The making of clandestinity: “strategic ignorance” in abortion practices in Latin America

Abstract

Abortion is a public secret in Latin America. It is highly restricted across the majority of the continent and yet millions of abortions take place every year. We use the sociological framework of ‘strategic ignorance’ to argue that convenient not knowing, erasure and concealment allow for the simultaneous negation and allowance of abortions in Latin America. By drawing on interviews with people involved in abortion activism and access across the continent we examine three sets of actors: the state, abortion providers and individuals. When wielded by the state, strategic ignorance reproduces the status quo of the criminalization of abortion but when wielded by abortion providers and individuals it creates the conditions for ‘clandestine’ abortions to be procured without prosecution. Strategic ignorance is therefore mobilized by the powerful as well as the powerless who are resisting state control of their fertility and reproductive lives.