Can reproductive rights be ‘human’ rights? Some thoughts on the inclusion of women's rights in mainstream human rights discourse

2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-56
Author(s):  
Christine Bateup
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

scholarly journals Teaching “Islam and Human Rights” in the Classroom

2012 ◽  
Vol 45 (01) ◽  
pp. 101-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fait A. Muedini
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Media ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

AbstractThis article discusses my approach to teaching a course on Islam and human rights. I begin by examining the attention Islam has received in the media and classroom. Then, I discuss how I structure lectures on Islam and human rights, the various readings associated with the lectures, as well as common themes discussed in class that include but are not limited to Islamic law, women's rights, and minority rights. From there, I discuss a range of different approaches to the Islam and human rights discourse. I then describe how I test the students' knowledge of the material.

scholarly journals Lost Opportunity

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gareth A. Jones ◽  
Sarah Thomas de Benítez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Space ◽  
Child Trafficking ◽  
Child Rights ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Lost Opportunity

This paper provides a close analysis of a scandal that broke in Mexico following publication of a book that accused businessmen and politicians of involvement in child trafficking and paedophilia. The book’s author, Lydia Cacho, was abducted, imprisoned, threatened with violence and charged with defamation. As further evidence of complicity in the protection of paedophile rings surfaced, a firestorm of public anger and media scrutiny focussed on the plight of Cacho and key political figures including a state governor. A rare political space was thus opened for a debate on child rights. Yet it was a space that csos and child rights networks failed to exploit. This paper examines how child rights discourse had limited salience in circumstances where csos were compromised, uncommitted and disunited. Developing the concept of a ‘rights effect’, we argue that advocacy for child rights must not assume a natural fellowship with discourses of human rights generally, or with women’s rights, press freedoms and rule of law.

scholarly journals Secretary of State Establishes Commission on Unalienable Rights

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 842-844
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
International Human ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

On July 8, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo established a Commission on Unalienable Rights. The Commission will “provide the Secretary of State advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters … [and] provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights.” The Commission has an initial two-year mandate. Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that the Commission will circumvent existing structures and challenge LGBTQ+ protections and reproductive rights.

From feminist extravagance to citizen demand: the movement for abortion legalisation in Uruguay

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inés M Pousadela
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Social Consensus ◽  
Multiple Strategies ◽  
Sexual And Reproductive Rights

This chapter illustrates the crucial, decades-long contribution of Uruguayan women’s organisations to the emancipation of women. It does so by analysing the political process leading to the recent legalisation of abortion in Uruguay, as well as the multiple strategies resorted to by the women’s movement to create a social consensus around women’s rights – and sexual and reproductive rights in specific – as integral to human rights. The story of the struggle for the legalisation of abortion in Uruguay also demonstrates the fragility of rights; as Uruguayan women’s organisations have learned the hard way, rights should never be taken for granted. Steps backwards are always possible and emancipation is never complete; further action will always be required to secure rights, as well as to advance new generations of rights.

Family Planning and Reproductive Rights in Chile

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Family Planning ◽  
Maternal Mortality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Planned Parenthood ◽  
Family Planning Programs ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Right

The official histories of family planning and reproductive rights in Chile started in the 1960s, with initiatives by Chilean doctors to reduce maternal mortality due to self-induced abortions; Chilean women’s mobilization for rights surged in the 1970s, and the concept of reproductive rights became the focus within health policy debates only by the 1990s. Specific Chilean political developments shaped these trajectories, as did global paradigm changes, including the politicization of fertility regulation as a subject of the Cold War. These same trajectories also generated new understandings of reproductive rights and women’s rights. The goals of preventing abortions and maternal mortality, of controlling population size, and of protecting families all contributed to the public endorsement of family planning programs in the 1960s. Medical doctors and health officials in Chile collaborated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and founded the first Chilean family planning institution, the Association for the Protection of the Family (APROFA). Since 1965, APROFA, affiliated with the IPPF, has remained the primary institution that makes family planning available to Chilean women and couples. The concept of “reproductive rights” is relatively new, globally, and in its specific national representation in Chile; questions of women’s rights gained unprecedented international prominence after the United Nation’s designation of the International Women’s Year (IWY) in 1975. International conferences, and the extension of IWY to a Decade for Women between 1975 and 1985, stimulated debates about policy norms that linked human rights, women’s rights, and the right to health to nascent definitions of reproductive rights. Just as international gatherings provided platforms for debates about rights, unparalleled human rights violations under military rule (1973–1990) interrupted the lives of Chilean citizens. Women in Chile protested the dictatorship, mobilized for democracy in their country and their homes, and added reproductive rights to the list of demands for democratic restructuring after the end of dictatorship. While family planning programs largely survived the changes of political leadership in Chile, the dictatorship dealt a lasting blow to quests for reproductive rights. The military’s re-drafted Constitution of 1980 not only compromised effective political re-democratization, but also imposed such changes as the end of therapeutic abortions, which have remained at the center of political activism against reproductive rights violations in the 21st century.

scholarly journals PERAN KELUARGA DALAM TRADISI SUNAT PEREMPUAN DI DESA KUNTU KABUPATEN KAMPAR PROVINSI RIAU (Analisis Gender sebagai Ketimpangan HAM dalam Praktik Sunat Perempuan)

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21
Author(s):  
Hikmalisa Hikmalisa
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
Female Circumcision ◽  
Young Age ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Safe Haven ◽  
Family Unit ◽  
The Family

A family are those people who play important parts in our loves. It is however, unfortunate, that due to ignorance or extreme cultures embedded, that harmful acts are imposed, in contravention to human rights and female reproductive rights. Among these practices are female circumcision, usually done at a young age (often toddlers) by cutting off the clitoris, based on religious or tradition, in order to “prevent” women becomingpromiscuous. This practice is still widespread in many areas including Kuntu, Kampar Regency, Riau Province. Carried out under the belief “adat basondi syara’, syra’ basondi kitabullah”, to be a muslim and a woman who is faithful to traditions and religion, they must be circumcised. Even when faced with the fact female circumcision is highly dangerous and is a aberration of women’s rights, many continue to engage in the practice. The family unit is a key part of this practice, as young women are under the control of their parents, which should have been a safe haven, perverted due to extreme taqlid. Consciously or not, this results in the deprivation the rights of women, who are yet to be aware of their very rights.

scholarly journals Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules: Women’s Rights or "Fetal Rights"?

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Wahlström
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Reproductive Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Rights Issues ◽  
Fetal Rights

While hotly debated in political contexts, abortion has seldom figured in explicit terms in either literature or film in the United States. An exception is John Irving’s 1985 novel The Cider House Rules, which treats abortion insistently and explicitly. Although soon thirty years old, The Cider House Rules still functions as an important voice in the ongoing discussion about reproductive rights, responsibilities, and politics. Irving represents abortion as primarily a women’s health issue and a political issue, but also stresses the power and responsibility of men in abortion policy and debate. The novel rejects a “prolife” stance in favor of a women’s rights perspective, and clearly illustrates that abortion does not preclude or negate motherhood. This article discusses Irving’s novel in order to address abortion as a political issue, the gender politics of fictional representations of abortion, and the uses of such representations in critical practice. A brief introduction to the abortion issue in American cultural representation and in recent US history offers context to the abortion issue in Irving’s novel. The analysis focuses on abortion as it figures in the novel, and on how abortion figures in the criticism of the novel that explicitly focuses on this issue. The article argues that twentyfirst century criticism of Irving’s text, by feminist scholars as well as explicitly anti-feminist pro-life advocates, demonstrate the pervasive influence of antiabortion discourses illustrates, since these readings of Irving’s novel include, or reactively respond to, the fetal rights discourse and the “awfulization of abortion.” The article further proposes that the novel’s representations of reproductive rights issues – especially abortion – are still relevant today, and that critical readings of fictional and nonfictional representations of reproductive rights issues are central to feminist poli-tics.

Housing as a Basic Human Right: A Reflection on South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mziwandile Sobantu ◽  
Nqobile Zulu ◽  
Ntandoyenkosi Maphosa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Development ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Human Rights Discourse

This paper reflects on human rights in the post-apartheid South Africa housing context from a social development lens. The Constitution guarantees access to adequate housing as a basic human right, a prerequisite for the optimum development of individuals, families and communities. Without the other related socio-economic rights, the provision of access to housing is limited in its service delivery. We argue that housing rights are inseparable from the broader human rights discourse and social development endeavours underway in the country. While government has made much progress through the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the reality of informal settlements and backyard shacks continues to undermine the human rights prospects of the urban poor. Forced evictions undermine some poor citizens’ human rights leading courts to play an active role in enforcing housing and human rights through establishing a jurisprudence that invariably advances a social development agenda. The authors argue that the post-1994 government needs to galvanise the citizenship of the urban poor through development-oriented housing delivery.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document