Ruling the Womb: The Sexual and Reproductive Struggle during the Bachelet Administration

In: Latin American perspectives, Band 39, Heft 4

Abstract

In Chile, sexual and reproductive rights have been at the core of an ideological and material struggle during the past decade between the women's movement-the grassroots, academic, and nongovernmental organizations that work for women's rights, whether or not they call themselves feminists-and conservative forces. The 2006 election of Michelle Bachelet, a divorced socialist and single mother, as president led to governmental attempts to advance reproductive rights, principally distribution of the emergency contraceptive pill in public health care centers. This effort was unsuccessful for most of Bachelet's term. Although in 2010 a new emergency contraception law finally allowed the public health system to distribute the "morning-after pill," the political debate over other reproductive rights such as abortion is still dominated by conservative positions. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]