Claiming Rosa Parks: conservative Catholic bids for ‘rights’ in contemporary Latin America

Abstract

When the Rosa Parks Prize was awarded to a conservative Argentine senator in 2009 for her outspoken opposition to contraception, sterilisation and abortion, it was clear that something odd was happening. This paper documents the appropriation of ‘human rights’ discourses by conservative Catholics in Latin America, where the recent success of reproductive and sexual rights social movements has generated a significant backlash. It specifically traces an effort by Catholic legal scholars to justify what they term ‘a distinctively Latin American approach to human rights’ while ignoring decades of human rights activism by others. Opponents of reproductive and sexual rights are deploying rights-talk selectively and strategically, it is argued, using this as secular cover to advance pro-life and pro-family policies.

Resultaba evidente que sucedía algo extraño cuando, en 2009, una senadora conservadora de Argentina recibió el premio Rosa Parks en honor a su ferviente oposición a los anticonceptivos, a la esterilización y al aborto. El presente artículo documenta la apropiación de los discursos de “derechos humanos” por parte de los católicos conservadores de América Latina, lugar en que se han generado importantes reacciones contrarias a los recientes avances de los movimientos en pro de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos. Asimismo, el artículo examina el esfuerzo que han emprendido académicos jurídicos católicos para justificar lo que llaman “un enfoque de derechos humanos distintivamente latinoamericano”, a la vez que pasan por alto décadas de activismo realizado por otros grupos en el ámbito de los derechos humanos. Los autores sostienen que los opositores a los derechos sexuales y reproductivos emplean selectiva y estratégicamente el discurso de derechos humanos, utilizándolo como una fachada laica para impulsar políticas en contra del aborto y a favor de las familias tradicionales.

Lorsqu'en 2009, le prix Rosa Parks a été attribué à un sénateur conservateur argentin pour son opposition à la contraception, la stérilisation et l'avortement, il est apparu clairement que l'on assistait à quelque chose d'étrange. Cet article met en évidence l'appropriation du discours sur les « droits humains » par les conservateurs catholiques en Amérique Latine, où le succès récent des mouvements de défense des droits reproductifs et sexuels a suscité des réactions négatives. Il examine spécifiquement la campagne de justification, menée par des universitaires catholiques, de ce qu'ils appellent une « approche distinctement latino-américaine des droits humains », en ignorant les décennies de militantisme en faveur des droits humains. Nous soutenons que les opposants aux droits reproductifs et sexuels déploient un discours sur les droits de manière sélective et stratégique, et l'emploient en tant que couverture laïque pour faire progresser des politiques pro-vie et pro-famille.

Keywords::

• Latin America
• human rights
• reproductive and sexual rights
• Catholic conservatives

Acknowledgements

Support was provided by a Weatherhead Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research and by Mount Holyoke College. For assistance with research in Argentina, I would like to thank Monica Gogna and Mariana Carbajal. For their constructive questions and suggestions, I would like to thank Liz Roberts and the audience at the School for Advanced Research, and James Brooks, Charles Briggs, Clara Mantini-Briggs, Sherry Farrell Racette, Chris Teuton, James Trostle and Juan Marco Vaggione. All translations from the Spanish are my own.

Notes

^1. The Argentine Rosa Parks Prize is bestowed annually since 2006 by the non-sectarian NGO, Defenders of Human Life (Defensoría de la Vida Humana). The prize was previously awarded to three judges from the Supreme Judicial Court of Buenos Aires, who voted to deny a legal abortion to a developmentally disabled woman pregnant as a result of rape, and to the Uruguayan ex-President Tabaré Vázquez after he vetoed a 2008 law legalising abortion (Morán Faúndes 2013, 96).

^2. Latin American sexual and reproductive rights activists refer to the ‘Catholic hierarchy’ rather than the ‘Catholic Church’ to indicate that Church policies do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the faithful.

^3. The 630-page proceedings can be found at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ pontifical_academies/acdscien/2010/acta_15_pass.pdf (accessed 14 April 2010).

^4. Exceptions include Bonnie Shepard, a former Ford Foundation program officer, who observed that conservative groups in Latin America have begun to use ‘the discourse of human rights, citing the fetus' right to life, or the parents' right to control the education of their adolescent children’ (Shepard 2006, 29). Argentine sociologists Vaggione et al. (2005, 2009) trace the Catholic Church's ‘reactive politicization’ and strategic appropriation of secular concepts. Peruvian anthropologist Jaris Mujica analyses neoconservative ideologies and social movements manifested through the micropolitics of gendered bodies (Mujica 2007).

^5. The principles of human dignity and the universal right to life have become so widespread that analysts from across the political spectrum fear rights-talk has become meaningless (see Ferreira 2008; Glendon 1993; Wellman 1999).

^6. Here I paraphrase Oaks 2009, 183.

^7. Walsh, Møllman, and Heimburger (2008) cite a 1981 ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: ‘[I]t is important to note that the conferees in Bogotá in 1948 rejected language which would have extended that right to the unborn … [and] … adopted a simple statement on the right to life, without reference to the unborn, and linked it to the liberty and security of the person. Thus it would appear incorrect to read the Declaration as incorporating the notion that the right to life exists from the moment of conception. The conferees faced this question and chose not to adopt language which would clearly have stated that principle’ (31).

^8. Glendon and Carozza argue, against those who have claimed otherwise, that Hernán Santa Cruz was not a socialist. If they were going to ‘retrieve’ Santa Cruz to serve their cause, then an anti-Marxist Pope would need to be convinced that he was a worthy representative. Interestingly, Glendon and Carozza reclaim only some of Santa Cruz's positions, while rejecting others (Oaks 2009, 194).

^9.http://vatican.usembassy.gov/events/2008/LatinAmericanVatican/default.asp (accessed 13 March 2010).

^10. Thanks to James Brooks for suggesting Padre Hidalgo.

^11. On Latin American historicity, see Estévez (2008b) and Rodríguez-Salgado (2009).