The Datafication Of Abortion Debates In Ecuador: A “Scientific” Clash Between Pro-choice And Pro-life Groups

• In Event: Politics of data and quantification as modes of governing (Part 1)

Abstract

Drawing on digital archives from eleven debates over the decriminalization of abortion in Ecuador’s National Assembly in 2019, this paper illustrates the production and manipulative use of scientific discourses. By examining the “facts” brought to the fore during the debates, I argue that both pro-choice and pro-life groups construct their political discourses on the issue of abortion when the pregnancy is caused by rape, around their own generated data or partial scientific facts. In a context where pro-choice groups were known for their scientific backing in legislative debates, it is a novelty to find pro-life groups using similar strategic argumentative strategies. This shift to what I understand as a “datafied discourse” of abortion—a highly polemic and sensitive subject in a mostly catholic country—reflects a shift towards science and academia and away from morality and religion. In conversation with STS scholarship on technopolitics, I follow how pro-life policy makers generate scientific statements to manipulate public opinion while pro-choice policy makers try to expose the “real” facts in a country with no official data on abortions as they remain illegal. Even though many ecuadorians recognize (illegal) abortions as a public health issue, the need to produce and use “scientific” findings in the legislative arena is a new occurrence. I am particularly interested in documenting these opposing and disputed scientific claims in an effort to better understand how science moves from academia to the political arena and through ecuadorian society at large.

Author

• Maria Elissa Torres Carrasco, Kaleidos Center for Interdisciplinary Ethnography