Professor Paola Bergallo (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella and CONICET, Argentina) gave a presentation entitled The other legalization of abortion in Latin America, where she summed up and illustrated the different legal contexts around abortion across the continent, how this has changed since the 70s and continues to change, and the different dimensions that the issue presents, from a legal perspective as well as from a social and political perspective.
Bergallo explained how, in the last fifteen years, many Latin American countries have shifted from totally criminalizing abortion, to implementing more liberal laws. However, she said that these laws have not always been taken into practice by a reluctant health system or even by the courts, so constitutional authorities as well as international institutions have had to intervene to have legal abortions administered or to impose sanctions.
The Argentinian scholar explored the transformation from social to legal mobilization, arguing that it entails a redefinition of the relationship between Latin American feminists with law and the rule of law.
Paola Bergallo is Associate Professor at the School of Law of Torcuato Di Tella University and Adjunct Researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). She is a lawyer graduated with honors from the University of Buenos Aires. She holds a JSD and a JSM from Stanford Law School, and an LLM from Columbia University.