Congratulations and thanks to Professor Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Seville in Spain, for her useful article, recently published in the international journal, Social & Legal Studies:
Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz, “Gender in Constitutional Discourses on Abortion: Looking at Spain from a Comparative Perspective,” Social & Legal Studies 25.6 (Dec. 2016): 699-715.
PDF Download text Author publications – English and Spanish
Abstract: In as far as the regulation of abortion deals with issues like how and to what extent can women’s capacity to gestate and give birth be controlled, and by whom, any discourse on abortion necessarily reflects a construction of women’s citizenship, hence of gender. The question is, which is the ruling construction? Behind non-legal discourses that focus on human life and public power’s duty to protect it, there lies the modern construction of gender that articulates women’s passive citizenship within the state. This is also true of confrontational discourses that construct women and the foetus as potential adversaries. Both discourses are traditional in continental Europe. Yet, they are being superseded by an understanding of abortion from the perspective of women’s active citizenship. Spanish Organic Act 2/2010 stands as part of this trend. Not surprisingly, governmental attempts to reinstate women’s passive citizenship in this matter have met stark resistance. PDF. Download text.
Source: “Regulating Abortion: Dissensus and the Politics of Rights,” ed. Siobhan Mullally, symposium issue of Social & Legal Studies: An International Journal 25.6 (Dec 2016) Introduction, pp. 645-650.
See also:
Catherine O’Rourke, “Advocating Abortion Rights in Northern Ireland: Local and Global Tensions,” Social and Legal Studies 25(6): 716-740. PDF and abstract Submitted text
Claire Murray, “The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013: Suicide, Dignity and the Irish Discourse on Abortion“, published in Social and Legal Studies 2016, 25(6): 667-698 PDF and abstract Accepted text.
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