
Conclusion
Although various scholars have pointed to limitations in the human rights
frame and its ability to advance social movement goals—including those of
feminist activists—others have shown the advantages of the discourse of hu-
man rights. In Argentina, human rights arguments have been an important
component of the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free
Abortion. Based on analysis of documents and interviews with activists from

the Campaign, this study elucidates the strategic value of the human rights
frame. This discursive strategy makes sense given Argentina’s history of polit-
ical repression during military rule, the role and legitimacy of human rights
organizations, and the weight of international law in terms of human rights. It
can also be understood as an advantage because of the simultaneous breadth
of interest and narrowness of focus of the coalition’s members, the political
discourse that prevailed in recent governments for more than a decade, and
even its potential to neutralize the anti-abortion rights countermovement.
This article shows the strategic advantages of linking past and present using
the human rights frame. This frame draws on the power and legacy of human
rights discourse, which feminist activists in Argentina see as too important to
cede to countermovement activists.
This study contributes to dialogue about the opportunities and challenges,
tensions and dilemmas, presented by the human rights frame by focusing on
the connection between abortion rights activism and human rights discourse.
While we examine the value of this frame from a situated perspective, fu-
ture research might usefully compare and contrast the Argentine experience
with other cases, especially in the region. What advantages and pitfalls of this
frame might appear in other contexts in relation to abortion? How might such
discourse play out in Latin American countries with similar histories of au-
thoritarian governments but where key social and political actors played a dif-
ferent role (e.g., where the Catholic Church hierarchy was more supportive of
victims of human rights violations)? What might be the implications of apply-
ing an explicit human rights frame to abortion domestically in countries such
as the United States, where governments have claimed to wage war in defense
of human rights in other nations? Here, again, whether a human rights frame
would have any traction would partly depend on the particular political his-
tory of the place in question.
Barbara Sutton is an associate professor in the department of Women’s, Gender,

and Sexuality Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She is
also affiliated with the departments of Sociology and of Latin American, Caribbean,
and US Latino Studies. She is the author of Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence, and
Women’s Resistance in Neoliberal Argentina (Rutgers University Press, 2010), winner
of the 2011 Gloria E. Anzaldúa book prize by the National Women’s Studies Associa-
tion. She is also the author of Surviving State Terror: Women’s Testimonies of Repres-
sion and Resistance in Argentina (NYU Press, 2018).
Elizabeth Borland is a professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey. Her

scholarly interests include gender in organizations, women’s collective action, and

applied sociology. She has published work on women’s movements in Argentina in
Mobilization, Gender and Society, Feminist Studies, Sociological Perspectives, Research
in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, and several edited volumes.
Acknowledgments
We thank activists in Argentina who shared their experiences and political
analyses with us. We are also grateful for valuable feedback offered by Nayla
Vacarezza, the three anonymous reviewers for Frontiers, and participants at
the 2015 American Sociological Association meeting. This project benefitted
from funding by the University at Albany’s Faculty Research Award Program.
Notes
All quoted text originally in Spanish has been translated by the authors.
1. In the United States abortion was legalized in the 1973 Supreme Court decision
in Roe v. Wade. However, requirements and restrictions vary from state to state. See
Guttmacher Institute, “An Overview of Abortion Laws,” March 9, 2016, https://www
.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws.
2. Criminal law in Argentina establishes a prison penalty of one to four years
for “the woman who causes her own abortion or consents to someone else caus-
ing it” (Art. 88, Código Penal de la Nación Argentina, http://servicios.infoleg.gob.ar
/infolegInternet/anexos/15000–19999/16546/texact.htm). Exceptions to this rule are
consensual abortions performed by a credentialed doctor under the following condi-
tions: “1. If done in order to avoid danger to the life or health of the mother and if this
danger cannot be avoided by other means. 2. If the pregnancy comes from a rape or an
atentado al pudor [assault on chastity/modesty] committed on an idiot or demented
woman. In this case, the consent of her legal representative shall be required for the
abortion” (Art. 86, Código Penal de la Nación Argentina). In relation to the second
exception—which retains obsolete and pejorative language to refer to women with
mental disabilities—the Supreme Court declared in 2012 that the exception applies to
all cases of rape. See “F., A. L. s/medida autosatisfactiva” (2012), http://www.mpd.gov
.ar/users/admin/FAL.pdf.
3. Silvia Mario and Edith Alejandra Pantelides, “Estimación de la magnitud del
aborto inducido en la Argentina,” Notas de población no. 87 (2009): 95–120.
4. Mariana Romero, Edgardo Abalos, and Silvina Ramos, “La situación de la mor-
talidad materna en Argentina y el Objetivo de Desarrollo del Milenio 5,” Hoja infor-
mativa OSSYR, Observatorio de Salud Sexual y Reproductiva no. 8 (March 2013): 1–7.
5. Chao-Ju Chen, “Choosing the Right to Choose: Roe v. Wade and the Femi-

nist Movement to Legalize Abortion in Martial-Law Taiwan,” Frontiers: A Journal of
Women Studies 34, no. 3 (2013): 73–101.
6. See, e.g., Rickie Solinger, Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproduc-
tive Politics in America (New York: NYU Press, 2005); Loretta J. Ross, “The Color of
Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice,” Color of Violence: The INCITE!
Anthology, ed. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, 53–65 (Boston: South End
Press, 2006); Laura Briggs, Faye Ginsburg, Elena R. Gutiérrez, Rosalind Petchesky,
Rayna Rapp, Andrea Smith, and Chikako Takeshita, “Roundtable: Reproductive Tech-
nologies and Reproductive Justice,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 34, no. 3
(December 2013): 102–25.
7. Elisabeth Jay Friedman, “Bringing Women to International Human Rights,”
Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 18, no. 4 (2006): 480.
8. The Women’s March on Washington, a women’s-led activist coalition in response
to the rhetoric and promised policies of the newly elected president of the United
States, Donald J. Trump, expressed in the mission statement the will to “send a bold
message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that wom-
en’s rights are human rights” (emphasis ours). Women’s March on Washington, “Mis-
sion and Vision,” n.d., https://www.womensmarch.com/mission/.
9. See, e.g., Inderpal Grewal, “‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights’: Feminist Prac-
tices, Global Feminism, and Human Rights Regimes in Transnationality,” Citizen-
ship Studies 3, no. 3 (1999): 337–54; Michelle Thomas, “‘Women’s Rights Are Human
Rights:’ Rhetoric vs. Reality,” Perspective 4 (Winter 2009): 16–18.
10. On the effects of the crisis on women’s lives and bodies, see, for example, Bar-
bara Sutton, Bodies in Crisis: Culture, Violence, and Women’s Resistance in Neoliberal
Argentina (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010). With respect to the
laws mentioned, most of them passed during the presidencies of Néstor Kirchner
(2003–7) and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–15). This was part of their admin-
istrations’ stated policies for the “expansion of rights.”
11. For further information and analyses about the history, accomplishments, and
work of the Campaign, see Ruth Zurbriggen and Claudia Anzorena, eds., El aborto
como derecho de las mujeres: Otra historia es posible (Buenos Aires: Herramienta,
2013).
12. Some members of the Campaign consider the motto to be outdated and take ex-
ception to the emphasis on death. For instance, one of our interviewees suggested that
a focus on preventing death obscures claims about agency, autonomy, and the right
to decide about one’s body and pursue one’s own life project. She and other members
of the Campaign gained first-hand insight about women’s abortion experiences and
motivations through Socorrismo (literally, lifesaving; a kind of first-responder prac-
tice, in this case referring to the accompaniment of women who undergo clandestine
abortions).

13. Myra Marx Ferree, “Resonance and Radicalism: Feminist Framing in the Abor-
tion Debates of the United States and Germany,” American Journal of Sociology 109,
no. 2 (2003): 304.
14. John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, “Resource Mobilization and Social
Movements: A Partial Theory,” American Journal of Sociology 82, no. 6 (1977): 1212–41;
Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Bob Edwards and John D. McCarthy,
“Resources and Social Movement Mobilization,” in The Blackwell Companion to
Social Movements, eds. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi, 116–52
(Malden, MA: Wiley and Blackwell, 2004); David S. Meyer and Debra C. Minkoff,
“Conceptualizing Political Opportunity,” Social Forces 82, no. 4 (2004): 1457–92; David
S. Meyer, “Protest and Political Opportunities,” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004):
125–45.
15. Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Move-
ments: An Overview and Assessment,” Annual Review of Sociology 26 (2000): 611–39;
David A. Snow, “Framing Processes, Ideology, and Discursive Fields,” in The Blackwell
Companion to Social Movements, ed. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter
Kriesi, 380–412 (Malden, MA: Wiley and Blackwell, 2004).
16. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Movements,” 632.
17. Barbara Sutton and Elizabeth Borland, “Framing Abortion Rights in Argentina’s
Encuentros Nacionales de Mujeres,” Feminist Studies 39, no. 1 (2013): 194–234.
18. Charlotte Bunch and Samantha Frost, “Human Rights,” in Routledge Interna-
tional Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge, vol. 2, ed. Cheris
Kramarae and Dale Spender, 1078–83 (New York: Routledge, 2000); Peggy Antrobus,
The Global Women’s Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies (London: Zed Books,
2004); Friedman, “Bringing Women to International Human Rights”; Niamh Reilly,
Women’s Human Rights: Seeking Gender Justice in a Globalizing Age (Cambridge: Pol-
ity Press, 2009).
19. Nandini Deo, “Indian Women Activists and Transnational Feminism over the
Twentieth Century,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 4 (2012): 149–74.
20. See, e.g., analyses of the application, interpretation, advantages, and limitations
of the “women’s rights as human rights” frame in various areas of the world, including
Turkey, Republic of Ireland, Post-Soviet societies, and North and Latin American and
African contexts: Yeşim Arat, “Women’s Rights as Human Rights: The Turkish Case,”
Human Rights Review 3, no. 1 (2001): 27–34; Dorothy L. Hodgson, “Women’s Rights as
Human Rights: Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF),” Africa Today
49, no. 2 (2002): 3–26; Niamh Reilly, “Linking Local and Global Feminist Advocacy:
Framing Women’s Rights as Human Rights in the Republic of Ireland,” Women’s Stud-
ies International Forum 30 (2007): 114–33; Katerina Tsetsura, “Challenges in Framing
Women’s Rights as Human Rights at the Domestic Level: A Case Study of NGOs in
the Post-Soviet Countries,” Public Relations Review 39, no. 4 (2013): 406–16; Sylvanna

M. Falcón, “Transnational Feminism and Contextualized Intersectionality at the 2001
World Conference Against Racism,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 4 (2012): 99–
120; Viviana Beatriz MacManus, “‘We Are Not Victims, We Are Protagonists of This
History’: Latin American Gender Violence and the Limits of Women’s Rights as Hu-
man Rights,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 17, no. 1 (2015): 40–57.
21. See, e.g., Antrobus, The Global Women’s Movement; Susan A. Cohen and Cory
L. Richards, “The Cairo Consensus: Population, Development and Women,” Family
Planning Perspectives 26, no. 6 (1994): 272–77.
22. Alexandra Garita, “Moving Toward Sexual and Reproductive Justice: A Trans-
national and Multigenerational Feminist Remix,” in The Oxford Handbook of Trans-
national Feminist Movements, ed. Rawwida Baksh and Wendy Harcourt (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2015), 271.
23. Briggs et al., “Roundtable”; Louise Finer and Johanna B. Fine, “Abortion Law
Around the World: Progress and Pushback,” American Journal of Public Health 103,
no. 4 (February 2013): 585–89; Alastair Gee, “Anti-Abortion Laws Gain More Ground
in the USA,” The Lancet 377 (June 2011): 1992–93.
24. International Conference on Population and Development Beyond 2014,
“ICPD Beyond 2014 International Conference on Human Rights: Conference Report,”
34, http://icpdbeyond2014.org/uploads/browser/files/human_rights_english_web.pdf.
25. Neil Stammers, “Social Movements and the Social Construction of Human
Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1999): 980.
26. Ariadna Estévez, “Human Rights in Contemporary Political Sociology: The
Primacy of Social Subjects,” Human Rights Quarterly 33, no. 4 (2011): 1143.
27. Estévez, “Human Rights in Contemporary Political Sociology”; Stammers,
“Social Movements and the Social Construction of Human Rights”; David Landy,
“Talking Human Rights: How Social Movement Activists Are Constructed and Con-
strained by Human Rights Discourse,” International Sociology 28, no. 4 (July 2013):
409–28.
28. Landy, “Talking Human Rights”; Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca
Polletta, Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001).
29. Landy, “Talking Human Rights,” 412, 416.
30. Sally Engle Merry, “Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping
the Middle,” American Anthropologist 108, no. 1 (March 2006): 38–51.
31. Landy, “Talking Human Rights,” 417.
32. David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Pro-
test,” in Frontiers in Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg
Mueller (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 137.
33. David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Par-
ticipant Mobilization,” International Social Movement Research 1, no. 1 (1988): 197–217.
34. Benford and Snow, “Framing Processes and Social Movements,” 614.

35. Noga Morag-Levine, “The Politics of Imported Rights: Transplantation and
Transformation in an Israeli Environmental Cause-Lawyering Organization,” in Cause
Lawyering and the State in a Global Era, ed. Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold, 334–53
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Jutta Joachim, “Framing Issues and Seiz-
ing Opportunities: The UN, NGOs, and Women’s Rights,” International Studies Quar-
terly 47, no. 2 (2003): 247–74.
36. Michael McCann, “Law and Social Movements,” in The Blackwell Companion
to Law and Society, ed. Austin Sarat, 506–22 (Malden, MA: Blackwell 2004); Mary
Bernstein, Anna-Maria Marshall, and Scott Barclay, “The Challenge of Law: Sexual
Orientation, Gender Identity, and Social Movements,” in Queer Mobilizations: LGBT
Activists Confront the Law, ed. Scott Barclay, Mary Bernstein, and Anna-Maria Mar-
shall, 1–17 (New York: NYU Press, 2009).
37. Martha Minow, “Interpreting Rights: An Essay for Robert Cover,” Yale Law
Journal 96, no. 8 (1987): 1867.
38. McCann, “Law and Social Movements,” 519.
39. Sebastián Carassai, “Antes de que anochezca: Derechos humanos y clases me-
dias en Argentina antes y en los inicios del golpe de estado de 1976,” América Latina
Hoy no. 54 (2010): 69–96.
40. Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP), Nunca
más: Informe de la Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (Buenos
Aires: EUDEBA, 1984).
41. Claudia Bacci, María Capurro Robles, Alejandra Oberti, and Susana Skura, Y
nadie quería saber: Relatos sobre violencia contra las mujeres en el terrorismo de estado
en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Memoria Abierta, 2012).
42. Integral to human rights organizations’ demands was the call for truth and jus-
tice, specifically ending the impunity enjoyed by perpetrators of atrocities, which was
guaranteed through presidential pardons and laws that impeded criminal prosecu-
tion. During the 1990s, as the neoliberal model took root, different protest groups ex-
tended the notion of impunity to acts of corruption that put “personal interests above
the public good.” Karen Ann Faulk, In the Wake of Neoliberalism: Citizenship and Hu-
man Rights in Argentina (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press), 20.
43. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, “Human Rights: A Western Construct
with Limited Applicability,” in Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives, ed.
Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, 1–18 (New York: Praeger, 1979).
44. David Chandler, From Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond: Human Rights and Interna-
tional Intervention (London: Pluto Press, 2006).
45. Costas Douzinas, Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmo-
politanism (New York: Routledge, 2007), 102.
46. Wendy Brown, “‘The Most We Can Hope For . . .’: Human Rights and the Poli-
tics of Fatalism,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no. 2–3 (2004): 451–63; Chandler, From
Kosovo to Kabul and Beyond; Slavoj Žižek, “Against Human Rights,” New Left Review

34 (2005): 115–31.
47. Landy, “Talking Human Rights,” 413.
48. Grewal, “‘Women’s Rights as Human Rights.’”
49. Sutton and Borland, “Framing Abortion Rights,” 218.
50. Blog, http://abortolegalseguroygratuito.blogspot.com; website, http://www
.abortolegal.com.ar/.
51. All the names of interviewees quoted in this work are pseudonyms.
52. “Carta de Mons. Baseotto al Ministro de Salud Pública,” February 17, 2005,
htttp://aica.org/aica/documentos_files/Obispos_Argentinos/Baseotto/2005/2005_02
_17_ministro_de_salud.htm.
53. Martha Rosenberg and Elsa Schvartzman, “La Campaña Nacional por el Dere-
cho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito. La lucha por el derecho al aborto: Una deuda
de la democracia,” Voces en el fénix 5, no. 32 (2014): 145.
54. Campaña, “Lema de la Campaña,” 2008, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=
168.
55. See, e.g., Emilio Fermín Mignone, “Iglesia y dictadura: La experiencia argen-
tina,” Nueva Sociedad, no. 82 (1986): 121–28; Martín Obregón, “La Iglesia argentina du-
rante la última dictadura militar: El terror desplegado sobre el campo católico (1976–
1983),” 2007, http://www.historizarelpasadovivo.cl/downloads/obregon.pdf.
56. Sutton and Borland, “Framing Abortion Rights.”
57. Versions of this bill (“Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy”) have been pre-
sented multiple times in Congress since 2007 but not taken up for parliamentary de-
bate until 2018, when the Chamber of Deputies approved an abortion legalization bill
that was ultimately defeated in the Senate. At the time of writing a new version of the
Campaign’s bill is slated to be presented to Congress on May 28, 2019.
58. See the extended rationale: Campaña por el derecho al aborto legal, seguro y
gratuito, “Fundamentos proyecto de ley y proyecto de ley,” n.d., http://www.abortolegal
.com.ar/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Fundamentos-y-Proyecto-Ley-IVE.pdf.
59. “Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazo” (Expediente 4161-D-2016), http://www
.diputados.gov.ar/proyectos/proyectoTP.jsp?id=187583. The language in this article
also echoes the World Health Organization’s emphasis on public health as a human
right, deriving from the 1978 Alta Ama declaration and its continued relevance. See
World Health Organization, “WHO called to return to the Declaration of Alma-Ata,”
http://www.who.int/social_determinants/tools/multimedia/alma_ata/en/.
60. Campaña, “Negar un aborto no punible es un delito,” 2013, http://www
.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=2123.
61. Campaña, “Fundamentos proyecto de ley y proyecto de ley.”
62. Campaña, “Declaración: Cuando los derechos no llegan a las humanas,” 2010,
http:// abortolegalseguroygratuito.blogspot .com /2010 /07 /declaracion -cuando -los
-derechos-humanos.html.

63. As noted in a Campaign advertisement, see Campaña, “Solicitada por el aborto
legal,” 2011, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=1108.
64. Campaña, “28/05/08 Presentación de nuestro Proyecto en el Congreso
Nacional,” 2008, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=441.
65. Campaña, “28 de Septiembre Día de Acción Global por el derecho al aborto le-
gal, seguro y gratuito,” 2013, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=2102.
66. Campaña, “Jornada Federal por la Legalización del Aborto en el Congreso,”
2014, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=2246.
67. Lynn Morgan, “Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice? Lessons from
Argentina,” Health and Human Rights 17, no. 1 (2015): 136.
68. Sutton and Borland, “Framing Abortion Rights,” 219, 202.
69. Laura Klein, Entre el crimen y el derecho: El problema del aborto (Buenos Aires:
Booklet, 2013), 269.
70. Klein, Entre el crimen y el derecho, 270.
71. See, e.g., United Nations Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner, “Uni-
versal Human Rights Instruments,” http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest
/Pages/UniversalHumanRightsInstruments.aspx.
72. Rebecca Cook and Bernard M. Dickens, “Human Rights Dynamics of Abortion
Law Reform,” in Women’s Rights: A Human Rights Quarterly Reader, ed. Bert B.
Lockwood (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 560.
73. For a discussion of the significance of networks of feminist lawyers in advancing
abortion rights as human rights arguments, see Constanza Tabbush, María Constanza
Díaz, Catalina Trebisacce, and Victoria Keller, “Matrimonio igualitario, identidad de
género y disputas por el derecho al aborto en Argentina: La política sexual durante el
Kirchnerismo (2003–2015),” Sexualidad, Salud y Sociedad, no. 22 (2016): 22–55.
74. Bunch and Frost, “Human Rights,” 1082.
75. See Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, “Caso Artavia Murillo y
Otros (‘Fecundación In Vitro’) vs. Costa Rica: Sentencia de 28 de Noviembre de
2012 (Excepciones Preliminares, Fondo, Reparaciones y Costas),” 2012, http://www
.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_257_esp.pdf.
76. Council on Foreign Relations, “Public Opinion on Global Issues, Chapter 8:
World Opinion on Human Rights,” http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles
/btjusticehuman_rightsra/701.php?nid=&id=&pnt=701.
77. Council on Foreign Relations, “Public Opinion on Global Issues,” 1.
78. Council on Foreign Relations, “Public Opinion on Global Issues,” 3.
79. Campaña, “Declaración.”
80. Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo-Founding Line and the Association Mothers of
the Plaza de Mayo.
81. Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS), Derechos humanos en Argentina:
Informe 2012 (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2012), 390, http://www.cels.org
.ar/common/documentos/Informe2012.pdf.

82. Campaña, “Apoyamos la sentencia y la decisión del juez Martín Lozada,” 2010,
http://abortolegalseguroygratuito.blogspot.com/2010/04/apoyamos-la-sentencia-y-la
-decision-del.html.
83. E.g., CELS, Derechos humanos en Argentina.
84. “F., A. L. s/medida autosatisfactiva.” The Argentine Supreme Court endorsed a
broad interpretation of one of the exceptions to abortion penalization (art. 86, subsec-
tion n. 2, Código Penal de la Nación Argentina), indicating that it applied to all cases
of rape and not just those against women with mental disabilities (as those holding a
restrictive interpretation had asserted).
85. For an example of Amnesty International’s advocacy, see Amnistía Internacio-
nal Argentina, “Muestra fotográfica ‘11 Semanas, 23 Horas, 59 Minutos,’” n.d. [2013],
http://www.amnistia.org.ar/aborto/fotos. Regarding Human Rights Watch’s advocacy,
see the transcript of Marianne Mollman’s appearance before the Committee on Penal
Legislation of the Argentine Congress: “La exposición de Marianne Mollman en el
Congreso: Presentación ante la Comisión de Legislación Panel [sic], el 30 de noviem-
bre de 2010,” 2010, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=1015.
86. Campaña, “Luz Patricia Mejía: ‘El aborto legal no contraría pactos de DDHH,’”
2011, http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=1295.
87. Mariana Carbajal, “Un festival por la libertad femenina,” Página/12, December
9, 2008, http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sociedad/3–116346–2008–12–09.html.
88. Campaña, “Aborto legal, una deuda de la democracia en Sudamérica,” 2011,
http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=1739.
89. Edwina Barvosa-Carter, “Multiple Identity and Coalition Building: How Iden-
tity Differences within Us Enable Radical Alliances among Us,” in Forging Radical Al-
liances Across Difference: Coalition Politics for the New Millennium, ed. Jill M. Bysty-
dzienski and Steven P. Schacht, 21–34 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).
90. Carassai, “Antes de que anochezca.”
91. See also Morgan, “Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice?”
92. Campaña, “Declaración.”
93. Scholars have analyzed various reasons for the lack of congressional debate of
the Campaign’s abortion legalization bill, especially in comparison with advances in
LGBT rights, including issues related to timing, activist strategy, governmental rela-
tionship with the Church, and presidential influence in parliamentary politics. Pres-
ident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s lack of support for abortion legalization was
consequential. See Tabbush et al., “Matrimonio igualitario.”
94. Socorristas en Red is a group of activists within the Campaign who inform
and accompany, in person and by telephone, women considering an abortion with
abortifacient medicines such as misoprostol (available in pharmacies for other
purposes). Socorristas draw their inspiration from earlier feminist groups in different
countries, particularly Italian feminists, as well as feminists in France and the United
States, during the 1960s and 1970s. See Socorristas en Red, “Quiénes Somos,” http://

socorristasenred.org/index.php/quienes-somos/. In Argentina, a more recent
antecedent that overlaps with aspects of this practice is the abortion information
hotline of Lesbianas y Feministas por la Descriminalización del Aborto (Lesbians and
Feminists for the Decriminalization of Abortion). See http://www.abortoconpastillas
.info/ and Julia McReynolds-Pérez, “No Doctors Required: Lay Activist Expertise
and Pharmaceutical Abortion in Argentina,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society 42, no. 2 (2017): 349–75.
95. Socorristas en Red, “Declaración de la 5ta. Reunión Plenaria Nacional de So-
corristas en Red (feministas que abortamos),” 2016, http://socorristasenred.org/index
.php/2016/04/21/5ta-reunion-plenaria-nacional/.
96. Morgan, “Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice?,” 141.
97. Consistent with this observation, the Baseotto letter cited—where he critiques
the position of the minister of health on sexual and reproductive issues—is signed
as follows: “Mons. Antonio Juan Baseotto, Professor of Biology and military bishop.”
Besides the connection to the Church and the military as powerful institutions, the
signature highlights the authoritative power of scientific knowledge and credentials.
98. See, for example, María Alicia Gutiérrez, “Iglesias, política y derechos sexuales
y reproductivos: Estado actual en Latinoamérica,” in Derechos sexuales, derechos repro-
ductivos, derechos humanos, ed. Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa
de los Derechos de la Mujer, 59–78 (Lima: CLADEM, 2002); Barbara Sutton, “More
Than Reproductive Uteruses: Women and the Politics of Abortion in Argentina,” in
Cuerpo, educación y liderazgo político: Una mirada desde el género y los estudios femini-
stas, ed. Sara Poggio and María Amelia Viteri, 141–92 (Quito: FLACSO, Sede Ecuador,
University of Maryland: Latin American Studies Association, 2014).
99. Pablo Gudiño Bessone, “La disputa por la legalización del aborto en Argentina:
Los usos políticos del Nunca Más,” Sociedad & Equidad, no. 4 (2012): 165–81; Morgan,
“Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice?”
100. Bessone, “La disputa por la legalización del aborto en Argentina,” 171–72.
101. Sonia Corrêa, Rosalind Petchesky, and Richard Parker, Sexuality, Health and
Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2008), 168.
102. Social security insurance plans are linked to formal employment.
103. Comprehensive abortion coverage provisions for public, private, and social se-
curity insurance systems are included in the text of the Campaign’s proposed bill of
2016 (art. 5, “Interrupción Voluntaria del Embarazado” [Expediente 4161-D-2016]).
104. The human rights frame in Argentina has been used to address various forms
of impunity as well as social problems that intensified during and after Argentina’s
2001 economic crash (Faulk, In the Wake of Neoliberalism).
105. This appears in the 2010 flyer by the Campaign for the Encuentro Nacional de
Mujeres (National Women’s Meeting), http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/?p=882.

106. Dahiana Belfiori, Código rosa: Relatos sobre abortos (Buenos Aires: La Parte
Maldita, 2015).
107. Nayla Vacarezza, “Aborto, experiencia, afectos,” in Código rosa: Relatos sobre
abortos (Buenos Aires: La Parte Maldita, 2015), 141.
108. Vacarezza, “Aborto, experiencia, afectos,” 141.

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Abortion and Human Rights for Women in Argentina

Barbara Sutton, Elizabeth Borland

Published by University of Nebraska Press

For additional information about this article

Access provided at 26 Jul 2019 13:35 GMT from Ebsco Publishing

28 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

The Significance of Context: Global and Local

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 29

30 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 31

32 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Data and Methods

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 33

34 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Abortion Rights as Women’s Human Rights

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 35

36 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 37

38 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

1. It signals the relevance of international law to target demands.

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 39

40 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

2. It facilitates alliances with national and international

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 41

42 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 43

3. It allows for both breadth and narrowness of focus.

44 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

4. It connects with extensively used discourse in Argentina,

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 45

5. It disputes the legitimacy of anti-abortion groups

46 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 47

Implications of the Use of the Human Rights Frame

48 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Sutton & Borland: Abortion and Human Rights 49

50 Frontiers/2019/Vol. 40, No. 2

Barbara Sutton is an associate professor in the department of Women’s, Gender,

Elizabeth Borland is a professor of sociology at the College of New Jersey. Her

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