Reparation, rights, and dissidence: a qualitative study of feminist advocacy for legal, safe, and free abortion in Ecuador.

This article investigates the political practices related to abortion in Ecuador from their politicisation in 2006 until 2023, two years after the decriminalisation of abortion in all rape cases. We identify: (1) the discursive and embodied practices that construct and politicise the aborting body within feminist advocacy for legal, safe, and free abortion in Ecuador; (2) the effects of these practices; and (3) feminist challenges to conservative discourses that, in some cases, appropriate their rhetorical strategies. Based on participant observations of feminist demonstrations and the analysis of texts produced by Ecuadorian feminist organisations, we trace three "tactical strategies" (using Lugones' conceptualisation) that introduce different configurations of the body and propose different effects: (1) abortion as reparation, along with the notion of the victim body; (2) abortion as a right, along with the citizen body; and (3) abortion as dissidence, along with the configuration of the sovereign body. These tactical strategies need to be understood within the broader political context and evolving anti-choice forces. The coexistence of different strategies can lead to both complementary effects and friction.