The Conservative Irruption: Will we Follow the Example?

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on abortion jump-starts the discussion of other rights that are considered ‘irreversible’. What is behind it? And how much can it influence Latin America? Is it an ultraconservative reaction to a second wave of “progressive” governments?

Illustration: Erick Retana.

By Carlos Gutierrez

One of former US President Donald Trump’s threats while he was on the campaign trail has become real. In 2016 in a televised debate against his contender, Hillary Clinton, he stated that he intended to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark case of 1973 which decriminalized abortion in that country. To fulfill his words, he appointed three Justices to form a conservative front in the Supreme Court, and on June 24th they repealed the constitutional right to choose to interrupt a pregnancy. 

For years, conservative groups planned to overturn Roe vs. Wade. For instance, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, in a statement in 2018, described the decision as the product of “a society that is more and more stupefied by tolerance and acceptance of actions that deliberately destroy human life.” Also, it considered it a “bad law, bad medicine and bad social politics” which has caused “death, pain and confusion” for women, since “many have been mutilated or murdered in a legal abortion, and abortionists have been protected from legal scrutiny of the courts that adhere to Roe”.

Reactions to the decision of the Supreme Court were immediate. Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed that it “represents a major setback to women’s fundamental guarantees and gender equality”. Moreover,  President Joe Biden tweeted that this decision will “upend the lives and impact the health of millions of women.” 

But the matter has more troubling implications. In a text published by Amnesty International, Tarah Demant, Interim National Director of Programs, Advocacy, and Government Affairs, adds that the decision of the Supreme Court “is the outcome of a decades-long campaign to control the bodies of women, girls, and people who can become pregnant. And it paves the way for unprecedented state legislation to criminalize abortion, as well as other bills that will aim to strip human rights from people in the United States.” Some of these affect natality, same-sex marriage and legislation against discrimination. 

The dilemma resulting from this new decision goes beyond penalizing the voluntary interruption of a pregnancy, indeed rights that are not specifically enshrined in the Constitution of the United States are at risk. This would mean that the Supreme Court would only protect the rights in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, which goes back to the 18th century, a very different context, as confirmed by Cristina Rosero, a lawyer at Centro de Derechos Reproductivos, in Colombia, and a member of the movement Causa Justa por el Aborto.

On its part, Gonzalo Rubio Schweizer, responsible for the national Women’s Program of the Ministry of Health in Chile, states that overturning Roe vs. Wade “goes against WHO recommendations in terms of decriminalizing abortion because criminal prosecution does not avoid abortions, it just makes them unsafe.”

Rosero also says that this decision will mean actions against women in the United States, mostly migrants of low income who already face some sort of discrimination, such as racial discrimination. However, the most concerning element is that this decision won’t be easily overturned because the Justices are appointed for life, thus “making it difficult to have a quick and more balanced change.”

On the other hand, the decision of the Supreme Court is also a symbolic support to extremely conservative organizations or social and political actors “who are challenging advancement in women’s rights and sexual dissent”, in the words of Carmen Diaz Alba, PhD in social sciences and professor at Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores (ITESO) in Mexico. 

This could have an expansive effect in countries in Latin America, where groups such as those have significant presence. The reason, details Rubio Schweizer, is that Latin America is largely determined by the United States, since “we are part of its sphere or circle; therefore it will have a negative influence in the region.”

In a paper entitled: La restauracion conservadora en America Latina, Carlos Otto Vazquez, researcher at Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, refers to a neoconservatism being reinstated in the continent, with Donald Trump as its main expression. He considers racism, xenofobia, sexism, authoritarianism, classism, homophobia, disregard for the acknowledgement of others and rejection of what is different as the main values and practices of this movement. According to him, this “opens the door to what has been dubbed as a type of social fascism.”

Vazquez clarifies that this phenomenon is not exclusively occurring in America, Europe has also seen the rise of right and far-right groups and sectors which have gained power and political representation. Some countries where these movements can be found are France, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 

According to the Mexican researcher, conservatism in Latin America “continues to extend and deepen its operation (…) economically, politically, socially, narrative-wise, culturally and symbolically speaking.” In the region, Vazquez finds it in Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica, among others.

Under the influence of the neoconservative movement, a campaign has been undertaken in the last years to influence projects “aimed at occupying the state”, Jose Manuel Moran and Maria Angelica Peñas, researchers at Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina analyze. They mention the case of Brazil as an example, where President Jair Bolsonaro changed the name of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights to the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights. Behind this apparently subtle twist, lies a whole doctrine of the traditional family, the only one admissible for the country at the moment. Furthermore, as the researchers say, “the twist in this case is not just nominative. He appointed evangelical pastor Damares Alves to lead the Ministry, she is a key actor in the promotion of the ‘gender ideology’ discourse and a fierce opponent to abortion in all cases”.

Amidst this intense neoconservative movement, Moran and Peñas have detected the presence of a “robust catholic character” in the region, to which other churches have adhered to, for example, evangelicals. For them, “the transnational progress of women and LGBTTI+ communities’ rights is one of the factors that has affected the reaction of conservative religious sectors the most” which also have a “noticeable transnational nature”. However, they warn that evangelical christianity’s leading role “has transformed neoconservative activism and has snubbed the original catholic hegemony.”

In the text entitled: Una mirada regional de las articulaciones neoconservadoras, both researchers confirm the advancement of sectors opposing sexual and reproductive rights in Latin America, which have closed ranks with a “common agenda”. These include churches, political parties, NGOs and study centers, which heartily react against proposals coming from feminists and LGBTTIQ+ collectives.

Although it is true that several governments in Latin America have veered to the left, this does not guarantee the continuation of the rights that vulnerable groups have conquered in recent years. As Carmen Diaz explains, not every leftist government in the continent is progressive: “Some left-wing governments are very conservative in terms of women or sexual dissent’s rights.” However, she admits that in countries such as Mexico, Argentina and Colombia, an immediate setback is difficult.

Thus, overturning Roe vs. Wade “is a reminder of the fact that, everywhere in the world, rights can be questioned at any moment and that there is a risk of regression in a conservative regime. What just happened in the United States is a crystal-clear example,” says Cristina Rosero.

 The aforestated implies that no one can take anything for granted: the future of the rights earned by women and the LGBTTIQ+ community, among others, still depends on the sitting governments in Latin America. The jeopardy is greater when political projects in these countries wave the flag of an alleged defense of morality. “The moralizing rhetoric –Moran and Peña emphasize– is reconfigured in institutional crises, accentuating speeches that focus on corruption and on the incapacity of traditional parties to represent majorities, among other issues.”

What can Latin American governments do to protect the laws that decriminalize abortion or allow same-sex marriages, among other rights? Vazquez suggests “building resistance networks” in order to “dynamize the process of social change in its most diverse aspects: for the respect and equality of gender and against the patriarchy; for the inclusion and acknowledgement of sexual minorities”, among others, in which “fulfillment of human rights and liberties” stands out. 

For their part, Cristina Rosero and Carmen Diaz concur that activist groups must keep on fighting for countries to enshrine these rights in the constitution. Additionally, Diaz recommends governments to generate policies that contribute to creating “collective awareness about human rights, human dignity, justice and the right to choose to have an abortion as a matter of healthcare and justice, not as a matter of morals”.

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