Transnational Anti-Rights Networks: Mobilization Against Euthanasia in Spain and Latin America

Joseba García Martín & Ignacia Perugorría

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7440/res94.2025.09

This study seeks to contribute to the literature on far-right social movements by focusing on a relatively underexplored yet internationally influential actor in the production of positions and discourses opposing moral policies—ranging from divorce and abortion to assisted reproduction and the rights of LGBTIQ+ communities. To this end, it analyzes the transnational anti-rights networks established between secular organizations of Catholic inspiration and neoconservative ideology (OLIC-N) in Spain and Latin America. The analysis focuses on anti-euthanasia mobilization, a practice legalized in 15 of 195 countries, including Spain, Colombia, and Ecuador. Despite broad public support, euthanasia remains subject to a clear “political blockage” worldwide; its legalization therefore constitutes the “new frontier” to be conquered by progressive governments and organizations advocating for a dignified death.

Drawing on a theoretical framework that combines insights from the sociology of religion and social movement studies, and based on a multi-method qualitative research design integrating netnographic and secondary data analysis, the article examines the anti-euthanasia repertoires and interpretive frames of moderate and radical Spanish OLIC-N; the roles played by religious and political anti-rights organizations in opposition to Spain’s Euthanasia Law; and the diffusion and reappropriation of behavioral and ideational elements by OLIC-N in Latin America, where social and parliamentary debates around the legalization of this practice are beginning to emerge. This study is the first to analyze transnational anti-rights networks and provides empirical evidence of their configuration, as well as of their capacity for strategic adaptation across diverse yet interconnected sociopolitical contexts.

Keywords | anti-rights field; euthanasia; far right; social movements; neoconservatism; moral policies