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The Feminist Demand for Legal Abortion: A Disruption of the Mexican State and Catholic Church Relations is a political historical analysis of the politicization of abortion in Mexico during the period 1871-1992. The dissertation provides a model for the analysis of feminist strategy in the context of Church and state relations. Feminism is studied in the context of Church and state relations given that in Mexico the Catholic Church retains a significant moral, political, and social influence. The feminist efforts to subvert the Catholic itinerary are illustrated here. For example, this research shows how motherhood remains a critical point for the articulation of women's identities where feminists frame their struggle for legal abortion a campaign for "Voluntary Motherhood."
The main argument advanced in this dissertation is that the framing of abortion as a public health problem by feminists has influenced the liberalization of abortion laws. This implies that although abortion figures in Mexico's penal code, the conditions under which abortion is not prosecuted have been broadened. In the context of a strongly influential Catholic Church, however, changes in the law have not received dissemination. This results in the prevention of women from using the new legal provisions. Thus, a specific feature of the liberalization of abortion in post-revolutionary Mexico is that the state has used abortion as means to assert its relative autonomy from the Catholic Church while also preserving the space to achieve political compromises with this institution. It is within this context that feminist demands for legal abortion have come to represent part of the broader struggle for the construction of democracy in the country.