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Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. National courts across Latin America have expanded reproductive rights in recent years. Last week, Colombia's top court decriminalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Wearing their signature green bandanas, abortion-rights activists gathered outside Colombia's constitutional court in the capital of Bogotá to celebrate the historic day.

[people cheering]

Melissa Harris-Perry: This decision follows rulings in Mexico and Argentina that similarly expand access to abortion. We're joined now by Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for the New York Times. Julie, it's great to have you here.

Julie Turkewitz: Thanks so much for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about the pathway to abortion becoming decriminalized in Colombia during those first 24 weeks.

Julie Turkewitz: The decision last week is really the culmination of decades of effort, not only in Colombia, but in Latin America to decriminalize and to legalize abortion. What really made this happen in Colombia, according to many people I've spoken to is the coalescence of efforts across the region. Activists in Colombia have been calling for years to remove a portion of the Criminal Code that made it a crime to either have an abortion or to help a woman have an abortion. They have been trying for a long time to move this through Congress.

What we've seen in the last couple of years is not only activists in Colombia coming together around this issue, but also activists in Mexico, activists in Argentina. The women in Colombia who are working for this finally realized that they needed to draw on some of the tactics that have been used in other countries to make this happen. About two years ago, many feminist activists in Colombia came together, just as the pandemic was beginning to form a coalition called Causa Justa.

What Causa Justa did that was different than the efforts of the past was to create this robust, full circle campaign that didn't just look at trying to pass legalization of abortion through Congress, but tried to change public opinion and launch a legal strategy. Over the last two years, they have not only put a challenge before Colombia's constitutional court, calling the decriminalization of abortion unconstitutional, but they've also launched this full circles social media street campaign that really takes a lot of inspiration from efforts in other parts of Latin America.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Is there something important about the word decriminalization that is different or that marks something different than what we might think of as an openness to abortion?

Julie Turkewitz: The reason that we use in our articles and the reason that the word decriminalization has been used is because it was criminalized, it was a part of the Criminal Code. The reason that women did not have open access to abortion is because the Criminal Code in Colombia said that women could be put in prison for several years for having an abortion. What has happened now is that the Criminal Code in Colombia has been changed to where abortion is no longer a crime up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Now, the feminist activists wanted that decriminalization of abortion to be completely struck from the Criminal Code. Some of them say this is not a full victory because it's only a 24 weeks. I think most of them see this as a pretty large victory for their movement. What this decriminalization does is opening the window for that openness and it opens the window for the health ministry to lay out a public policy in which women can more fully access abortion, just in the way that the health ministry in many countries will regulate all kinds of practices like surgeries or use of certain types of medication.

Melissa Harris-Perry: The activists who were so instrumental in moving this along, again, not only in Colombia, but in these other nations in Latin America, do they now have a forward-looking agenda? What kinds of pieces are they looking to move towards next?

Julie Turkewitz: There's two parts to that. The first part of it is I think that the women, the activists in Colombia who fought so hard for this are going to be very attentive to how would this rolled out. The big question is now, abortion has been decriminalized, the court sentence called on the Congress to create a robust public policy, as well as the health ministry around abortion to more fully allow access but of course, the question is, what is that going to look like in practice?

Are institutions in the country really going to set up a system that complies with this constitutional court decision? Bigger picture, I think that these-- I know that these activists are going to be very focused on taking the momentum that has been built in Colombia which recently decriminalized abortion, in Argentina which recently legalized abortion, and Mexico where there's a process of decriminalizing abortion. These activists are going to be using that momentum to go to other countries.

One of the activists I spoke to, one of the pieces that we wrote following this decision was actually speaking to me from the Dominican Republic, where she was telling me that women there had been calling on the Congress to legalize abortion and she was there, she works for a global organization and was there to try and support them in that effort.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me about the Catholic Church and its influence in contemporary Latin America and the extent to which the church is perhaps responding to these changes in the region.

Julie Turkewitz: Now, the Catholic Church obviously has had historically a very strong cultural influence in the country. Even people who may now go to church may feel very strongly against abortion because of what they've learned in their upbringing, as well as the other churches that are increasingly powerful in the region that also oppose abortion. Another very strong trend that we're seeing in the region or a couple of very strong trends that we're seeing in the region is a growing secularization.

People who don't really consider the church to have a powerful sway over their personal lives, that the numbers bear this out. We also have a growing number of women who are educated, empowered, and interested in taking control of their lives. This combination, I think about secularization and that growing realization that women in Latin America can be independent and make these decisions about their bodies in their lives, I think it's what we're seeing as the push back against to this way of the church in the region.

I should point out that, the issue of abortion is much, much more complicated around the world and particularly in Latin America than just for and against. There are questions of should an abortion be allowed when the pregnancy is a product of rape or when a woman's life is in danger or when a woman might not be able to afford that child. A lot of people here I think are much more-- at least in Colombia, at least the people I've spoken to, have very conflicted thoughts around abortion.

Like, "I believe that that motherhood is sacred, but also I would want my daughter to have all the opportunities in the world, to have a career," et cetera. I think one thing that we're really seeing in Colombia, in other countries that I cover in South America, is a confluence of these ideas of, "I'm Catholic but also I believe in a woman's right to decide." You've seen all of these ideas come together, I think, in this decision right now.

Melissa Harris-Perry: One very quick last question. What is the gender composition of the High Court in Colombia?

Julie Turkewitz: The Court is made up of nine individuals. The nine individuals who voted, the nine magistrates who voted on this particular case. Four of them are women and five of them are men Interestingly, only one woman magistrate voted for more access to abortion for abortion rights, while most of the other women or all of the other women voted against opening more access to abortion, which I think is really interesting, and I think it shows this is not just a woman's issue, and I also think it should--

In terms of, I think that there are men across Colombia who see themselves invested in this issue because it affects their wives, their girlfriends, their sisters, their mothers, et cetera. I also think their daughters. I also think it shows just how divided Colombian society still is around this issue, and that it's not that all women in Colombia are in favor of abortion. There's certainly, obviously, a shown in this decision is a rising tide of women who believe that they should have a voice, but that's not the case across the board.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Julie Turkewitz is the Andes bureau chief for the New York Times. Julie, thank you for joining us.

Julie: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

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