2023/02/07 by Ana Cristina González-Vélez, Ana Cristina González Vélez, Isabel Cristina Jaramillo-Sierra
Social Sciences · #Comparative constitutional jurisprudence studies #Gender, Violence, Rights in Latin America #Political Dynamics in Latin America
paper · pdf · doi:10.1215/00382876-10405161
crossref issued 2023/02/07 · crossref published 2023/02/07 · crossref published-online 2023/02/07 · openalex publication_date 2023/02/07 · crossref created 2023/02/27 · crossref published-print 2023/04/01 · crossref deposited 2023/04/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
On February 21, 2022, the Colombian Constitutional Court decriminalized abortion up to the twenty-fourth week of gestation and clarified that the grounds under which abortion had been allowed since 2006 should continue to apply in the remaining weeks of pregnancy. This decision, more than any other, is the material manifestation of the strategic efforts of a broad sector of Colombian feminism grouped under the slogan Causa Justa (Just Cause). This article briefly presents the history of feminist mobilization around abortion in Colombia, emphasizing its contributions for thinking about progressive reform in highly conservative environments: the importance of taking advantage of political opportunities, the appropriation of legal reform, and incremental change. Three different moments are discussed: political mobilization and the construction of meaning (1979–2004), progressive legal mobilization and appropriation of incremental reform (2004–2018), and feminist legal mobilization (2018–present).