ABSTRACT
In August 2017, Chile’s parliament passed a law that put an end to the total abortion ban that had been passed by former dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1989, just months before he handed power to the democratically elected president. The 2017 bill legalized abortion under three circumstances: Threat to the woman’s life; rape; and fetal malformations incompatible with life outside the womb. While it was women activists that placed the issue of abortion on the public agenda, particularly after 2010, they extracted little in the way of collaboration with left-wing parties in power to advance legislative reform. Instead, the second administration of Michele Bachelet (2014–2018) introduced its own abortion bill, limited interaction with the existing campaigns and feminist organizations and, through secretly and carefully held negotiations within her electoral coalition, crafted a bill and ensured its passing in Congress. The chapter analyzes Chile’s political institutions, Executive preferences, the history of the Chilean Catholic Church and the origins and evolution of the movement for abortion rights to provide an explanation for this outcome.
