ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Radical healthcare and the pursuit of democracy under one-party rule

• In Event: Representing Pregnancy: Science and Culture in the 20th Century 3

English Abstract

This paper will focus on feminist women’s health organizing in Mexico during the 1970s and 1980s during a period of increasing demands for democratic transition in the country, spotlighting CIDHAL (Coordinación de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo Humano de América Latina) and their women’s health organizing, including both advocacy for access to contraception and legal abortion, which was illegal in all parts of Mexico at the time. During this historical period the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) controlled all branches of government and targeted left-wing and student groups with violent repression. Despite government suppression feminists and others increased their demands for democracy and combined these calls with community organizing efforts to address stark economic inequalities which included inadequate access to health resources. In this paper I posit that intersectional grassroots organizing focused on class inequality and gender rights can be an important challenge to anti-democratic government power. CIDHAL held workshops to train community organizers/health workers (promotoras) focused on addressing how women were being impacted by the economic crisis, by land dispossession, and by environmental pollution caused by rapid industrialization. These concerns were understood as fundamentally impacting women’s health and reproductive autonomy. CIDHAL organizers also demanded democratic transition, arguing that democracy was essential to achieving economic and gender equity in Mexico.

Author

• Jennifer Nelson, University of Redlands