Language, Abortion, and Rights: Who Can Access Information and Be Heard?

Latin America and the Caribbean is a region marked by deep inequalities in access to abortion. While some countries have made progress in decriminalizing abortion and expanding rights, others continue to maintain highly restrictive laws, limiting autonomy and access to safe services. However, the barriers are not only legal; they are also economic, geographic, cultural, and linguistic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes access to clear, evidence-based, and non-discriminatory information as an essential component of comprehensive abortion care and sexual and reproductive health. However, information continues to circulate unevenly: certain languages, narratives, and forms of knowledge are granted greater legitimacy and reach, while Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and Creole languages, as well as community-based knowledge, remain marginalized, rendered invisible, or excluded.

From an intersectional and anti-racist perspective, this means recognizing that racism, gender inequalities, social class, geography, age, and language all shape who has access to timely information and who is left out. To speak of language justice is also to speak of reproductive justice: the right to make decisions about one’s own body requires information that is accessible, culturally relevant, and available in the languages and forms of communication used by people and communities.

In the context of September 28, the Global Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, this regional call invites us to reflect on the narratives constructed around abortion and to ask: Who produces the information? Whose voices are considered legitimate? Which languages circulate with greater power, and which are silenced? Challenging dominant narratives also means challenging the barriers that shape access to rights.