Lawful Sins: Abortion Rights and Reproductive Governance in Mexico

by Elyse Ona Singer

Mexico is at the center of the global battle over abortion. In 2007, a watershed reform legalized the procedure in the national capital, making it one of just three places across Latin America where it was permitted at the time. Abortion care is now available on demand and free of cost through a pioneering program of the Mexico City Ministry of Health, which has served hundreds of thousands of women. At the same time, abortion laws have grown harsher in several states outside the capital as part of a coordinated national backlash. In this book, Elyse Ona Singer argues that while pregnant women in Mexico today have options that were unavailable just over a decade ago, they are also subject to the expanded reach of the Mexican state and the Catholic Church over their bodies and reproductive lives. By analyzing the moral politics of clinical encounters in Mexico City's public abortion program, Lawful Sins offers a critical account of the relationship among reproductive rights, gendered citizenship, and public healthcare. With timely insights on global struggles for reproductive justice, Singer reorients prevailing perspectives that approach abortion rights as a hallmark of women's citizenship in liberal societies.

Genres: Anthropology

272 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2022

Reviews

[Marina Hernandez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very insightful text that explores factors influencing women's experiences with abortion in Mexico. Singer is an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma who specializes in matters of reproduction. It's written for a broad audience, not just academics, and it certainly complicates our preconceived notions of who pursues abortion services as well as the relationships between doctor, patient, religion, and the state.

[Julia Hollowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book allows the reader to see and understand the different perspectives surrounding and controlling abortion. The author Elyse does an amazing job tying the personal experiences of women who use abortion services with information on the services themselves and the policies that surround them. It is a very well-rounded book that allows the reader to understand the history of the family in Mexico and how the abortion has become more and more available to the women in Mexico.

[aimee paetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

So important, especially now. So eye opening and broke my privileged world view of abortion debates. Definitely recommend! I’m meeting the author this week for a lecture I’m so excited!