Abortion Rights in Images Visual Interventions by Activist Organizations in Argentina

Barbara Sutton
N a y l a L u z Va c a r e z z a
Abortion Rights in Images: Visual Interventions

by Activist Organizations in Argentina
P olitics is about power, contestation, and negotiation. Political discourse

relies not only on the persuasiveness of words, rational argumentation,
and ethical appeals but also on the deployment of images. In our media-
saturated environment, bodies, emotions, and political perspectives appear
in compelling pictures of protest, ironic political drawings, creative visual sym-
bols, and evocative iconography. Political disputes around abortion are par-
adigmatic of the crucial role that images can play. Antiabortion political cru-
saders have relied on heavy-handed representations of fetuses on protest signs
and on medical visualization technologies to make their case. At first glance,
the cards seem stacked in favor of this political camp. Yet activists supporting
abortion rights have also used images as part of their protest repertoires.
While most academic attention has focused on the visuals crafted by antiabor-
tion forces, more analyses are needed of how feminists and other advocates
use images supporting legal and accessible abortion. After all, the visual arena
is too important to relinquish it to one side of the political debate. Given the
complexity of abortion experiences and the strong emotional visual framings
of the antiabortion camp, how do activists advocating for abortion rights
counter such images and frame their arguments in visual ways?
Places where abortion is illegal and where activists mobilize to repeal pu-
nitive abortion laws seem particularly well suited for examining the visual rep-
ertoires of abortion rights activists. Argentina is a case in point. As of 2019 the
Argentine Penal Code defines abortion as a crime that carries prison time,
with the exception of pregnancies resulting from rape or posing a risk to a
woman’s life or health. Despite these exceptions, legal abortions have hardly
been accessible. A movement to decriminalize and legalize abortion has been
growing in Argentina since the country’s transition from military dictatorship
We are especially grateful to the three organizations featured in this article: The Campaña
Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito; Lesbianas y Feministas por la
Descriminalización del Aborto; and Socorristas en Red. We also thank Lisette Balabarca, Eliz-
abeth Borland, Julia Burton, Gwen D’Arcangelis, Kari Norgaard, Oscar Pérez, and two anon-
ymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback on the project. The authors are
listed in alphabetical order and contributed equally to this article.
[Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020, vol. 45, no. 3]
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732 y Sutton and Vacarezza
to democracy in 1983. Later on, in the context of a grave economic and

political crisis in 2001, activism flourished in multiple fronts. Feminist and
women’s movement organizations participated in the rising wave of protest.
In 2005, the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abor-
tion was launched.1 This coalition generated its own abortion legalization bill
and gained the support of hundreds of organizations, including political par-
ties, labor unions, university-affiliated groups, human rights organizations,
and LGBT, feminist, and women’s groups. In 2009, the organization Lesbi-
ans and Feminists for the Decriminalization of Abortion—not part of the
Campaign—opened the first abortion hotline in the country.2 The hotline
provided information to callers on how to perform self-induced abortions us-
ing the pharmaceutical misoprostol.3 They also published their own abortion
handbook (Lesbianas y Feministas 2010, 2012). In 2012, some members of
the Campaign organized themselves as Socorristas (first responders) after two
years of sharing information and providing accompaniment for abortions
with pharmaceuticals. Nowadays, there is a network of around thirty-five
Socorrista groups offering accompaniment nationwide, and they share on
their website their own guidelines for self-induced abortion.4
These organizations give us a sense of the breadth and depth of political
strategy in Argentina regarding abortion rights: from lobbying legislators to
protesting in the streets to debating in the media and other public spaces.
Activists have also made alliances with health professionals friendly to their
cause and, as already noted, worked to support those needing to undergo
clandestine abortions. All of these strategies helped make abortion visible
as an important political issue, and in 2018, the movement reached a historic
milestone: an abortion legalization bill was debated in Congress for the first
time. While the bill ultimately did not pass, the prospect of a policy change
galvanized abortion rights activism to an unprecedented and truly impressive
level, capitalizing on years of sustained activist work. Throughout the history
of the abortion rights movement in Argentina, activists have advanced mul-
tiple discursive frames, for example based on human rights, social justice,
public health, choice, bodily rights, and pragmatic reasons, among others
(Sutton and Borland 2013). In the contemporary political milieu, the orga-
nizations above have significantly shaped the discourse and practice of abor-
tion. Additionally, members of this heterogeneous movement have increas-
ingly intervened in the political dispute around abortion through images.
1
In Spanish, Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito. Note that
all quotes from texts originally in Spanish are our translations.
2
In Spanish, Lesbianas y Feministas por la Descriminalización del Aborto.
3
Misoprostol is available in pharmacies to treat other health issues.
4
In Spanish, the network is called Socorristas en Red.

S I G N S Spring 2020 y 733
This study raises questions about the visual production of these key or-
ganizations for abortion rights in Argentina: What kinds of images, symbols,
and aesthetic strategies have they crafted? What meanings do they convey?
What affects are mobilized? How do these images fit, contradict, or exceed
vital dimensions of Argentina’s political culture? Based on the analysis of a
collection of visual materials produced by the abortion rights movement in
Argentina, we explore how these images advance the movement’s discursive
repertoire. First, we offer an overview of the literature on images, abortion
politics, and activism. Then we introduce our methodological approach to
the study of abortion rights images. We analyze our findings along three
lines: the meaning of key organizational symbols; emerging notions of abor-
tion safety; and the struggle for abortion rights in relation to human rights,
citizenship, and democracy. We end with some conclusions about the po-
tency and limitations of the organizations’ visuals.
Visual production, social movements, and abortion politics

In recent years, scholars have called for greater attention to images in social
movements. Indeed, images convey and construct powerful political mean-
ings. Catherine Corrigall-Brown (2012) argues that images are significant
“in how they can impact our understanding of current and historical events,
how they work to legitimate (or delegitimize) groups, and finally, how they
can change the ways in which politics operates” (132). Alice Mattoni and
Simon Teune (2014) note the various angles from which we can approach
the study of visuals in politics: from iconic images and symbols to main-
stream media visual frames, activist-produced media, audience reception,
and the significance of new technologies. In contemporary society, print
visual modes coexist with digitized images. The internet and the advent of
more accessible computer and phone devices have allowed activists to dissem-
inate their own visual frames, confronting or bypassing the narratives distrib-
uted through mainstream media channels.
How do visuals appear in abortion struggles? The academic literature re-
veals a diverse visual universe: images generated by abortion rights activists,
images produced by the antiabortion movement, images in the mainstream
media, images in the art world, and images in the criminal archive. Each of
these areas has its own conventions. Our own work fits within the arena
of movement-made visuals, which may also overlap with other categories.
For instance, abortion rights movement images are sometimes produced
by professional artists in the movement. They may also share some conven-
tions of mainstream media, even as they compete with or complement such
media depictions. Sometimes activists produce visuals in response to the

countermovement; for example, to offset the emotional impact of antiabor-

tion imagery. Deana Rohlinger and Jesse Klein (2012), who studied the vi-
sual representation of the abortion debate in US media, observe that often-
times “activists carefully craft symbols and situations that conform to the
standards of news media and, hopefully, capture the imagination of a broader
public, who will actively support their cause” (173). Still, they note that “al-
though activists may create arresting visuals that alter how the broader public
regards an issue, they rarely have control over whether or how they are por-
trayed to mass audiences” (173). This raises the question of how activists
craft images and which ones receive more attention.
Most academic analyses of abortion-related imagery in the political arena
focus on the visuals by abortion rights opponents. Rosalind Petchesky’s
(1987) classic work revealed how they use ultrasound images and other visual
technologies to create a fetishist political character that has become promi-
nent in the mass-cultural landscape: the “public fetus” (281). Petchesky
points out that the public fetus has no bonds to the pregnant body and ap-
pears as both vulnerable and autonomous, helpless and heroic. After Pet-
chesky’s intervention, other feminist scholars have contributed critical works
about the political implications of the ubiquitous fetal subject.5 Drawing on
the work of various scholars, Laurie Shrage (2002) notes the visual tactics
of antiabortion groups, including the use of scientific imagery to foreground
the fetus, the construction of the fetus as an autonomous person, and the
likening of abortion to genocide, among others. In Latin America, Raquel
Olea (2001), Claudia Laudano (2012), and Nayla Luz Vacarezza (2012)
have identified parallel visual strategies in different campaigns against abor-
tion rights.
Several feminist scholars and activists have called for developing new, cre-
ative, and forceful images to counter antiabortion discourse. Among them,
Petchesky (1987) states that “finding ‘positive’ images and symbols of abor-
tion hard to imagine, feminists and other prochoice advocates have all
too readily ceded the visual terrain” (264). In the same vein, and analyzing
feminist-inflected imagery on abortion, Jennifer Doyle (2009) notes the dif-
ficulty of incorporating abortion into feminist narratives, except with trau-
matic stories or as an exception (as opposed to a common and potentially
empowering aspect of women’s lives). While Doyle’s work addresses artistic
performances more than social movement images, it points to the challenges
of visually dealing with women’s sexual bodies and representing abortion
beyond trauma. As Doyle observes, abortion seems always already constructed
as something “wrong” to some extent (43).
5
For a review of this literature, see Firth (2009), McLaren (2013), and Vacarezza (2017).

In the face of visuals focused on the fetus, abortion rights activists have re-
sponded with images centered on women’s suffering due to unsafe abortion
and with the figure of the dead woman. In the United States, the coat hanger
symbolizes the unsafe methods and harm to women promoted by illegal-
ity. Yet Shrage (2002) warns that the meaning of such symbols can easily
be “missed or displaced” (63). Also, in the United States, the image of Gerri
Santoro’s dead body due to an illegal abortion—published in Ms. Magazine
in 1973—became an emblematic piece of the pro-choice movement. This
image counters the antiabortion rights movement’s emphasis on fetal person-
hood and victimhood. However, according to Karyn Sandlos (2000), it re-
duces a complex issue to “dichotomized and morally loaded questions of life
versus murder, women versus fetuses, and right versus wrong” (82). Like-
wise, we need to consider the political implications of using explicit and vio-
lent images that can surely touch some audiences but might also position
women as sheer victims and abortion as (always) harmful or dangerous.
Shrage argues for a “visibility politics” (71) that would more effectively
reframe the public understanding of abortion—both in opposition to the
visuals of antiabortion advocates and beyond some existing feminist repre-
sentations. Shrage explores many different visual strategies for presenting
abortion as a viable and nonstigmatized practice, from borrowing “pop-
cultural images of women’s bodies rather than clinical or scientific-looking
illustrations” (83) to tinkering with and parodying the slogans, messaging,
and representations of antiabortion advocates. Still, the political representa-
tion of abortion can be a minefield, and activists have to tread carefully as
their messages can be easily distorted or co-opted.
In an age of media sound bites, framing the abortion experience from
women’s diverse perspectives, including ambivalence and contradictions, can
be exceedingly difficult. Art might offer a closer approximation to the inti-
mate moment and nuances of abortion as experienced by concrete women.
Rosemary Betterton (2006) examines Tracey Emin’s artwork, particularly a
monoprint that portrays the artist’s experience with pregnancy termination.
Her body is center stage, bodily fluid between her open thighs, in contrast
with antiabortion images that foreground the fetus and efface the body/pres-
ence of the woman. According to Betterton, Emin’s work “insists we recog-
nize the embodied pain of a maternal subject who has suffered loss through
termination. She refuses to accept the invisibility assigned to abortion or the
boundary between self and other that it constitutes” (92). While this type of
image is relevant to the abortion debate, it may be difficult to incorporate in
abortion rights activism. Ambiguity and sorrow are likely excluded in a polar-
ized political context where lines need to be drawn and feelings flattened or
only deployed strategically to achieve political goals.

Other complex images come from the criminal archive. Kate Gleeson
(2011) analyzes the “Femme Fatale” exhibition at Australia’s Sydney Justice
and Police Museum dedicated to women’s crimes, including images of women
indicted for abortion and the objects associated with abortion prior to legali-
zation. Gleeson questions the progressive historical narrative of abortion
struggles that goes from illegal abortion (bad for women, women as victims)
to legal abortion (good for women, fulfillment of a horizon of justice). Rather,
she challenges us to consider the political relevance of posing women as
moral decision makers over matters of life and death. While medical imagery
of stainless steel and sterile materials “removes the woman from the picture”
(527), images of women—even from the criminal archive—put them back
into abortion narratives. Furthermore, an image of a table with surgical in-
struments next to a vase of flowers and other signs of care allows us to con-
sider women’s knowledge, secrets, intimacy, and solidarity. Gleeson calls
attention to women as abortion practitioners, which is important since “many
feminist arguments for the continued legal protection of abortion therefore
rely on the iconography of the horror for women of abortion before legaliza-
tion” (528).
In Latin America, scholars and activists have also grappled with the com-
plexity of abortion-related images. Visual productions by Mujeres Públicas
(Public Women)—a feminist group of artistic activism in Argentina—stand
out for their originality and political force (Gutiérrez 2011; Rosa 2012;
Vacarezza 2018). For instance, one controversial graphic depicts a knitting
needle inserted into a ball of yarn, with the captions “bootees” and “abor-
tion”—“all with the same needle.” Also, in a section about “motherhood”
in her book about Latin American feminist art, Julia Antivilo Peña (2015)
reviews productions from México, Chile, and Colombia that deal with abor-
tion, a practice often understood as contradictory with motherhood. These
works confront us with the tensions that juxtaposing abortion and mother-
hood present.
Affect plays an important political role in visual productions for abortions
rights in the region. Nayla Luz Vacarezza’s (2016) analysis of contemporary
visuals from México, Argentina, and Chile shows the emergence of “original
ways of acknowledging the pain associated with unsafe abortion” and “cre-
ative associations between abortion and joy, determination, pride and collec-
tive organization.” In the same direction, Vacarezza (2018) finds in artistic
and activist images from Argentina “a questioning of the dominant structure
of feeling about abortion and also a transformation of the logics of suffering
to make political demands in public space” (208). In Chile, two artists—
Zaida González and Felipe Rivas San Martín—take up the figure of the fetus
critically and create images that counter the dominant repertoire of love and

optimistic happiness associated with it (Vacarezza 2017). Lieta Vivaldi and

Valentina Stutzin (2017) also analyze the images produced by abortion
rights advocates in Chile, noting that some sectors reiterate conceptions
of “human rights based on trauma and subjection, as harm, victimism,
and the need for protection and guardianship” (154). They contrast these
strategies with other feminist images of abortion that “refer to women as
multiple subjects, in community, appealing to sororidad [solidarity/sister-
hood] among women and to the struggle for free abortion” (154).
All in all, these works reveal the challenges that the use of images related to
abortion entail. However, they also point to the need to engage this visual
political field. Our study on the visual production of abortion rights organiza-
tions in Argentina contributes to these dialogues grounded in activist experi-
ences in a specific location in the global South, with transnational implications.
Analyzing abortion rights images in Argentina

Our analysis focuses on three organizations, selected for their significant
and distinctive contributions to abortion rights struggles in Argentina: the
National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion; Lesbians
and Feminists for the Decriminalization of Abortion; and the Network of So-
corristas. We analyzed the images in the three organizations’ websites and
blogs.6
The visual materials examined include photos, flyers, postcards, drawings,
booklets and reports with graphics, and web design features. As we analyzed
the images, we paid attention to the following: types of visuals (photos, illus-
trations, pictograms); slogans and symbols (green kerchiefs, the LGBT rain-
bow, pink sneakers); emotions evoked (grief, joy, relief); the historicity of
the image (images of key political figures); the mode in which women are
presented (victimized, empowered, appearing individually or in groups); im-
agery in response to the countermovement (the absent presence of the dead
woman); visual references to the law, citizenship, and democracy (images of
governmental buildings; a hand, symbolizing an intention to cast a vote for
6
The Campaign’s website (http://www.abortolegal.com.ar/) started in 2006 and remains
active. The Campaign’s blog (http://abortolegalseguroygratuito.blogspot.com) has posts for
the 2009–14 period. Lesbians and Feminists had a website (http://abortoconpastillas.info),
but it was no longer available at the time of this research. However, two blogs from this organi-
zation were available: http://informacionaborto.blogspot.com.ar and http://noticiasaborto
.blogspot.com.ar (both contained posts for the 2009–12 period). Socorristas en Red has a web-
site (http://socorristasenred.org/) with information dating back to 2015. We accessed these
sites during October and November 2017 (Campaign website and blog, respectively), Novem-
ber 2017 (Lesbians and Feminists), and December 2017 (Socorristas).

legal abortion); the kinds of scenes configured in the images (settings, peo-
ple, objects, and accompanying words); visual references to pregnancy (if at
all represented); techniques/objects/spaces associated with abortion; and
the abortion experience itself. While we developed some analytic categories
deductively—based on the literature and our previous knowledge of the
movement—we also inductively created new ones as we worked with the ma-
terials collected, attending to the themes and patterns that emerged.
Although photography is an important visual medium, our analysis mainly
focuses on graphic materials that are not photographic or at least not merely
photographic (i.e., imagery that contains photos that are altered in some
way, for instance through the superposition of words or symbols, through
the use of photo montage or collage). While photos are not simply transpar-
ent reflections of what happened, they have a realistic veneer, as if the pic-
tures speak for themselves. Florencia Rovetto and Mariángeles Camusso
(2014) follow Roland Barthes and note that in contrast to photos, “which
disguise the traces of their enunciation,” visuals such as illustrations “give
prominence to the individual marks of those who perform them, through
the notion of style” (8). Thus, we were especially interested in how activists
crafted messages by creating, playing with, and modifying images in an effort
to convey certain understandings of abortion. Still, we provide an overview
of the kinds of photos posted in the online sites examined, and we discuss
their significance.
The mass accessibility of the visuals analyzed was enabled by the internet.
These digitized images coexist with imagery in concrete physical sites where
the movement does its activism—for example, the streets, government build-
ings, educational spaces—whether they function as visual records or as styli-
zation of particular objects or symbols. In the online sphere, we see traces of
material artifacts such as protest banners, posters, kerchiefs, leaflets, or books
used to advance the abortion rights cause. Particularly in the Campaign, the
proliferation of photos and some video recordings is in line with develop-
ments in other social movements and organizations, from Indymedia to Oc-
cupy Wall Street to protesters in Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring
(Mattoni and Teune 2014). Additionally, the digital environment helps spread
the organizations’ key symbols.
Green kerchiefs, LGBT rainbows, and pink sneakers

Part of the power of political symbols resides in their capacity to stick, to
evoke affects, associate meanings, and gain adherents through repetitive use
and propagation. Here we analyze three symbols that were prominent in the
visual materials of the organizations selected: green kerchiefs (the Campaign),

LGBT rainbows (Lesbians and Feminists), and pink sneakers (Socorristas).

Each of these has distinct meanings while entering in conversation with
other political struggles and cultural symbolisms.
The Campaign: The green kerchief

The triangular green kerchief (pañuelo) is the most potent and pervasive sym-
bol that traverses the website and blog of the National Campaign for the
Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion (see fig. 1). This symbol appears in
photos and in ribbonlike form. The color green is integral to the Campaign’s
web design. Generally, these online images are photos of various activist
events where the green kerchief is a “mandatory” presence: marches and pro-
tests, panel discussions, book presentations, public hearings in Congress, and
artistic interventions such as graffiti, murals, and installations. The website and
blog also include intentionally crafted nonphotographic materials such as post-
ers, postcards, announcements, and logos that frame Campaign documents.
Here we focus on the green kerchief as it is a key symbol in the Cam-
paign’s visual repertoire and a powerful movement-building tool. Campaign
Figure 1 Cover of the publication Una campaña nacional para que el aborto sea legal, seguro
y gratuito en Argentina [A national campaign so that abortion is legal, safe, and free in Argen-
tina]. Campaña Nacional por el Derecho al Aborto Legal, Seguro y Gratuito [National cam-
paign for the right to legal, safe, and free abortion], 2011. Design by Leandro Ferrón. Reprinted
with permission. A color version of this figure is available online.

members, but also supporters, have worn or displayed this piece of cloth,
inscribed with the Campaign’s name, logo, and slogan: “Sex Education for
Choice, Contraception to Prevent Abortion, Legal Abortion to Prevent
Death.”7 Activists display the kerchief in many ways—on the head, around
the neck, covering the lower part of the face, around the wrist—though it
is often worn around the neck, facing forward. In many Campaign docu-
ments the green kerchief is stylized as a logo similar to the ribbons that other
campaigns use. This ribbon/kerchief is ubiquitous, appearing in documents,
postcards, on top of pictures, and sometimes combined with graphics be-
longing to different political cultures or traditions, or that resonate in specific
ways with the activists who use it.
The green kerchief immediately situates us in a broader social movement
field of human rights activism and in a genealogy of feminist and women’s
struggle. In particular, the green kerchief operates as a semimimetic symbol
with respect to that identified with a significant organization in Argentina:
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. This group of women emerged in the late
1970s during a brutal military dictatorship (1976–83) that perpetrated mas-
sive human rights violations, including torture and forced disappearance of
people deemed “subversive.” The Mothers confronted the regime, demand-
ing the safe return of their disappeared sons and daughters held in clandes-
tine detention centers (although most did not survive). The Mothers wore
on their heads white triangular kerchiefs, evoking diapers, that symbolized
the loving bond between mothers and their children.
As one early Campaign member recounted, the Campaign’s kerchief was
a kind of “loan” from the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.8 It is no small mat-
ter to join symbolically with their struggle, for they represent a moral and
political reference for many Argentines, and they are recognized at the inter-
national level, too. This connection is also intriguing given the maternal con-
notations associated with the white kerchief and the prominence of women
leaders whose activism emerged from motherhood. The Campaign’s green
kerchief as a symbol of abortion rights, and the activists who wear it, desta-
bilizes the equation by which woman equals mother while also implicitly af-
filiating with the Mothers’ struggle. The apparent contradiction between
claims anchored in motherhood and those stemming from the choice not
to be a mother is somewhat muted by the support of the Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo for the Campaign. Likewise, what may seem opposite activist
impulses (motherhood and abortion) actually overlap around the defense of
7
In Spanish, “Educación sexual para decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal
para no morir.”
8
Laura, interviewed for another project (Sutton and Borland 2019).

“life.” In the case of the Mothers, this remits to the call “Aparición con vida”
(may they return alive) demanded in relation to people held in clandestine
detention centers. In the case of abortion rights, what is advocated for is
the defense of women’s lives, put at risk in another type of clandestine zone
generated by the illegal status of abortion (Sutton 2017). Finally, the fact
that many women who undergo abortions are mothers—and have abortions
partly or largely due to their need to care for already existing children—also
shows that abortion and maternity are not necessarily opposed.
Another salient characteristic of the Campaign kerchief is the color green.
According to informal conversations with activists and a formal interview
with another long-term campaign member, this color choice did not initially
respond to any particular connotation. Green kerchiefs were originally dis-
played at the National Women’s Encuentro in the city of Rosario in 2003,
during the Encuentro’s traditional march. (The Encuentros are major wom-
en’s movement gatherings of activist and other interested women, held an-
nually since 1986.) During that Encuentro, the struggle for abortion legal-
ization gained momentum:
Yes, the green color was a spontaneous thing, in Rosario—for the Na-
tional Encuentro in Rosario—Catholics for Choice had green ker-
chiefs that said “For the right to decide. . . .” Thus, the green tide
was [made of] kerchiefs that did not say the name of the Campaign—
the Campaign did not exist. . . . And from then on it was the symbol.
It was not a decision of the color green of hope, green grass, green na-
ture, ecological green; there are many theories. But really . . . it was ar-
bitrary, I mean, “What color can we bring? Purple was the feminists,
yellow was papal, light blue and white was the flag, red were the leftist
groups. It had to be a color that was not immediately identified with
any group.9
Colors are important to the visual identification of ideological affiliations

and traditions of political struggle. As the Campaign grew, it carved out a
new activist color niche: green as the color of abortion rights. Not surpris-
ingly, green abounds in its online materials (and grew spectacularly on the
streets). Yet reminiscent of street scenes—where activists sometimes use
both the green kerchief and a purple item identified with feminism—the
Campaign’s website and blog reveal a subtle visual connection with feminism
through the color purple in titles.
The green kerchief is a political symbol that did not derive its importance
from a particular design feature that obviously connotes abortion but from
9
Amanda, interviewed for another project (Sutton and Borland 2019).

its repetitive use and the power of growing numbers of people using it to
form what activists call a marea verde (green tide). This marea verde is also
visually captured in compelling images of massive street demonstrations.
Furthermore, the green kerchief does not visually confront the conservative
camp with a sign that is evident outside its political context. It is worn on the
body, but it does not represent a particular body. It engages primarily in a
horizontal type of communication—an increasingly recognizable code sig-
naled by activists and supporters.
As the Campaign grows, it reveals its force through the kerchief ’s perva-
sive presence in all spaces in which activists intervene, including the online
environment. As a whole, many of the online pictures and part of the graph-
ics denote the collective, the massiveness of the movement. We see activists
protesting in the streets, occupying and intervening in the public space, talk-
ing to people, presenting their ideas, traveling to movement events, march-
ing behind green banners, and wearing the green kerchief. If these images
aim to engage the general public, they do so by showing a movement on the
rise that does not stop but persists and grows. Yet perhaps the key interloc-
utors to whom these pictures “talk” are activists themselves, providing in-
spiration and encouragement to push forward.
Feminist activist and media scholar Claudia Laudano (2012) calls for abor-
tion rights activists in Argentina to “continue with the strategy of disseminat-
ing images of women’s organizations’ collective actions in pursuit of a norm
in favor of women’s lives, to prevent deaths from clandestine abortions in
the country” (67). In a way, many of the Campaign’s website images—pri-
marily the photos—echo this advice. They provide abundant documentation
of the movement’s activities, often marked with the green kerchief and other
signs with the color green. While these images show the strength of the
movement, they do not necessarily engage with the more complicated ethical
and emotional dimensions of abortion as a practice with multiple meanings
for women. Still, in contrast to the erasure of women in antiabortion imagery,
Campaign visuals show women as active embodied and “willful subjects”
(Ahmed 2014), with desires and aspirations. The green kerchief, while just
a piece of cloth, has generative power in helping to grow a mass movement
and enlisting supporters for the abortion rights cause.
Lesbians and Feminists: The LGBT rainbow

Lesbians and Feminists for the Decriminalization of Abortion is smaller
than the Campaign, but as the first organization to open an abortion hotline
and disseminate accessible information on self-induced abortions, it had a
significant impact on abortion politics in Argentina. It also carved out a dif-
ferent discursive political niche at the intersection of feminist, lesbian, and

queer politics, and a consciousness of class inequality. Lesbians and Feminists

are not part of the Campaign and bring a different tone—partly conveyed
through visuals—reflecting their experience with the abortion hotline and
their political trajectories and identities: “The massive and direct contact
with women who have abortions every minute in these latitudes and the les-
bian and transgender experience of many of us were two central elements to
build this demedicalized, self-managed, and empowering discourse” about
abortion (Mines et al. 2013, 134).
Their message appears in two blogs, with information and images that
overlap. The visuals combine self-made images—especially flyers, posters,
and logos—with some photographs of political activities and demonstrations.
In the photos of marches, flags with slogans play an important role. They in-
clude phrases such as “legal abortion 5 social justice,” “abortion, more infor-
mation, less risk,” and “to ban abortion is gorila.” The latter hints at the po-
litical sympathies of the group, as gorila (literally, gorilla) is a pejorative term
used to refer to those who strongly oppose Peronism. A major political move-
ment, Peronism is associated with working-class and social justice demands.
It was led by former Argentine president Juan Domingo Perón (1946–55,
1973–74) and his second wife Eva Perón (known as Evita). As we shall see,
these associations are visually expressed through the figure of Evita and other
Peronist leaders. Yet despite visual representations suggesting Peronist lead-
ers’ support abortion rights, abortion law reform was not debated in Con-
gress during the more recent Peronist presidencies—Cristina Fernández de
Kirchner’s (2007–15) or her husband’s, the late Néstor Kirchner (2003–7).
The blogs also include pictures of other public figures, events such as pan-
els and meetings, and organizational literature that helps spread the message
of the organization and its hotline. Reports about the hotline include graphs
with data about the calls received, aggregate user information, and the price
of abortifacients. These materials challenge the secrecy and silence around
abortion, reaffirming the right to information and helping to destigmatize
the practice. Medical information about safe abortion is provided—including
references to the World Health Organization—but presented through an aes-
thetic that removes abortion from the medical milieu and places it into wom-
en’s hands. For example, the first edition of the abortion handbook’s cover has
a strident pink background, includes the rainbow colors, and is sprinkled with
pills with smiley faces (see fig. 2). Among other things, the juxtaposition of
pink (traditionally associated with femininity) and rainbow colors (associated
with LGBT pride) disrupts essentialized and heteronormative notions of
womanhood as maternal while delivering information about abortion.
The nonphotographic images show a do-it-yourself aesthetic. That is, they
are images seemingly produced with rudimentary tools or without the goal

Figure 2 Cover of the first edition of the book Todo lo que querés saber sobre cómo hacerse un
aborto con pastillas [Everything you want to know about how to perform an abortion with
pills]. Lesbianas y Feministas por la Descriminalización del Aborto [Lesbians and feminists
for the decriminalization of abortion], 2010. Reprinted with permission. A color version of this
figure is available online.

of a polished presentation. They seem more about conveying a disruptive

message than presenting a “serious” or “professional” visual style. It is a strat-
egy focused on the urgency of intervening and communicating with novel
messages through both form and content. A sense of humor, the unexpected,
and the irreverent are recurrent elements in these visual productions. A stri-
dent feel emerges through graphics with contrasting colors, the inclusion of
uneven and colorful text boxes, and text highlighted with bright colors.
The disruptive character of these images partly relates to their being signed
by a collective subject within the spectrum of dissident sexualities, namely, a
lesbian subject. Lesbians and Feminists place sexuality and abortion within
the same frame, contrasting with prevalent discourses that associate abortion
mostly with health, responsibility, and/or social justice. Additionally, refer-
ences to lesbian subjects shake normative notions, since abortion is often as-
sumed to be a concern only of heterosexual women. In the images analyzed,
a politics based on lesbian identity and visibility emerges strongly, but the fo-
cus is not solely on issues already considered of lesbian interest. More than a
discourse centered on lesbians’ experiences of abortion, Lesbians and Fem-
inists’ materials contest heteronormativity and contribute an approach to
abortion that encourages women to take bodily matters into their own
hands. They appropriate medical knowledge and technology for their own
ends (McReynolds-Pérez 2017), speaking of a “lesbian abortion that is done
by hand” (Mines et al. 2013, 133). Through their activism and visual pro-
ductions, Lesbians and Feminists have disseminated a nonstigmatizing per-
spective on both sexuality and abortion, decentering heterosexual cis women
in relation to abortion politics and practice.
Recurrent elements in this group’s images are the colors of the LGBT
pride flag. They appear in flyers, on the cover of the abortion handbook,
in the online headers, and in photographed protest flags. One could say that
these colors are the fulcrum that gives cohesion and identity to the organi-
zation’s visual production. As with the Campaign, the use of colors situates
this abortion rights organization within a broader activist arena, in this case
in connection to the national and international LGBT movement. Further-
more, the colors invoke political affects generally not linked to abortion:
“Far from the shame and guilt usually associated with abortion from the pa-
rameters of dominant morality, the colors of pride traffic a political affect
historically constructed by LGBT communities [this time] to reclaim abor-
tion, an aspect of sexual life that continues to be criminalized and considered
immoral” (Vacarezza 2018, 206). The invocation of pride works against the
stigmatization and criminalization of abortion. It attaches lively and joyful
colors to a practice that is represented as dark and sinister in antiabortion
images. Pride invites women and other subjects with the capacity to gestate

to appropriate abortion, to make it visible, and to decriminalize it in practice.

This emphasis on LGBT pride, now attached to abortion, had particular po-
litical significance around the first years of the hotline, as Argentina passed
a marriage equality law in 2010 and a gender identity law in 2012.
LGBT activism gained momentum during the Peronist administration of
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and the abortion rights movement was not
disconnected from these developments. Among the political and aesthetic
liberties of Lesbians and Feminists is a portrayal of Evita with the rainbow
colors as background, saying “it is your right” in implicit reference to abor-
tion. While Evita did not gain prominence for abortion rights or LGBT ad-
vocacy, she powerfully rallied the working class. The figure of Evita can then
speak to large sectors of the population, and in Lesbians and Feminists’ im-
agery, Evita seemingly supports both LGBT and abortion rights aspirations.
Thus, feminist, lesbian, and queer politics are visually depicted as part of
a social justice agenda with broader political resonance.
Socorristas: Pink sneakers

Socorristas en Red—Feministas que Abortamos (Network of first responders—
Feminists who abort) is a nationwide network of nearly thirty-five feminist
groups that provide information and accompaniment for abortion with phar-
maceuticals. While Socorristas are part of the Campaign, they have also devel-
oped specific political strategies and analyses based on their practice of ac-
companying women who have clandestine abortions and in the context of
the general meetings of the network. Although some Socorrista groups have
their own Facebook page and visual productions, Socorristas en Red has one
internet homepage. The website has data on abortion with pharmaceuticals,
contact information, political declarations of meetings with photographs of
activists, and infographics about their work. Images are important and care-
fully elaborated, but they do not abound. Pink canvas sneakers are the main
visual symbol in the website, appearing in the heading and in every step of a
tutorial on how to induce a safe abortion with medication.
While the public may not be privy to the exact origin of the symbol in
a context of illegality, pink sneakers have come to represent the organiza-
tion, conveying certain connotations regardless of their original meaning.
Pink sneakers appear in an assemblage: there are many sneakers, not one,
and not only one pair (see fig. 3). The image evokes a sense of collectivity.
This is an important political definition for Socorristas, since their accompa-
niment model is based on what they call the “collectivization of experience”
through face-to-face group meetings. Socorristas “generate collective strat-
egies, in which a situation punished by law . . . can be performed in a safe and
accompanied manner” (Burton 2017, 13–14). Against the criminalization

Figure 3 Banner of the website by Socorristas en Red—Feministas que abortamos (Network

of first responders—Feminists who abort), 2017. Reprinted with permission. A color version of
this figure is available online.
and stigma that isolate women, they propose an abortion approach based
on solidarity among women (Maffeo et al. 2015). Through their actions,
Socorristas foster an understanding of abortion not merely as a private and
individual choice but as a collective women’s right (Santarelli and Anzorena
2017). The pink sneakers communicate that there is a collective ready to walk
together with and provide speedy assistance to those who need an abortion.
Pink sneakers also convey the idea of movement, as they appear dynami-
cally displayed in different positions. After all, sneakers are comfortable shoes
that facilitate moving, walking, and running. As first responders, mobility is
key for Socorristas. They work with a sense of urgency because abortion is
a time-sensitive practice. Women need assistance promptly, and Socorristas
are prepared to run. These shoes contrast with other depictions and mean-
ings, such as the piles of shoes that symbolize those of victims of genocide
(e.g., in Holocaust museums) or the women who died in clandestine abor-
tion (e.g., in some artistic exhibits for abortion rights). The sneakers are
not shoes left out but are productive and dynamic shoes that are very much
“alive.”
Still, sneakers do not represent a body. This symbol does not include an
image of who wears the sneakers or who the Socorristas are. Not representing
a particular body can be a way of maintaining anonymity. But a more power-
ful meaning emerges, too: given the extended use of sneakers, this footwear
symbolizes Socorrismo as a practice that can be picked up by many, if not
anyone. Yet while canvas sneakers are pervasive, they are mostly associated
with youth culture. This symbol might then be indicative of the generational
slant of an organization mainly formed by young women from very different
social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Through the sneakers, Socor-
ristas are taking a position in the abortion debate as a new and young voice.
Finally, the pink color of the sneakers identifies Socorristas en Red as an
organization that developed Socorros Rosas (“pink” first-responder groups
to accompany abortions). They usually wear pink wigs at demonstrations

and use this color in their printed material. Though at first glance this fits
with various organizations’ modes of visually representing “the feminine”
in social media—which sometimes includes stereotypical characteristics such
as long hair, skirts, and the color pink (Rovetto and Camusso 2014)—the
way Socorristas use some of these strategies is irreverent. They play with
the ideal of femininity represented by the color pink. For instance, in public
demonstrations, the shiny and strident pink wigs used by Socorristas both
call attention to the group and parody versions of dainty femininity. In a
book about abortion experiences with Socorristas, Dahiana Belfiori (2015)
resignifies the pink traditionally associated with femininity, noting that the
Socorristas use “a strong pink, intense, full of life and passion. ‘La vida en
rosa’ [La vie en rose/Life in pink] of these times is the one that we write
based on the resistance and rebellion of our bodies, which now decide to
come into being for themselves” (17).
Illicit regimes, the dead woman, and emerging notions

of safe abortion
The symbols discussed above are part of a broader visual repertoire. Less fre-
quently, abortion rights activists in Argentina and elsewhere sometimes vi-
sually “respond to the visual misery of abortion foes with a different kind
of misery” (Shrage 2002, 88). For instance, in the Campaign’s imagery the
specter of the dead woman appears occasionally in pictures of inert bare feet
with hanging labels, mimicking the feet of dead bodies in the morgue. These
pictures represent the casualties of illicit abortion: women die. With a more
indirect strategy, Lesbians and Feminists also visually point to the risks to life
and health that illegal abortion creates. This idea is elaborated in two images:
one has knitting needles with the red “forbidden” sign on top, and another
depicts a few sprigs of parsley also crossed with the “forbidden” symbol.10
These images also became stickers and appear in the header of one of the
blogs and in the 2010 activity report of the organization.11 In addition to
the warning against dangerous abortion procedures, these images also con-
vey “a position that favors free abortion and the offering of alternatives to per-
form it safely. This is why the [blog header] directly addresses a hypothetical
[‘you’], affirms that abortion is ‘your decision,’ and invites one to be in-
formed by calling a telephone number through which knowledge about safe
10
Parsley symbolizes a dangerous folk abortion practice in Argentina consisting of the in-
sertion of the herb through the cervix to provoke an abortion.
11
See http://informacionaborto.blogspot.com/.

abortion with medications is disseminated” (Vacarezza 2018, 203). Lesbians

and Feminists, and later Socorristas, developed a notion of safe abortion that
does not depend on medical facilities or professional expertise but rather is
contingent on access to a technology (medication) and information on
how to use it. In this model, access to abortion is mediated by the solidarity
of women, lesbians, and feminists, who carve out spaces of safe and self-
managed abortion even in the context of illegality. One illustration in the
Lesbians and Feminists sites depicts a rainbow-colored net catching an indi-
vidual who is falling. The net says “safe abortions” and covers a large hole on
the ground with the label “dangerous abortion.”
In Argentina, Lesbians and Feminists helped popularize abortion with
misoprostol. This medication is referenced in various flyers and is visually de-
picted on the cover of the handbook, in the form of smiley pills. This is an
irreverent appropriation of “serious” medical technologies as well as an im-
plicit critique of abortion discourse that focuses on suffering and the risk of
death: “The pills’ smile promises something that was hard to imagine until
very recently: a happy abortion. These pills, humanized by the smiling face,
predict that they will be good companions and that contact with them will be
beneficial because they present abortion as something ‘easy,’ ‘safe’ and ‘inex-
pensive’” (Vacarezza 2018, 206). Through words and visuals, pronounce-
ments for abortion rights that do not necessarily, or only, depend on legali-
zation begin to appear.
In the case of the Campaign, the main solution proposed to the risks of
clandestine abortion has been the decriminalization and legalization of the
practice. This is also captured by the “legal abortion to prevent death” clause
in the Campaign’s slogan. Yet Campaign members also realized that many
women are risking their lives and health now, that they cannot wait for the
long haul of legalization to end the time-sensitive embodied process that
is unwanted pregnancy. The recognition of women’s needs in the meantime
prompted the emergence of Socorristas from within the Campaign while
also building on and extending the strategy of Lesbians and Feminists. The
image of pink sneakers, with their connotation of movement, aptly evokes
the running around that Socorristas do in their effort to assist women who
need to undergo abortions. These dynamic sneakers may literally save lives,
yet the image avoids any death-related connotation.
As the abortion rights movement gained social and political ground and
as activists acquired more experience with abortion accompaniments, sec-
tors of the movement consider the possibility that their service may not just
be needed in the meantime. Indeed, some people will always be excluded
from the protection of the state, and there is something empowering in
the bonds of solidarity and agency generated in these feminist spaces. This

resonates with how Gleeson (2011) recounts the legalization of abortion

in Australia, which was not devoid of problems: “The relocation of this pri-
vate female activity in the public patriarchal arena of medical authority has
also shifted the moral agency of the decision-making process about life and
not-life, birth and not-birth, to one of medical necessity, or more likely, med-
ical permission. It has neutralized women’s perceived and actualized individ-
ual power in this existential realm” (527).
This is relevant in relation to the specter of the dead woman and to some
critical debates among activists in Argentina. There are potentially contrast-
ing viewpoints between those who advocate for legal and medicalized abor-
tion with the motto “legal abortion at the hospital” and those who partici-
pate in collective actions for abortion access outside the hospital, even as
they also support legalization. Campaign leaders commonly insist on the im-
portance of legal abortion and its availability in the public health system. On
the other side, Socorristas and Lesbians and Feminists have focused on abor-
tion access, developing a model of abortion with pharmaceuticals but not
necessarily with doctors. Socorristas call themselves aborteras (abortionists),
appropriating a stigmatized label. Their approach to self-managed abortion
is based on solidarity among women, with community health components.
This model and political perspective on abortion is in dialogue with wider
networks of women’s and feminist groups in Latin America, and it shifts
the focus from danger and death to a kind of autonomy in community
and solidarity.
Abortion, human rights, democracy, and citizenship

One distinctive aspect of abortion rights visual and textual frames in Argen-
tina is the salience of human rights, democracy, and citizenship themes. These
elements appear in the visual media analyzed. Although only the Campaign
has legislation change as a main political goal, Socorristas and Lesbians and
Feminists also deploy visuals that connect abortion with democratic demands
and postdictatorship political agendas in Argentina. In our view, these images
show to what extent abortion rights struggles became intertwined with the
reconstruction and strengthening of democratic life in Argentina and in other
Latin American countries that underwent authoritarian governments.
In addition to the Campaign’s kerchief, which aligns with the Mothers of
the Plaza de Mayo as a key human rights organization promoting democracy,
the green voting hand symbol stands out in Campaign visuals. This symbol
has the motto “I vote for legal abortion” and appears consistently in the Cam-
paign blog, documents, flyers, and pictures showing demonstrators carry-
ing placards of the voting hand. This symbol does not appear as frequently as

the green kerchief, but it is interesting since it is reminiscent of an analogous

orange symbol used by abortion rights organizations in Uruguay, where
abortion was legalized in 2012. The voting hand is likely borrowed from
Uruguay, and it emerged in recent struggles for abortion rights in Chile,
too. Its acceptance in different political contexts underscores the importance
of the right to vote in postdictatorship democracies. Additionally, it points to
the rise—in democratic times—of renewed political agendas for women’s hu-
man rights and sexual citizenship in the region.
In recent years, scholars have analyzed the use of human rights discourse
in abortion rights activism in Argentina (Gudiño Bessone 2012; Sutton and
Borland 2013; Morgan 2015) and, especially, in the Campaign (Sutton and
Borland 2019). At a visual level, the green kerchief symbolizes the overlaps
between the human rights movement and abortion rights struggles. A Cam-
paign slogan, “Legal Abortion, a Debt of Democracy,” can be interpreted in
the same vein: “In a country that experienced a dictatorial state that applied a
brutal hand to repress, censor, torture, and kill its own citizens, abortion
rights activists are now saying that the democratic state needs not only to re-
frain from illegitimate violence but should also recognize, enable, and guar-
antee women’s human rights, broadly defined. In that sense, the Campaign
has asserted that the legalization of abortion is a ‘debt of democracy’ ” (Sut-
ton and Borland 2019, 37).
Lesbians and Feminists belong to an activist generation that came of age
during the postdictatorship and is committed to amplifying human rights
struggles. One of their online pictures shows the national Congress building
and a poster that says “Unsafe Abortion Never Again.” The phrase “Never
Again” (Nunca Más) appears in the same typography and color as the report
Nunca Más, published in 1984 by the National Commission on the Disap-
pearance of Persons (Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas,
CONADEP). This emblematic report documented the disappearances and
other human rights violations during the dictatorship. Thus, the poster by
Lesbians and Feminists adopts a prominent symbol of the early human rights
movement in Argentina and connects it with democratic struggles for abor-
tion rights. It associates unsafe abortion with state crimes and points to state
responsibilities for the consequences of clandestine abortion. “Never again”
is a clamor for justice and an adamant rejection of an opprobrious time of
massive human rights violations. In different images, Lesbians and Feminists
incorporate symbols of human rights movements into the discourse of abor-
tion rights, including the images of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. This
kind of imagery confirms that there has been an expansion of the under-
standing of human rights in Argentina from meanings mainly associated
with political prisoners under an authoritarian regime (typically imagined

as male, except for pregnant women) to those that apply more broadly in de-
mocracy (Sutton and Borland 2019).
Democratic life is partly about the rule of law. Legal change has been a
crucial issue for abortion rights activism, especially for the Campaign. From
2007 to 2018, the Campaign introduced an abortion decriminalization and
legalization bill to the Argentine National Congress seven times. Given the
importance of the legislative branch for their activism, it makes sense that im-
ages of the Congress building appear as background in various Campaign
flyers, as well pictures of demonstrations in front of Congress and pictures
of events inside the building. The repetitive use of the image of Congress
points to the political relevance of legal change for the Campaign.
While Lesbians and Feminists have not focused on legalization as their
main political objective, images of Congress appear in two flyers illustrating
different kinds of demonstrations near the building, transmitting a sense of
optimistic proximity to it. At the time the flyers were published, Cristina Fer-
nández de Kirchner was president and had a strong influence on Congress.
Therefore—given the Peronist political sympathies evidenced in the materials
by Lesbians and Feminists—it is not surprising that the flyers express en-
thusiasm about the prospects for legalizing abortion. The organization’s dis-
tinctive visual discourse uses political imagery associated with Peronism and is
the only of the three organizations to incorporate partisan symbols.
Socorristas is the organization with less imagery related to human rights,
democracy, and citizenship. Their activism focuses on abortion access, yet
they are part of the Campaign and their website’s pictures include some images
of activists wearing the green kerchief. Two Socorristas posters provide infor-
mation about situations when abortion is permitted in Argentina: when preg-
nancy results from rape or when it poses a risk to women’s life or health. Both
posters have bright colors and directly address women who might be in such
circumstances: “You have the right to a legal abortion in the hospital.” Both
posters also specify the obligations of medical practitioners. These posters
might not be about legal change, but they publicize that some abortions are
already permitted in Argentina. Thus, these posters, as well as other visual ref-
erences to governmental institutions by the three organizations, point to a
very important aspect of legal rights in any democracy: the effective access
to those rights by the community, and their respect by public officials and
institutions.
Conclusion
Through persistent activism, the movement for abortion rights in Argentina
has developed powerful symbols of struggle as well as a compelling visual

repertoire to convey its claims. These visuals communicate emerging no-

tions of safe abortion, sidestep or confront the antiabortion camp, and help
articulate broader democratic agendas that include sexual and reproductive
rights as part of expansive human rights.
None of the three main symbols analyzed—green kerchiefs, LGBT rain-
bows, and pink sneakers—obviously evokes the practice of abortion (its
objects, spaces, or subjects). Still, in different ways, these symbols advance
abortion legalization, decriminalization, and access as a publicly relevant
political cause. Both the green kerchief of the Campaign and the rainbow
colors used by Lesbians and Feminists engage in more or less explicit dia-
logue with previous struggles (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the LGBT
movement). They draw on symbols that are historically thick with meaning,
situating the abortion rights cause within a wider field of social struggles and
democratic political agendas in Argentina. The Socorristas’ pink sneakers,
on the other hand, do not have an explicit connection with other political
traditions in Argentina. What they do is politically reclaim the color pink—
which is culturally associated with normative femininity—for a cause that
precisely contradicts the norm that links femininity to maternity. When in-
terpreted in a parodic key, the use of the color pink by Socorristas, but also
by Lesbians and Feminists, appears as an appropriation and a disruption of
feminine mandates.
None of the three main symbols directly engages the visual repertoires
of antiabortion groups. Yet by avoiding or limiting visual meaning that
might be interpreted as stigmatizing or victimizing, the organizations we fo-
cused on take a path that is diametrically opposed to the one followed by
conservative organizations. Specifically, the colors of LGBT pride displayed
by Lesbians and Feminists advance openly destigmatizing meanings. The
green kerchief is also worn with pride by more and more people as support
for abortion rights broadens. And the pink sneakers do not stop in the face
of criminalization but boldly defy prohibition. Particularly in the lead-up to
the vote to legalize abortion in 2018, the visibility of the green kerchief grew
exponentially as the symbol was worn in the streets by people from all walks
of life. While wearing the kerchief does not imply that the user had an abor-
tion, it entails showing the stigma on the body and assuming an embodied,
public, and political position about the issue. This has sometimes resulted in
aggression, but it has also enabled widespread identification and solidarity.
Wearing the symbol contributes to breaking the silence and destigmatizing
the practice of abortion.
Finally, neither kerchiefs, sneakers, nor rainbows refer directly to people
in abortion situations, their bodies, or their experiences. Yet this does not
mean that the political cause of the organizations is far away from the social

experience of abortion or from the needs of people who undergo abortions—

the opposite is true. Also, while none of the symbols represent the body,
both the pink sneakers and the green kerchiefs are objects to be worn on
the body, and the LGBT rainbow evokes the body through its celebration
of diverse bodies in relation to gender and sexuality. Through these sym-
bols, then, the abortion rights cause resists identification with one particular
body and remains open to those who would like to adopt it or share it.
These symbols, along with other images in the movement repertoire, vi-
sually synthesize and translate dimensions of abortion struggles into political
claims, drawing on local political histories while also connecting with trans-
national activist legacies and strategies. As the movement grew in strength
and numbers in 2018, the color green became its most distinctive and ubiq-
uitous marker. The green kerchief also traveled across borders as activists
enlisted international solidarity for abortion legalization. Depictions of the
green kerchief, along with other images, have circulated prolifically in social
media. While this media field is beyond the scope of this work, it offers a fer-
tile ground for future feminist studies on abortion rights activism. At a time
when many political struggles play out through images, it is imperative to un-
derstand how activists can effectively use them to advance social justice goals.
Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

University at Albany, State University of New York (Sutton)
Gino Germani Research Institute

University of Buenos Aires (Vacarezza)
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Abortion Rights in Images Visual Interventions by Activist Organizations in Argentina

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Barbara Sutton

Abortion Rights in Images: Visual Interventions

P olitics is about power, contestation, and negotiation. Political discourse

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

to democracy in 1983. Later on, in the context of a grave economic and

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Visual production, social movements, and abortion politics

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

countermovement; for example, to offset the emotional impact of antiabor-

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

optimistic happiness associated with it (Vacarezza 2017). Lieta Vivaldi and

Analyzing abortion rights images in Argentina

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Green kerchiefs, LGBT rainbows, and pink sneakers

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

LGBT rainbows (Lesbians and Feminists), and pink sneakers (Socorristas).

The Campaign: The green kerchief

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Colors are important to the visual identiﬁcation of ideological afﬁliations

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Lesbians and Feminists: The LGBT rainbow

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

queer politics, and a consciousness of class inequality. Lesbians and Feminists

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

of a polished presentation. They seem more about conveying a disruptive

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

to appropriate abortion, to make it visible, and to decriminalize it in practice.

Socorristas: Pink sneakers

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Figure 3 Banner of the website by Socorristas en Red—Feministas que abortamos (Network

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Illicit regimes, the dead woman, and emerging notions

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abortion with medications is disseminated” (Vacarezza 2018, 203). Lesbians

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

resonates with how Gleeson (2011) recounts the legalization of abortion

Abortion, human rights, democracy, and citizenship

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

the green kerchief, but it is interesting since it is reminiscent of an analogous

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

repertoire to convey its claims. These visuals communicate emerging no-

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

experience of abortion or from the needs of people who undergo abortions—

Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Gino Germani Research Institute

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2020.45:731-757.

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