Abstract Book of the 4th World Conference on Gender Equality
Year: 2026
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Abortion: A Reproductive Justice Framework
Michele Eggers-Barison
ABSTRACT:
This paper situates abortion within a reproductive justice framework, emphasizing the intersections of race, class, and gender inequities. Based on over a year of fieldwork in Chile, the paper explores the roots and subsequent developments of reproductive justice and human rights. Galtung’s Typology of Violence [structural, cultural, and direct violence] and Intersectionality offer a reproductive justice framework to unpack historic and contemporary social, economic, and political systems of inequity in Chile pre 1973 coup d’etat, during the 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and after the return to democracy. Specific emphasis on state-sanctioned violence toward Mapuche communities, geographic isolation and the surveilling of poor communities, and a machista culture of violence with no state protection reveal how systems and practices of reproductive oppression are sustained. Centering the lived experiences of Indigenous, immigrant, and economically disadvantaged women in Chile helps to bridge the impact of broader constructs of violence to lived experience. Elevating the voices and experiences of women most impacted by restrictive reproductive health policies and practices transforms how knowledge is produced, shifting it away from dominant paradigms and toward a framework grounded in reproductive justice and human rights. The complexity of abortion shaped by intersecting systems of inequity is not unique to Chile. Thus, the aim of this paper is to connect abortion experiences to broader systems of social, economic, and political inequity, highlighting how these structures perpetuate reproductive oppression and restrict pregnant people’s agency and reproductive wellbeing.
Keywords: Abortion, Inequity, Oppression, Reproductive Justice, Women