ABSTRACT
Focusing on collective action for abortion rights in Chile, this chapter examines feminist activist discourses and practices for unrestricted abortion from the 2000s onwards. Some of these strategies focus on legal reform, and others on the social decriminalization of abortion and accompaniment practices. The authors particularly analyze the strategies of activists who provide information on pregnancy termination with pills as well as give physical and emotional accompaniment to women undergoing abortions, arguing that these constitute forms of experimental, prefigurative politics of care. Thus, beyond the traditional venues of struggle and debate (e.g., changes in the legislation based on discourses of human rights, choice, and autonomy), the chapter focuses on the ways different women have been “doing the work of the state,” in their own independent networks, exploring and including new perspectives, actors, and voices in the abortion debate, particularly those of sexual dissidence and decolonialism.
