The Reproductive Ripple Effect
Thousands of miles away from Washington, D.C., activists, doctors and patients feel the consequences of U.S. abortion law
A protestor in Bogota, Colombia holds a sign that reads, “We are not hysteric we are historic.” (via Getty Images)Two years after the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health decision, which revoked the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, shockwaves are being felt far beyond U.S. borders. Around the world, and especially in the Global South, the ruling has inspired and emboldened an already well-organized network of anti-abortion organizations who are now campaigning aggressively, calling for rights reversal in more liberal countries and even more restrictive measures in conservative ones.
For reproductive-health advocates, the impact has been immediate. “The U.S. is a norm setter," explains Giselle Carino, executive director of Fòs Feminista, an organization working for sexual and reproductive rights in 40 countries. Last winter, Fòs Feminista produced the first-ever report analyzing the global impact of Dobbs. The decision “goes against all the progress we have made in the last 50 years,” she says, creating a “chilling effect… on our partners everywhere.”
And it’s not just ideas which migrate from the U.S. abroad. Anti-abortion movements worldwide are largely funded by the United States: Open Democracy estimates that U.S. organizations spent at least $28 million between 2016 and 2019 attacking abortion and LGBTQIA rights globally. “The opposition’s core strategy is to mobilize young people,” says Fadekemi Akinfaderin, global advocacy lead at Fòs Feminista. “They’re in schools, they organize protests targeting abortion but also gender and women’s rights, claiming that pro-abortion funding from the West is another form of colonization, [that] it’s population control." Carino puts it this way: “If the U.S. keeps putting money to emulate Dobbs in other countries, the consequences on women’s lives will be shattering.”
Yet there are reasons to be hopeful. As in the United States, “there is a great critical mass on the frontlines—reproductive rights activists resisting the limitations of civil liberties,” says Carino. “I want to tell American women that we are ready. We have faith in our ability to stand together because our struggles are connected. And we have been resisting for so many years. Your fight is our fight. Count on us.”
Below, a snapshot of what activists see as the ripple effect of Dobbs around the world.
In Nigeria: A rollback of safe abortion guidelines
Five days after the Dobbs decision in June 2022, the state of Lagos developed guidelines for safe pregnancy termination—essentially a manual for health providers to deliver abortion services. But just days after that, anti-abortion campaigners used Dobbs as justification to launch a vicious media onslaught, forcing the governor to revoke the guidelines. That was a real setback in a country where abortion is already heavily stigmatized, and only allowed if the health of the mother is at risk. “We have a lot of unwanted pregnancies, we have a high maternal mortality rate and gender-based violence is at an all-time high,” says Toyin Chukwudozie, director of the Abuja-based youth development organization Education as a Vaccine. She notes that the Dobbs effect is compounded by the global gag rule, which has for years limited U.S. funding for reproductive rights organizations which provide abortion services. “The U.S. holds a lot of power in the global conversation about reproductive rights,” says Chukwudozie. "As bad as it is for women in the U.S., it’s…worse for us, because we can’t travel to another state to get an abortion."
In Kenya: A movement to stop progress
In May 2022, The High Court in Malindi had affirmed abortion as a fundamental right under the Kenyan Constitution—a ruling which drew from various international laws on abortion, including Roe v. Wade. Following the Dobbs decision, however, opposition groups successfully persuaded the Court of Appeal to halt its implementation. “The news about the Dobbs decision spread like bushfire,” says Monica Oguttu, Executive Director of Kmet, which promotes quality health and education services across Kenya. "We were in the middle of an effort to include rape and incest as a legal cause for abortion; Dobbs put a hold on that.”
Health providers who receive U.S. funding are compelled by the global gag rule to deny abortion services, according to Oguttu. “It’s really difficult when you have a raped women in front of you and all you can tell her is what the law says. The women end up doing an abortion anyway and they come back to us bleeding or with a ruptured uterus," she says. “The cost of treatment becomes much higher than if we had provided her with safe abortion options in the first place.” Yet Kenya's pro-choice movement has also adapted, creating innovative strategies like home-based care, abortion pills, and a 24-hour hotline to deliver safe abortion services to the most vulnerable.
In Italy: Legislative barriers and religious control
Dr. Elisabetta Canitano, a gynecologist and director of the reproductive health NGO Vita di Donna, doesn’t believe the Dobbs ruling changed Italy’s landscape for reproductive rights. “We had our problems before Dobbs and we have them after,” she says. “The Catholic church has almost succeeded in controlling our country and we are seeing the erosion of the lay state. It should serve as a cautionary tale for America.”
Though abortion is legal in Italy, seven out of 10 gynecologists refuse to perform the procedure on moral grounds. And last April, the Senate approved a plan to allow anti-abortion groups to access clinics, where they try to deter women from abortions by forcing them, for instance, to listen to the fetus’s “heartbeat.” In response, activists are organizing through WhatsApp to connect patients who need abortions with doctors who are willing to perform them.
In El Salvador: Jail time for miscarriages
El Salvador—like Nicaragua, Honduras and the Dominican Republic—bans abortion completely. So the Dobbs decision didn’t necessarily worsen things—but to activists there, it looked very familiar. Helena Guerillera, the regional coordinator of the gender justice organization Mundubat, sees a parallel between the election of El Salvador's fundamentalist president in 2019 and the political landscape that produced the Dobbs decision. "There was a general climate of disillusion and loss of faith in government," she recalls.
Today in El Salvador, at least 182 women who suffered miscarriages or obstetric emergencies are facing prison sentences of up to 40 years. Medical professionals are even required by law to call the police in cases of miscarriage. Mujeres Libres El Salvador's Teodora del Carmen Vásquez, who was jailed after having a stillborn baby, knows these restrictive laws firsthand: “When I was about to give birth, I fainted. Then I managed to call an ambulance but when they arrived it was too late,” she says. “They took me to jail, and I was sentenced to 30 years in prison for aggravated homicide.” (She served over a decade.) Meanwhile, the Salvadoran authorities have removed reproductive rights and sex education from school curriculums. “It’s forbidden to even talk about it, which makes it dangerous for organizations like ours,” says Guerillera, who uses a pseudonym to protect her safety. Still, she is committed to the work. “Feminist and LGBTQ rights NGOs are being threatened, but we won’t back down.”
In Colombia: Riding the Green Wave
With abortion permitted up to 24 weeks, Colombia has some of the most permissive laws in Latin America—thanks to 2022's Green Wave movement, which helped decriminalize the procedure in that country, along with Argentina and Mexico. After the Dobbs ruling, anti-abortion activists began targeting privately owned clinics and leading protests—but Maria Vivas, of reproductive health organization Oriéntame, isn’t worried: “Our laws are robust,” she says. “They are inspired by a collective of 100 NGOs that came up with 95 arguments on why the right to abortion shouldn’t even be in the penal code.” Today, activists in the U.S. are seeking inspiration from Latin America (despite the “colonialist mentalities” that Vivas says often keep that from happening). “There is an effort to look at the Green Wave and understand how we did it," says Vivas. “We have great leadership down here.”
