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Realizing Abortion Rights at the Margins of Legality in Mexico

Author: Elyse Singer

In: Medical Anthropology, Vol 38, No 2, 2019, pp. 167-181

This paper analyses conceptual and tactical approaches adopted by Las Fuertes, a feminist organization that campaign for abortion rights in the conservative Mexican state of Guanajuato. Since a series of United Nations agreements throughout the 1990s enshrined reproductive rights as universal human rights, Mexican feminists have adopted the human rights platform as the basis for lobbying the government to reform restrictive abortion laws. This strategy has been successful in Mexico City in 2007 when abortion was legalised. Rather than seeking to implement abortion laws through legalistic channels, Las Fuertes has effectively challenged Mexican reproductive governance in an adversarial political environment.