What began as tentative support for legislative reforms and congressional power to decriminalize abortion has swelled into the so-called green wave, a political movement for abortion rights. In 2022, Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a sweeping judgment that decriminalized abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy. This is because criminalization denies more than access to a single health care service; it carries broader social harms. In Brazil, abortion criminalization betrays the constitutional promise of universal care. In Brazil, Black and brown women, poor and young women and women from the most vulnerable regions of the country are more likely to have abortions, to be arrested for having them and to die from them.

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Persons: criminalization Organizations: Mexico’s, World Health Organization Locations: Colombia’s, Brazil