Fears for women’s rights in Chile as anti-abortion president set to take office

Women’s rights activists in Chile are bracing as José Antonio Kast, described as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship, prepares to take office. A 60-year-old ultra Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, Kast has long opposed progressive moves on family and reproductive rights: as a congressman he voted against legalising divorce in 2004, vehemently opposed the 2017 law that allowed abortion under limited exceptions, and has pushed to revert to a total ban and require parental consent for the morning-after pill.

His views stand in contrast to feminist and gay rights advances across Latin America, including the “green wave” that expanded abortion access in Argentina, Colombia and some Mexican states. Kast’s appointment of 30-year-old evangelical Judith Marín as women and gender equality minister — an anti-abortion activist who disrupted a 2017 senate session on abortion decriminalisation and was ejected by police — underscores his hardline stance.

Chile

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