How Re-Framing Reproductive Rights Issues helped S. Korea and Argentina

The reproductive right is recognized by the United Nations as one of the key human rights. It entails that women have the right to freely decide their fertility, including whether to reproduce, the number of children to parent, and when to reproduce if they so choose (UN, 1979, Art. 16). The U.N. article also emphasizes providing adequate education and information to women in order to exercise these rights (UN, 1979, Art. 16). Despite the legal proclamation to protect women’s reproductive health and rights on the part of the U.N., it does not give guidance to abortion (UN, 1979, Art. 16). Abortion is a highly controversial and divisive issue in society, culture and politics worldwide, with countries differentiating in attitude and access to abortion. Abortion is an integral part of women’s life worldwide: According to the data in 2017, researchers estimated that, on average, a woman would have one abortion in their lifetime; although women from low SES status reported disproportionately more abortions (Singh et al., 2018). Further, women across the globe have similar rates of abortion regardless of the laws in their country, although the percentage of unsafe abortion and the risk of death is significantly higher in countries where abortion is broadly illegal(Singh et al., 2018). Worldwide, from underdeveloped to developed countries, laws on abortion fall into a continuum from strict complete prohibition to allowing abortion without restriction (Singh et al., 2018). Yet, the recent decade saw an increase in the of passing harsher laws and penal codes by governments that slowly chips away citizen’s safe access to abortion, example countries are the United States, Poland, and Brazil (Singh et al., 2018). With the goal to decriminalize abortion, and to provide safe and legal abortion to all women, pro-choice activism movements have sparked across the globe. Although the fight for women’s fertility rights is an uphill battle, several movements have successfully raised public awareness and propelled legislative change in a few countries. A key to the fruitful pro-choice activism in South Korea and Argentina is their respective ability to re-frame the debate on the moral judgement of abortion to arguments that go beyond the pro-choice versus pro-life binary. The Joint Action for Reproductive Justice in South Korea, and the Ni Una Menos (Not one [woman] less) movement in Argentina both built a new framework that shifts from the right of the mother vs. the right of the fetus argument toward government injustice vs. women and social & economic injustice vs. women, respectively. Using the SIMCA model, I argue that the re-framing of abortion played a key role in expanding the reach of activism through addressing perceived social injustice and social identity that ultimately results in public opinions dn legislative change.

Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA) and Framing Social movement refers to “networks based on shared beliefs and solidarity, which mobilize about conflictual issues, through the frequent use of various forms of protest” (della Porta & Diani, 1999, p. 16). Pro-choice activism stems from individuals or groups who are concerned about the human rights of women. Re-framing women’s rights on health and fertility as a social injustice issue, could broaden “the network” of activists who were previously inactive or in other activism groups, and expand the concept of “shared beliefs and solidarity” of women’s health concern to a more universally-recognized social injustice issue. One of the group conscious models that explains the individual participation in social movement is the SIMCA model, which hypothesized that individuals’ social identity, perceptions of systematic injustice, and perceived group efficacy predicts participation in collective action (Duncan, 2018). Adding to the group conscious model, Duncan (1999) further suggests that group consciousness can have a bidirectional mediating effect on the relationship between life experiences and participation in social action. Three aspects are emphasized in the SIMCA model: 1) Social Identity, refers to common traits between group members that produce a sense of solidarity, which affirms a common interest in opposition to the dominant group; 2) Perceived injustice, refers to the realization that deprivation is caused by stratification and systematic suffering, and are not attributed to individual agency; 3) Perceived efficacy indicates that the goal set by the social movement is achievable, attainable, and feasible, that the social movement has the potential to cause change (Duncan, 2018) Collective action frame refers to a relatively coherent set of beliefs and meaning that legitimize and inspire social movement campaigns, and especially focuses on mobilizing or activating social movement adherents (Snow et al., 2018). This theory proposed that successful framing in social movements would increase individuals’ sympathy with the championed cause, which leads individuals to feel they can be a part of the movements and willingly take collective action (Snow et al., 2018).

Reproductive Justice Movements in South Korea The historic decision on April 11, 2019, which ruled the previous ban on abortion unconstitutional, can be attributed largely to the pro-choice advocacy group Joint Action for Reproductive Justice (Joint Action). Formed in 2017, Joint Action consists of a number of feminist groups and disability rights groups, among other organizations and groups (Kim et al., 2019).

Re-framing abortion During the mid 2000s, following the extremely low birth rate in South Korea, the government enforced stronger criminal on abortion. In 2012, in an appeal by a midwife charged with performing an abortion, the Constitutional Court decided that the ban on abortion was constitutional, noting that “the fetus’s right to life is in the public interest” while “a woman’s right to choose abortion is in an individual’s interest,” and concluding that, thus, “women’s rights cannot be more important than the fetus’s rights.” (Kim et al., 2019). Following the constitutional ban, the organization Women with Disabilities Empathy initiated a campaign to address the forced sterilization and abortions experienced by women with disability, single mothers and poor mothers in the past (Kim et al., 2019). By revealing that the South Korean government historically had not protected the rights of the pregnant women nor the lives of the fetuses, the campaign exposed the hypocrisy of the government. Therefore, the activism’s framing of the pro-choice movement shifted from women’s choice versus a potential human life to government versus women. Since the government historically neither supported women’s choice nor the life of the fetus, the government’s moral high ground in caring for the fetus’s life as a national interest was shattered. Joint Action’s slogan “the real problem is the criminalization of abortion” and “if abortion is a crime, the criminal is the state,” (Kim et al., 2019), targeted the issue back at the government, and forced the public and the government to rethink the paradigm and discourse of reproductive injustices.

Perceived Injustice Prior to the shift in the framework, the concern of reproductive rights was not addressed publicly and was subjected to strong social stigma. In the culturally conservative and Catholic context of South Korea, abortion was primarily attached to the “shameful” premarital sexual behaviors of women, and hence, was not a widely discussed topic. By addressing the government’s forced abortion and sterilization, the blame of pregnancy no longer focus solely on the “shameful act” of the individual, but instead points to systematic discrimination and injustice targeted towards women, which increases perceived social injustice and enforces system blame.

Reproductive justice in South Korea was inspired by the discourse in the United States to recognize the history of forced sterilization among ethnic minorities, such as Native Americans, African Americans, and Puerto Rican Americans, women on welfare, and other marginalized populations (Kim et al., 2019). The activists in South Korea related this recognition of history to its own disabilities' population, who suffered the most from forced sterilization (Kim et al., 2019). By inviting people with disability to re-tell their stories of sterilization, public opinions grew more empathetic towards women who had abortions and less favorable towards governmental controls on reproduction.

Social Identity Due to the re-framing of the fertility issue as government vs. women, the movement attracts more members who were previously inactive. Since the motivating theme of the movement has expanded, more people can identify themselves with the movement’s cause and are more willingly to associate themselves with the issue of abortion. With the expansion of the motivating reason of activism from women’s fertility rights to social injustice and human rights, people joining the social movement no longer have to be empathetic towards women who have unwanted pregnancies to relate to the movement, rather, people who understood the oppression of the government can identify themselves as allies. Participants who discourage premarital sexual activities can still identify themselves with the group identity if they recognize the systemic oppression of women’s rights. As a result of identity solidarity and shared direction to progress social justice, the most prominent progressive organizations in South Korea joined the Joint Action movement (Kim et al., 2019). Shifting the discourse of reproductive rights strengthened the moral position of the movement, which catalyzed the participation of other human rights organizations and groups (Kim et al., 2019).

By showing the contradictory interest of the government’s ban on abortion, Joint Action successfully mobilized previously inactive citizens and other human rights organizations previously focused on other areas to join the movement. The reframing of fertility rights to include disability rights alleviated the social stigma and point the blame to the government instead of the women. Through these mechanisms, I argue, Joint Action propelled social change that ultimately reformed legislative bans on abortion.

Ni Una Menos (Not one [woman] less) in Argentina December 2020 marked a historical moment in Argentina with the legalization of abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy. Prior to this law, Argentina, like many Catholic countries, permitted abortion only in cases of rape or when the life of the mother is endangered, although in practice even these exceptions were limited (U.N., 2020). Experts point to “the extraordinary mobilization of all activists in the country” as the key contributor to the adoption of this law (U.N., 2020). Started in 2015, the Ni Una Menos movement was prompted first on the issue of gender violence, and later evolved into a platform for the discussion on abortion.

Re-framing abortion Similar to the Joint Action movement in South Korea, the activists in Argentina also re-framed the issue of women’s fertility rights as an incidence of social injustice. Through this reframing, the pro-choice movement was not considered as a challenge to religion, but a fight against social inequality and injustice—particularly economic injustice (Daby & Moseley, 2019). The movement emphasized on the societal discrimination towards women and girls, especially those living in poverty. Argentine feminists argued relentlessly the devastating economic ramification, and presented a strong case that women who want an abortion will still get an abortion regardless of the law, yet poor women who cannot afford to receive abortions abroad endures higher risks of unsafe abortions.

Perceived Injustice The Ni Una Menos movement expanded the scope of the perceived injustice of abortion to include both gender-based and socio-economic systemic injustices. With the shift in framing that focused on social and economic injustice, activists emphasized the prevalence of clandestine abortions and how access to safe (but illegal) abortions are stratified by class, with women from low SES backgrounds suffering disproportionately from access to safe abortions. The activists raised public awareness by pointing to the data from Singh et al. (2018), which reported that whereas 54% of low-income women are likely to have an unsafe abortion, only 1% and 5% of higher-income or upper-middle-class income women have an unsafe abortion, respectively (Daby & Moseley, 2019). From this startling contrast in data, citizens understood that inability to access safe-abortion is a structural problem, which concerns a huge lower-class population. Public testimonies such as these made more visible the oppressive reality of abortions, and highlight how class status is translated to access to health care, which ultimately makes the difference between life and death. Furthermore, since Argentinians are fluent in the systemic inequality of class and are highly passionate in the subject, evident by their multitude of street-based activism on economic injustice (Daby & Moseley, 2019), such reframing allowed for a better public understanding of the gender-based inequality and called for wider participation.

Social identity The activists of Ni Una Menos not only zeroed in on the economic ramifications of women on health care, they also stressed the connection between abortion rights with other forms of injustices suffered by women from low SES backgrounds, including domestic violence and lower-wage (Daby & Moseley, 2019). Through this perspective, women from various backgrounds felt connected to the activism’s goal of increasing opportunities for women from a lower-class status. Therefore, people who are concerned with women’s reproductive rights as well as those concerned with social-economic injustices constructing solidarity that lead to higher willingness to engage in activism.

The group identity is also strengthened through symbolic clothing. Paying tribute to the white scarves worn by the activists from the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the green scarves worn by all participants led to “marea verde” – or green wave, created by the vast participants wearing green who march in solidarity (Vacarezza, 2021). Through the symbolism, the adherents of Ni Una Menos are motivated by the strengthens of their activist-predecessors, and felt encouraged by their “female courage, determination, and hope (Vacarezza, 2021).” In conclusion, through the case study of pro-choice movements in South Korea and Argentina, I argue that the reframing of the pro-choice movements activated and mobilized more members through making the systemic social justice issues more salient and increasing inclusivity of social identifications. These social movements changed public opinions and contributed to legislative change. Activists from other countries facing tightening restrictions on the freedom of abortion could benefit from rethinking the framework of abortion in order to move away from the much divided pro-life vs pro-choice binary argument. In doing so, the pro-choice activism will have a higher chance to protect women’s fertility rights and to propel legislative change.