Facing the gains achieved by feminist and LGBTI movements in Latin America, an activism opposed to sexual and reproductive rights (SRR) has emerged.

‘Gender ideology’ discourse has been one of the most recurrent strategies of neo-conservative activism at a global level. Through this syntagma, a variety of moral panics have been mobilized against feminist agendas and LGBTI rights, accusing them of promoting the destruction of natural order, the spread of Marxism and global conspiracy. The academic literature has highlighted that the genesis of this strategic discourse was an intellectual production in the mid-1990s; we can trace back texts written in conjunction by secular neo-conservative intellectuals in the United States and members of the Catholic hierarchy. However, the tendency has been to ignore the strong intellectual production that neo-conservative activists developed at that time in Argentina, particularly in Córdoba and Buenos Aires, which helped to lay the foundations of the present ‘gender ideology’ discourse. The intention of this work is to draw attention to that local production and its connection with the ideas that were being developed in parallel in the global North. In order to do this, the article analyzes a series of texts produced by neo-conservatives in Argentina in the 1990s.

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Resumen: El artículo analiza los disímiles usos políticos con que se moviliza el discurso de defensa de la vida en Latinoamérica, considerando las particularidades que cobró esta bandera de lucha desde la demanda de protección de la vida esgrimida por los movimientos de derechos humanos surgidos de finales del siglo XX, y los procesos de biopolitización de la vida. Particularmente, se analizan tres casos que muestran cómo la vida moviliza agendas disímiles y hasta contrapuestas: la defensa del aborto legal sostenida por los feminismos para evitar la muerte de mujeres; la defensa de la vida desde la concepción sostenida por la jerarquía católica; y la defensa de la vida humana y del planeta, movilizada por grupos socioambientales. Así, pese al creciente consenso logrado por la expansión de los derechos humanos respecto de la necesidad de proteger la vida, se muestra cómo ésta, lejos de ser neutral, es un significante políticamente disputado.Palabras clave: vida, derechos, movimientos sociales, América Latina.Abstract: This article analyzes the many ways in which the "defense of life" discourse has been mobilized for differing political uses in Latin America, considering the meanings ascribed to this banner of struggle from the demand for protection of life advocated by the human rights movements of the late twentieth century, to processes surrounding the biopoliticization of life. In particular, we analyze three cases that show how life mobilizes different and even conflicting agendas: the defense of legal abortion advocated by feminist movements to prevent the death of women; the defense of life from conception advocated by the Catholic hierarchy; and the defense of human life and the planet, mobilized by socioenvironmental groups. Despite the growing consensus reached by the expansion of human rights regarding the need to protect life, the article shows how -far from being neutral-life is a politically disputed signifier.