Penalización del aborto: Violencia política y abusos de la memoria en Chile

Chile is one of the six countries in the world where abortion is criminalized. Although in 1931 chilean legislation allowed to interrupt pregnancies under certain circumstances, in 1989 and by the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, legislation was modified in order to forbid abortions under any circumstance. Since the return of democracy in the country 27 years ago, no government has pushed a legislation to decriminalize abortion. In 2015 President Bachelet sent a motion to the Parliament in order to legislate abortion in three specific cases. That motion has ignited the ultraconservadurism of the chilean right wing, who, trying to distort both public and legislative debate saying it is a strategy to allow abortions (not just under certain circumstances, as the presidential motion says), comparing this with deaths, torture and political disappearences of more than a thousand people occured during the dictatorship in our country. This article tries to make a review of the legislative and cultural situation, as well as the biopolitical management of the abortion in Chile over the last years.