Women’s rights activists in Chile are preparing to take office on Wednesday as the most conservative president since the Pinochet dictatorship prepares to take office.
José Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old ultra-Catholic whose father was a member of the Nazi party, has consistently blocked progressive attempts at women’s rights and equality throughout his three-decade career in politics.
As a congressman, Kast voted against divorce when Chile became one of the last countries in the world to legalize it in 2004 and vehemently opposed legalizing abortion with limited exceptions when it passed in 2017. Since then, he has pushed to return to a complete ban on abortion and require parental consent for the morning-after pill.
Chile allowed abortion for medical reasons from the 1930s until General Augusto Pinochet issued a complete ban in 1989 as one of his final decrees. Kast, a staunch supporter of Pinochet, defends many of the regime’s antiquated values about society and the patriarchal family order.
These regressive views contrast with the feminist and gay rights movements in Latin America since the 2010s, including the “green wave” that successfully pushed for the right to free abortion in Argentina, Colombia and some Mexican states.
Kast’s appointment of 30-year-old evangelical Judith Marín as minister of women and gender equality further underlines his hardline stance. Marín, an anti-abortion activist, stormed a Senate session on decriminalizing abortion in 2017, shouting “return to the Lord” as police forcibly removed him.
Andrea Álvarez Carimoney, assistant professor of public health at the University of Chile, said: “It is very provocative, because this person – whose opinions were previously considered marginal – is now going to be the one who has the power.”
Kast was a founding member of the Republican Party, whose members announced in 2023 plans to repeal the current abortion law, which allows access under exceptions of rape, if the mother’s life is in danger or if the fetus is nonviable.
While Kast focused his presidential bid on immigration and security issues, he has said his stance on abortion has not changed.
“They could make access to abortion much more complex,” Álvarez says, explaining that even without support to abolish the current abortion law, the government could modify the three legal exceptions to further restrict access.
Government statistics show that around 7,000 legal abortions have been performed since the three exceptions clause was introduced in 2017, but studies estimate that more than 100,000 induced abortions are performed each year in Chile.
Divisions within Chile’s feminist groups have also tested attempts to protect hard-won rights.
The movement brought hundreds of thousands of women to the streets and was a major driver behind a 2022 effort to rewrite the country’s Pinochet-era constitution. The new draft enshrined abortion as a constitutional right along with quotas for equal participation for women in public institutions.
But it was criticized for being unnecessarily complicated and far-reaching, and the public voted emphatically against it. A second attempt to rewrite the constitution was led by Kast’s Republican Party in 2023, which also failed due to its explicit partisan bias.
The actions of the outgoing Boric administration, which called itself “feminist,” have also caused divisions among activists, with some criticizing the government for delaying the presentation of a free abortion bill, which did not enter Congress until 2025.
“Boric campaigned on reproductive rights and our autonomy to decide, but he presented the bill too late and without enough momentum to push it through parliamentary debate,” said Vesna Madariaga, spokesperson for Coordinadora Feminista 8M, one of Chile’s largest feminist organizations.
The outgoing Minister of Women and Gender, Antonia Orellana, defended the government’s actions, saying that its priority had been to improve the conditions of those who require an abortion under the rule of three exceptions.
This has included an inspection manual for health professionals to ensure compliance and issue fines to any worker or medical institution that violates the rights of those seeking abortions.
He said the government had also lacked a majority in Congress to guarantee support for the broader abortion bill, which seeks to allow termination of pregnancy up to 14 weeks: “We have a legislative minority. Where do we move forward?”
He added that public approval of the broader abortion bill had reached a record level during his administration. “In Latin America, for many years, the strategy has been to promote social debate to generate majorities in favor of abortion, leading to its legalization.”
Despite recent setbacks, Sunday’s annual International Women’s Day march drew some 500,000 women to the streets, demonstrating the persistent strength of the feminist movement.
Members of the grassroots abortion network Con las Amigas and En La Casa were among hundreds of groups that took to Santiago’s central avenue, shouting pro-choice slogans through a loudspeaker in unison.
With multiple chapters across the country, the network provides verified information on safe medication use for those facing unwanted pregnancies. While its social media channels have been repeatedly blocked over complaints from anti-abortion activists, the group has existed for more than 10 years and has amassed nearly 170,000 followers on Instagram.
“Women are having abortions right now, they will do it tomorrow and they will continue to do it; no right-wing government will be able to stop it,” said one member, who asked not to be identified. “Kast is very dangerous, but we know that women in Chile are strong and organized. We trust that we will continue to advance.”
