Isabel Jaramillo Sierra: “The Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America: Old and New Feminisms in the Region”

Abstract: Over the past four years, three of the largest Latin American countries have made significant strides toward the decriminalization of abortion: Argentina in December 2020, Colombia in February 2022, and Mexico in September 2023. The changes are the result of strategic rights-based litigation, cultural work, and national and regional coalition building, largely on the part of feminists who came of age in the 1990s and 2000s. These feminists had long worked for incremental change, using the Courts as allies for reform. Contrasting their strategies with those deployed today by younger feminists in the region, who not only are more inclined to use social networks and direct action but are also more focused on issues of violence and individual harm, I argue for the need to bridge gaps between old and new feminisms to continue to work toward reproductive justice.

Isabel Cristina Jaramillo Sierra is Professor of Law and Director of the Jurisprudence Department at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She also acts as general coordinator of the Latin American Network of Feminist Legal Scholars- RED ALAS (www.redalas.net). She has written extensively on feminist legal reform and its impact on women, with particular attention to reforms related to quotas, abortion, and violence. Relevant works in English include “The New Colombian Law on Abortion” in International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics (2022) and “Abortion Reform in Colombia: From Total Prohibition to Decriminalization up to Week Twenty-Four” in The South Atlantic Quarterly (2023). She has worked as a consultant for the National Government and the Judicial Branch on gender and human rights issues; served as an expert before the Congress of the Republic; and worked as an Ad Hoc Judge for the Constitutional Court and the State Council. In 2017, she was nominated (but not elected) by President Juan Manuel Santos to the Constitutional Court. She earned her S.J.D. from Harvard Law School and an LL.B. with Honors from Universidad de los Andes.