REPROHEALTHLAW Updates – Autumn 2022

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DEVELOPMENTS

COLOMBIA: Corte Constitucional [Constitutional Court] February 21, 2022, Sentencia C-055-22.  27-page Spanish communicado.  27-page unofficial English translation.  Nota de Prensa (Spanish).   Download unofficial English translation.  (Abortion is decriminalized within 24 weeks of gestation.]

INTER-AMERICAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS – EL SALVADOR Manuela et al. v. El Salvador,  Inter-Am. Ct. H.R. (ser. C) No 441. (November 2, 2021).  Decision in English.. Backup copy. Decision in Spanish.  Backup copy in Spanish..Comment by Centre for Reproductive Rights.  [El Salvador was held accountable for the arbitrary detention, torture, and conviction of a woman after obstetric emergency and loss of pregnancy in 2008. Convicted of “aggravated homicide.” Two years later, Manuela died from cancer, in prison.]

KENYA: PAK & Salim Mohammed v. Attorney General & 3 Others (Constitutional Petition E009 of 2020) [2022] KEHC 262 (KLR) (24 March 2022) (High Court of Kenya at Malindi)  Decision online.   Backup copy.    Press release by CRR. [Abortion care is a fundamental constitutional right. Arrests of patients and clinicians are illegal. Parliament is directed to align law and policy with the Constitution.]

MEXICO: AI 148/2017 Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación 2021,  Acción de inconstitucionalidad AI 148/2017, Sept 7, 2021  Decision in Spanish.   News report in English.   Official press release in Spanish.  Official press release in English.  [Criminalizing abortion is unconstitutional; state interests in protecting fetus cannot outweigh the reproductive rights of women.]

MEXICO AI 106/2018: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación [Supreme Court] 2021, Acción de inconstitucionalidad AI 106/2018 and 107/2018), Sept. 7, 2021.  Decision in Spanish.  Official press release in English.  [States may not establish a right to life from the moment of conception in their local constitutions]

MEXICO AI 54/2018: Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación 2021, Acción de inconstitucionalidad AI 54/2018, Sept 21, 2021.   Decision in Spanish.  Decision backup.    Official press release in English.  [This ruling struck down part of the General Law regulating health services nationwide, because it established an expansive right to conscientious objection by medical personnel, without establishing the limits necessary to ensure patients’ rights to healthcare.]

NEW ZEALAND: High Court decision in NZ Health Professionals’ Alliance v Attorney-General, Sept. 24, 2021, upholds sections of the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 (‘CSAA’), amended in the Abortion Legislation Act 2020, regarding conscientious objectors’ duty to refer and (within reason) accommodation of objecting employees. News report.  Decision online. Commentary on decision. 

NORTHERN IRELAND Judicial review by Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission: In re NIHRC (Abortion), “In the matter of an application by The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission for Judicial Review – In the matter of the failure by the Secretary of State, Executive Committee and Minister of Health to provide women with access to Abortion and Post Abortion Care in All Public Health Facilities in Northern Ireland [2021] NIQB 91 Delivered 14 October 2021.    Decision online.  Backup copy.    Official Summary.  News story.   [Secretary of State failed to comply with 2019 Act  to “expeditiously” provide women in Northern Ireland with access to high quality abortion and post abortion services].

POLAND: Applications have been filed before the European Court of Human Rights by more than 1,000 Polish women who were denied abortions or who postponed their reproductive decisions out of fear. [because of the Constitutional Tribunal’s October 2020 ruling that disallowed abortion in cases of severe and irreversible fetal defects. Result: almost total ban on abortion.] Human Rights Watch report.

POLAND: “Izabel”, 22-weeks pregnant, died of septic shock in Sept 2021 while doctors waited for her doomed fetus to die within her.  Washington Post Nov 2021 article. Mass protests focused on the Oct 2020 abortion ban ruling, but, so far, only hospital and staff have been held accountable. Notes from Poland, Sept. 2022.

UNITED STATES: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. _ (2022) (Supreme Court of the United States), held that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. Case summary by CRR. Amicus brief by Martha Davis et al. IJGO article and other amicus briefs.

NEW INTERNATIONAL ABORTION CARE GUIDELINE

[WHO] Abortion Care Guideline (Geneva: World Health Organization, 2022). Chapter 2 discusses Law and Policy.
Download the Guideline, or see Overview and Supplementary resources.

SCHOLARSHIP

[abortion law, France] [Why and how to constitutionalize abortion law]: ‘Pourquoi et comment constitutionaliser le droit à l’avortement,” par Stéphanie Hennette-Vauchez, Diane Roman et Serge Slama, La Revue des Droits de l’Homme, Actualités Droits-Libertés | 2022 Juillet 2022. Full text in French.

[abortion law, Latin America] “Pushing Past the Tipping Point: Can the Inter-American System Accommodate Abortion Rights?” by Patricia Palacios Zuloaga, Human Rights Law Review 21.4 (Dec 2021): 899–934. Abstract and Article.

“Abortion Lawfare in Latin America: Some Reading Keys for a Changing Scenario, ” special issue eds. Catarina Barbieri, Camila Gianella, Maria Defago, and Marta Machado (2021) Rev. Direito GV vol. 17 no 3, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Epub Dec 15, 2021. Overview and three articles in English.

[abortion law, Mexico] “The Decriminalization of Abortion: A Landmark Decision by the Mexican Supreme Court,” by Joy Monserrat Ochoa Martínez,and Roberto Niembro Ortega, I-CONnect Blog, Posted: 12 Oct 2021. Expert comment.

[abortion law, Poland] “The Scales of the European Court of Human Rights: Abortion Restriction in Poland, the European Consensus, and the State’s Margin of Appreciation,” by Julia Kapelańska-Pręgowska, Health and Human Rights Journal 23.2 (Dec 2021): 213-224. Abstract and article.

[abortion law, USA] “The state of abortion rights in the US,” by Martha F. Davis. International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 159.1 (Oct 2022): 324-329 Abstract online. Article: free access .

[abortion law, USA] Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present, by Mary Ziegler. (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Publisher’s abstract.

“Conscientious Objection and the Duty to Refer,” by Bernard M. Dickens, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 2021; 155: 556-560. PDF at Wiley Online.  Submitted Text at SSRN.

[conscientious objection: Argentina] “Regulating Conscientious Objection to Legal Abortion in Argentina: Taking into Consideration Its Uses and Consequences,” by Agustina Ramón Michel, Stephanie Kung, Alyse López-Salm, and Sonia Ariza Navarrete, Health and Human Rights Journal 22.2 (Dec 2020): 271 – 384. Abstract and article.

[Conscientious objection: South Africa, nurses] “Power dynamics in the provision of legal abortion : a feminist perspective on nurses and conscientious objection in South Africa” by Satang Nabaneh, Doctoral Thesis (LLD)–University of Pretoria, 2020, now online: Doctoral thesis – 290 pages.

Conscientious Objection / The Right to Conscience, an annotated bibliography, updated Feb. 15, 2021 Conscience Bibiography.

[Conscientious objection] Global Map of Norms regarding Conscientious Objection, a searchable interactive map for comparative law, by Agustina Ramón Michel (coordinator) and Dana Repka (CEDES / REDAAS) with the support of Ipas and the ELA team. Updated December 15, 2022: Global Map of Norms re Conscientious Objection.

“Contested Rights: Abortion and Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the United Nations,” by Erin Aylward, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, Canada, Nov. 2020. Abortion/SOGI thesis.

[migrants] “International migrants’ right to sexual and reproductive health care,” by Y. Y. Brandon Chen, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 2022;157: 210–215  PDF at Wiley online.  Submitted Text at SSRN. 

US-focused news, resources, and legal developments are available  on Repro Rights Prof Blog. View or subscribe.

JOBS
Links to employers in the field of Reproductive and Sexual Health Law are online here.
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Compiled by: the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca.   See Program website for our Publications,  Research resources, and Reprohealthlaw Commentaries Series.  TO JOIN THE REPROHEALTHLAW BLOG: enter your email address in the upper right corner of our blog, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

India: Integrating gender perspectives in Ob/Gyn medical college curricula

Congratulations and thanks to Sangeeta Rege, Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Pravin Shingare, Srinivas Gadappa, Sonali Deshpande, Nandkishore Gaikwad, and Shailesh Vaidya. for their newly published article in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics section on Ethical and Legal Issues in Reproductive Health.” An abstract is provided below:

“Integrating Gender Perspectives  in Gynaecology and Obstetrics: Engaging Medical Colleges in Maharashtra, India,” by Sangeeta Rege,  Padma Bhate-Deosthali, Pravin Shingare, Srinivas Gadappa, Sonali Deshpande, Nandkishore Gaikwad, and Shailesh Vaidya, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 146 (2019): 132–138    PDF at Wiley Online.  Submitted text at SSRN.

Abstract: Failure to acknowledge the impact of sex and gender differences affects the quality of health care provision, and is an impediment to reducing health inequities. Systematic efforts were initiated in Maharashtra, India for reducing these disparities by developing gender‐integrated curricula in undergraduate medical education between 2015 and 2018. A review of undergraduate obstetrics and gynecology curricula had indicated a lack of gender lens and focus on the reproductive rights of women. Based on these gaps, a gender‐integrated curriculum was developed, implemented, and tested with medical students. Significant positive attitudes were seen among male and female students for themes such as access to safe abortion; understanding reproductive health concerns and their complex relationship with gender roles; violence against women as a health issue; and sexuality and health. These results strengthened the resolve to advocate for such a curriculum to be integrated across all medical colleges in the state.

Keywords: Gender; Medical education; Reproductive health; Rights

Related Resources:

Ethical & Legal Issues in Reproductive Health: 90+ concise articles.

Conscientious Objection / The Right to Conscience – annotated bibliography, updated May 9 2019

Ethical Issues in Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO Guidelines 2015)  English, French and Spanish.

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Compiled by: the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca.   See Program website for our Publications,  Information resources, and Reprohealthlaw Commentaries Series.
TO JOIN THE REPROHEALTHLAW BLOG: enter your email address in the upper right corner of our blog, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

Rethinking human rights and criminal law on sexuality, gender & reproduction

Congratulations to the editors and authors of this new book, which examines the ways in which recourse to the criminal law is featured in work by human rights advocates regarding sexuality, gender, and reproduction. It also presents a framework for considering if, when, and under what conditions, recourse to criminal law is compatible with human rights. We are pleased to circulate links and the full Table of Contents:

Beyond Virtue and Vice:  Rethinking Human Rights and Criminal Law
ed.  Alice M. Miller and Mindy Jane Roseman,  Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)  360 pages.
Book abstract and information.    Intro and excerpts from pp. 3-55 online.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Introduction, by Alice M. Miller and Mindy Jane Roseman with Zain Rizvi, pp. 1-16. mostly online.

PART I: TRANSNATIONAL THEORY AND PRACTICE
1.  Janet Halley in conversation with Aziza Ahmed: Interview,. 17-38.  mostly online.
2.  Seismic Shifts: How prosecution became the go-to tool to vindicate rights, by Alice M. Miller with Tara Zivkovic, 39-53. 2 random pages online.
3.  The Harm principle meets morality offences: Human rights, Criminal Law, and the regulation of sex and gender, by Alli Jernow, 54-74  2 initial pages online.
4.  Reflections of a human rights activist, by Widney Brown,  75-90

PART II. NATIONAL HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
5.   Virtuous Rights: On prostitution exceptionalism in South Korea, by Sealing Chen, and Ae-Ryung Kim, 93-113
6.   Brazilian Sex Laws: Continuities, ruptures and paradoxes, by Sonia Correa and Maria Lucia Karam, 114-133
7.   The Reach of a skirt in Southern Africa: Claims to law and custom in protecting and patrolling relations of gender and sexuality, by Oliver Phillips, 134-157.
8.   Abortion as treason: Sexuality and Nationalism in France, by Mindy Jane Roseman,  158-170

PART III: CONTEMPORARY NATIONAL CONCERNS
9.  Wanja Muguongo in Conversation with Alice M. Miller: Interview, pp. 173-184
10.  Criminal law, activism, and sexual and reproductive justice: What we can learn from the sex selection campaign in India, by Geetanjali Misra and Vrinda Marwah, 185-198
11.  Poisoned Gifts: Old moralities under new clothes? by Esteban Restrepo Saldarriaga. 199-219
12.  The Filth they bring: Sex panics and racial others in Lebanon, by Rasha Moumneh, 220-232.
13.   Objects in political mirrors may not be what they appear, by Scott Long,  233-247
14.   Harm Production: An Argument for Decriminalization, by Joanna N. Erdman, 248-268.
Notes, List of Contributors, Index, and Acknowledgments.

Beyond Virtue and Vice:  Rethinking Human Rights and Criminal Law
ed.  Alice M. Miller and Mindy Jane Roseman,  Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019)  360 pages.
Book abstract.    Intro and excerpts from pp. 3-55 online.

Related resources:

‘Stigmatized Meanings of Criminal Abortion Law’ by Rebecca J. Cook, in: RJ Cook, JN Erdman and BM Dickens (eds), Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies (University of Pennsylvania Press 2014).  Article abstract.  Table of Contents.

[U.K.]”The Decriminalisation of Abortion: An Argument for Modernisation,” by Sally Sheldon.  Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 36, No. 2 (2016), pp. 334–365   Institutional Access
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Compiled by: the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca.   See Program website for our Publications,  Information resources, and Reprohealthlaw Commentaries Series.
TO JOIN THE REPROHEALTHLAW BLOG: enter your email address in the upper right corner of our blog, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

Management of intersex newborns: Legal and ethical developments, by Bernard Dickens

Congratulations to Prof. Bernard Dickens, whose article was recently published in the Ethical and Legal Issues in Reproductive Health series of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics.  We are pleased to circulate its abstract:

“Management of intersex newborns: Legal and ethical developments,” by Bernard M. Dickens, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 143.2 (Nov. 2018): 255–259.  PDF at Wiley online.   Submitted text at SSRN.

Countries worldwide are increasingly expanding male/female binary sex classifications to recognize a third status. Intersex newborns may be included in this third category on birth certification. Parents, families, and communities require counselling and education to accommodate intersex newborns without stigma or discrimination. Whatever its biological or genetic origin, intersex status is a natural if relatively uncommon condition (one in 1500–2000 live births) that distinguishes sex from gender. The tendency of societies to recognize only male and female genders at birth has resulted in intersex children being subjected to invasive surgery and related, sometimes lifelong, medication to confirm them as male or female. On gaining maturity, some are severely distressed and resentful that early gender assignment was mistaken, particularly when excision of testes to enforce femininity or of ovaries to enforce masculinity has denied them procreative capacity. Emerging principles support postponement of such interventions until intersex individuals can make a gender choice for themselves.

PDF at Wiley online for 12 months.

Full text, as submitted:   text at SSRN.

Ethical and Legal Issues in Reproductive Health: 85+ concise articles.

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Compiled by the Coordinator of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here. TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

“What is Africanness?” Contesting nativism in race, culture and sexualities, new book by Prof. Charles Ngwena

Congratulations to Professor Charles G. Ngwena from the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, whose peer-reviewed monograph is now freely available for download through the open-access Pretoria University Law Press.

Charles Ngwena,  What is Africanness?  : Contesting nativism in culture, race and sexualities,  (Pretoria University Law Press (PULP), 2018) 306 pages.     Download free PDF or order paperback.

This important book contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversation about who is African and what is African.  It aims to implicate a reductive sameness in the naming of Africans (‘nativism’) by showing its teleology and effects, then offers an alternative liberating and decentred understanding of Africa as the land of diverse identifications.   As the author states in the opening chapter: “The intention of this book . . . is to offer a discourse on how Africans can name themselves in the present and in the future without succumbing to nativist impulses requiring a homogeneous past and establishing a transcendental ontology as essential elements of Africanness.  The book seeks to develop a plausible account of African identifications, but ultimately leaves the question Who/what is African? open to debate.”  (p.17)  Accordingly, the book ends with an epilogue, rather than a conclusion.

The book has three major parts:

1: BACKGROUND TO THE HERMENEUTICS OF HETEROGENOUS AFRICANNESS

2: AFRICANNESS, RACE AND CULTURE

3: HETEROGENEOUS SEXUALITIES
The third part of the book “comprises three chapters organised around interrogating representations of African sexualities and ultimately suggesting a philosophical way forward in the manner sexual citizenship is contested.” (p. 14)  The REPROHEALTHLAW Blog is pleased to circulate brief overviews of these chapters, as excerpted from the author’s introduction to the book:

Chapter 6.   Representing African Sexualities: Contesting Nativism from Without     PDF online 
This chapter “speaks to nativism from without. It highlights that narratives which represent African sexualities should always be understood as being culturally and historically situated. They are representations constructed within the knowledge and power system(s) of a given polity at a particular historical time and location, together with a social and political dynamics for social stratification, domination and status subordination. The chapter uses the representation of African sexualities in colonial discourses to make this point. I do not argue that colonial discourses tell us everything we need to know about African sexualities or that, historically, they are the single most important archive on the representation of African sexualities.
“Rather, the value of colonial discourses lies in their stubbornly persistent power, which continues to summon ‘Africans’ into place. In many ways, the construction of stereotypical representations of African sexualities is anchored in the nativisation of African cultures by colonial discourses. The argument in this chapter draws in part on Edward Said’s ‘orientalism’ and Mahmood Mamdani’s ‘nativism’. The works of Said and Mamdani serve as important resources in implicating ‘surface regularities’ in colonial discourses and their effects in typologising Africans as ‘natives’.
“I argue in this chapter for the importance of understanding the representation of Africanness in colonial discourses as an effect of the construction of colonial whiteness.”  (pp. 14-15)

Chapter 7.  ‘Transgressive’ Sexualities:  Contesting Nativism from within and Overcoming Status Subordination.      PDF online
“[F]rom time to time, ‘African values’ are invoked by political and cultural authorities to continentalise sexuality and to prescribe a regimented and homogenised African sexuality that specifically excludes sexualities outside heterosexuality and, more specifically, delegitimises non-heteronormative and same-sex sexualities. I advance counter-arguments to the legitimacy of claims that heterosexuality is the only culturally acceptable sexuality for Africans. The chapter develops a framework for recognising diversities of sexuality in ways that are informed by a transformative understanding of sexuality and, ultimately, of an inclusive equality. The framework seeks to deconstruct scripted knowledge about sexuality in order to build an understanding that reveals the complexity, diversity and ultimately political nature of sexuality. I argue that recognising difference in the realm of sexuality requires a radical epistemology that is capable of moving beyond the raw physicality of the body, the genitalia, biological impulse and a capacity for language in order to take cognisance of how sexuality is socially constructed in historical time and place. Necessarily, representations of African sexualities ought to acknowledge that norms and frameworks which give coherence to heterosexuality and its congruent gender binaries are but one cultural variant that exists in juxtaposition with pluralistic articulations of sexualities.” (pp. 15-16)

Chapter 8. Mediating Conflicting Sexuality Identifications through Politics and an Ethics of Pluralism.   PDF online.
This chapter “concludes Part 3 with a discussion of how we might mediate conflicting sexuality identifications through first promoting an understanding of the politics and ethics of pluralism. The discussion is predicated on an assumption, regardless of contradictory praxis, that African states in their independence as well as post-independence constitutions formally commit themselves to political pluralism. Against this backdrop the overarching premise is that in political communities committed to liberal democracy, differences are an ordinary part of our political lives.  Even if we agree as to how we should be governed and share political space, it is not necessary or warranted that we should also reach agreement on all moral issues, including conceptions of our sexual and reproductive selves.
“Chapter 8 builds its arguments partly by appropriating to the concept of ‘equality’ two political notions: the notion of an ‘overlapping consensus’ as advocated by John Rawls, and the notion of ‘dissensus’ as advocated by Nicholas Rescher.  In part the chapter builds its arguments by linking equality with participatory democracy using mainly Iris Young’s argument for recognising difference in a heterogeneous public in which there is mutual recognition between different sexuality identifications, and Hannah Arendt’s concept of citizenship in a plural political community.
“The main thesis in Chapter 8 is that overcoming an impasse which arises where there is strong communitarian opposition to a given sexuality does not lie in dismissing such opposition as without a rational political foundation. Rather, it lies in accepting the legitimacy of the opposition through a democratic polity that  is committed to non-hierarchical inclusiveness and relations of cooperation in matters of moral and religious controversy.”   (pp. 16-17)

Download free PDF book or order paperback from the Pretoria University Law Press.

“African Rights Talk”: 2019 Interview with Prof. Charles Ngwena about this book:  26-minute podcast

Recent publications by Prof. Charles Ngwena:
“Reproductive Autonomy of Women and Girls under the Disabilities Convention.”  International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics. 140.1 (Jan. 2018): 128-133.  Article abstract.

“Taking Women’s Rights Seriously: Using Human Rights to Require State Implementation of Domestic Abortion Laws in African Countries with Reference to Uganda,” Journal of African Law 60.1 (Feb 2016): 110-140.   Article abstract

“Human Rights Advances in Women’s Reproductive Health in Africa” by Charles G. Ngwena, Eunice Brookman-Amissah,  and Patty Skuster,  International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 129.2 (May 2015): 184-187.    Article download from SSRN.  Article online.

“Reforming African Abortion Laws and Practice: The Place of Transparency,” (in Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies, ed. Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna N. Erdman and Bernard M. Dickens (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) Article abstract.

“Conscientious Objection to Abortion and Accommodating Women’s Reproductive Health Rights: Reflections on a Decision of the Constitutional Court of Colombia from an African Regional Human Rights Perspective.” Journal of African Law, 58 (2014): 183-209. Article abstract.

“A Commentary on LC v Peru: The CEDAW Committee’s First Decision on Abortion.” Journal of African Law, 57.2 (Oct 2013): 310-324;   available online here.”  Abstract online.

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Compiled by the Coordinator of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here. TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

Spain: “Gender in Constitutional Discourses on Abortion,” by Blanca Rodríguez-Ruiz

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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The REPROHEALTHLAW Blog is compiled by the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Canada,  reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca.   For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here.
TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription

REPROHEALTHLAW Updates – June 2017

 SUBSCRIBE TO REPROHEALTHLAW: To receive these updates monthly by email, enter your address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

DEVELOPMENTS

[Ireland]  Siobhàn Whelan v. Ireland, Comm. No. 2425/2014:  Ireland 12/06/2017, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/119/D/2425/2014 (UN Human Rights Committee), 12 June 2017, [Woman forced to travel to the UK for an abortion after fatal fetal abnormality diagnosis.  Abortion laws are “cruel and inhumane.”]   English decision.   Newspaper report. Press release from Center for Reproductive Rights.

[Northern Ireland]  R (on the application of A and B) v Secretary of State for Health, decision of  [2017] UKSC 41, June 14, 2017 (Supreme Court, U.K.) [ruled that girl from Northern Ireland, aged 15, was not entitled to NHS-funded abortion in England] Decision online.  Comments by Sheelagh McGuinness and Keith Syrett.  Newspaper report.

RESOURCES

[abortion law: gestational age]  “Theorizing Time in Abortion Law & Human Rights,” by Joanna N. Erdman, in: Health and Human Rights Journal 19.1 (June 2017): 29-40.  Theorizing Time text. Download PDF.  Special issue on “Abortion and Human Rights.”

Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies” ed. Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna N. Erdman, and Bernard M. Dickens (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)  Penn Press (discount code: PH70).   Review by Francisca Pou Giménez.    Spanish edition: (FCE/CIDE, 2016)     Reseña por Diego Garcia Ricci.
Traduções para portugues:
Capítulo 2: “Aborto em Portugal: novas tendências no constitucionalismo europeu,” por Ruth Rubio-Marín, Revista Direito GV São Paulo 13.1(jan./abr. 2017): 356-379 DOI: 10.1590/2317-6172201714  Tradução para o português.
Capítulo 4: “O princípio da proporcionalidade no controle de constitucionalidade das leis sobre aborto, por Verónica Undurraga, Publicum 2.2 (2016)   Tradução para o português.

[abortion law, Spain]  “Gender in Constitutional Discourses on Abortion: Looking at Spain from a Comparative Perspective,” by Blanca Rodriguez-Ruiz, Social & Legal Studies 2016, Vol. 25(6) 699–715, DOI: 10.1177/0964663916668251. ” PDF for academic subscribers.    Submitted Version.  (from special issue on “Regulating Abortion: Dissensus and the Politics of Rights” by Siobhàn Mullally, (Introduction to special issue).

[conscientious objection, Latin America]  “Refusing Reproductive Health Services on Grounds of Conscience in Latin America:  Challenging policies and practises based on human rights standards,” by Diya Uberoi and Beatriz Galli in  SUR International Journal on Human Rights, 24 (Dec 2016)  [special issue on “Women: Movements, successes and obstacles” Overview.  English edition.    Spanish edition.    Portuguese edition.

—-See also:  Conscientious objection:  Articles and projects of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.  Download Conscientious objection resources.

[contraception, Uganda]  “Controlling Women’s Fertility in Uganda,” by Sylvia Tamale in SUR International Journal on Human Rights, 24 (Dec 2016)  [special issue on “Women: Movements, successes and obstacles”]  English edition.   Spanish edition.  Portuguese edition.

“Female Genital Cutting (Mutilation/ Circumcision): Ethical and Legal Dimensions,” by  R. J. Cook,  B.M. Dickens, and M.F. Fathalla (2002) 79 International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics : 281-287.  English abstract and article.
new Turkish translation: “Kadın Sünneti (Sakatlama/Sünnet): Etik ve Hukuki Boyutlar,” trans. Mustafa Erçakıca, in Beykent Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 2.4 (Dec. 2016): 111-121.  Turkish download.

“Gender Stereotyping in the Military: Insights from Court Cases,” by Rebecca Cook and Cornelia Weiss, in Stereotypes and Human Rights Law, ed. Eva Brems and Alexandra Timmer (eds.), (Antwerp, Belgium: Intersentia, 2016) 175-198.  Submitted text.    PDF (online after June 2018)  About the book.

US-focused news, resources, and legal developments are available on Repro Rights Prof Blog.  View or subscribe.

JOBS

Links to employers in the field of Reproductive and Sexual Health Law are online here

______________

Compiled by the Coordinator of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here. TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

REPROHEALTHLAW Updates – May 2017

 SUBSCRIBE TO REPROHEALTHLAW: To receive these updates monthly by email, enter your address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

DEVELOPMENTS

Argentina:  Juzgado Nacional en lo Criminal de Instrucción 16, Secretaría 111 de la Capital Federal, causa 28.580/2015, “M.N.N.”  (28 de Junio de 2016).  National Criminal Court held a woman and the doctors who prescribed her abortion medications, not guilty of any crime because the woman’s health was at risk. The woman was pregnant because her partner raped her.  English summary.  Spanish summary.   Download decision in Spanish.

Colombia:  Constitutional Court blocked sterilization of a disabled girl who was too young to consent.   English summary.  Spanish summary with link to decision.

India:   Indu Devi v the State of Bihar [2017] No(s.) 14327, decided May 9, 2017 (Supreme Court of India). Destitute HIV+ woman, pregnant from rape, refused abortion past legal limit of 20 weeks, but State held responsible for delay that prevented legal abortion.  Summary by H. Kofman forthcoming on this blog  Judgment online.  Abstract by law student H. Kofman

Uruguay:  Woman refused legal abortion after former partner intervenes.   Summary in English.  Spanish summary with link to decision. Safe Abortion Campaign report.

CALLS

Gender Justice Uncovered Awards: Nominations for best and worst court decisions.  Many striking cases and decisions summarized, e.g., Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay decisions mentioned above.    Vote before May 31, 2017

Call for Submissions: “Gender Violence and International Human Rights Law” for the 2018 Human Rights Essay Award, organized by Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Washington College of Law, American University, Washington DC.   Submission Information and form.

Open Call for Submissions, McGill Journal of Law and Health, peer-reviewed. Details and Editorial Guidelines.

EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Graduate study in Health Law now available at the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics, University of Ottawa, currently accepting LLM and PhD applications on a rolling basis for the 2017-2018 academic year.    Brochure online.

RESOURCES

“Abortion by telemedicine: an equitable option for Irish women,” by Wendy V. Norman and Bernard M. Dickens,  BMJ May 16, 2017; 357 Article online.

[abortion, Canada] “A Constitutional Future for Abortion Rights in Canada,” by Joanna Erdman, Alberta Law Review 54.3(2017):727-752   Article online.

[abortion, Europe]  “Legal and Political Discourses on Women’s Right to Abortion,” by Christina Zampas,  chapter 1 in:  A Fragmented Landscape: Abortion Governance and Protest Logics in Europe, ed.  Silvia De Zordo, Joanna Mishtal, and Lorena Anton   (New York: Berghahn, 2016)  Details from Publisher

[abortion law] “Regulating Abortion: Dissensus and the Politics of Rights” by Siobhan Mullally, introduction to special issue of Social & Legal Studies: An International Journal, 2016, Vol.25(6) . Introduction online.

[abortion law]  “Book Review: Francisca Pou Giménez on Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna Erdman and Bernard M. Dickens’s Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies”, on I-CONnect, Blog of the International Journal of Constitutional Law and Constitution Making, May 17, 2017  Book review online.   (Penn Press discount code: PH70).    Spanish edition, FCE/CIDE, 2016

[abortion law pedagogy] “The Social Life of Abortion Law: On Personal and Political Pedagogy,” by Nicky Priaulx, Medical Law Review 25.1(2017):73-98.  Download abstract and PDF.

[abortion travel]  “The Law of Stigma, Travel, and the Abortion-Free Island,” Columbia Journal of Gender & Law 33.1(2016): 29-37.  PDF online.

[conscience]  “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” by Ronit Y. Stahl and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, New England J Medicine 376 (April 6, 2017):  1380-85.  Full text for institutional subscribers

[Ireland]  The Citizens’ Assembly – Draft Bill [recommendations for Irish abortion law reform] by Lawyers for Choice, Human Rights in Ireland, April 25, 2017  Draft Bill online.

[Nigeria]  “Accountability for Maternal Healthcare Services in Nigeria,” by Onyema Afulukwe, International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics 137.2(May 2017) 220-226.  Abstract.  PDF temporarily online for 12 months   Submitted text (typescript) online.

Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, edited by Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue (Oxford: Hart, 2017)   re-imagines, re-writes and comments on 26 court decisions from feminist perspectives.  Our comments.  Table of Contents and details

[South Africa]  Pregnancy Law in South Africa: Between Reproductive Autonomy and Foetal Interests, by Camilla Pickles (South Africa: Juta, 2017), (based on thesis from University of Pretoria,  Thesis abstract   Book details from publisher

US-focused news, resources, and legal developments are available on Repro Rights Prof Blog.  View or subscribe.

REPORTS

“The Law, Trials and Imprisonment  for Abortion in [individual countries].”  International Campaign for Safe Abortion.  Mexico.  Argentina,  Kenya .

JOBS

Associate Professor/Professor and Assistant Director, Center for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria.  Position details.

Links to other employers in the field of Reproductive and Sexual Health Law are online here

______________
Compiled by the Coordinator of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here. TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments – re-imagining court decisions

Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, edited by Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue (Oxford: Hart, 2017) (available here) is the most recent of a series of insightful studies on re-imagining court decisions from feminist perspectives.[1]    The volume includes rewrites and commentaries on 26 cases from Ireland or Northern Ireland, including:

Attorney General v. X, [1992] I.E.S.C. 1, (Supreme Court of Ireland) had decided that an attempt to prevent a 14-year old girl who was pregnant as a result of being raped, from traveling from Ireland to England in order to access abortion care was not justified.  Actual decision online.

In Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments. Ruth Fletcher rewrites the Irish Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the X case.Sheelagh McGuinness writes a commentary on it, explaining the ways in which Fletcher J. illustrates how the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution (acknowledging the “right to life of the unborn… with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother…”) is an instrument of gendered harms.  McGuinness contrasts the “progressive constitutionalism” of Fletcher J.’s reasoning with the “conservative constitutionalism” of the original judgment. Fletcher J. crafts a judgment that considers the text of the Eighth Amendment, examines the evidence of the substantial difference between the contingency of unborn life and the life of the pregnant woman that sustains that life to decide, consistently with the original judgment, that X is entitled to an abortion. She tries to rise above her own partiality by putting herself in X’s shoes to explain how her pregnancy in such circumstances would impose “an impracticable burden on her rightful life.”
ONLINE:  Ruth Fletcher’s imagined decision: working paper version
Sheelagh McGuinness’s commentary: peer review version

McGee v. Attorney General,[1974] I.R. 284 (Supreme Court of Ireland), which had overturned a criminal ban on the importation of contraceptives into Ireland. Actual decision online.

Emilie Cloatre and Máiréad Enright write the commentary on Enright’s rewriting of the Irish Supreme Court’s decision in the McGee case, where Enright J. reached the same decision but for different reasons. They explore the ways that Enright J. acknowledged Mrs. McGee’s experiences in trying to access effective contraception to enable her to plan her family in ways that did not seriously risk her life.  Of particular note is the way in which Enright J. elaborated how Mrs. McGee’s right to freedom of conscience was a basis for overturning the importation ban: “There can be no clearer example, in my view, of the exercise of constitutionally protected conscience than Mrs. McGee’s deliberate breach of a provision of the criminal law that imposes a particular set of moral principles on the citizenry.”

[1] Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments-Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, ed. Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue (Oxford: Hart, 2017) (book details).  Other insightful studies on re-imagining court decisions from feminist perspectives  include:  Rewriting Equality (2006) 18(1); R. Hunter, C.McGlynn and E. Rackley (eds.) Feminist Judgments: From Theory to Practice (Oxford: Hart, 2010); H. Douglas, F. Bartlett, T. Luker and R. Hunter (eds.), Australian Feminist Judgments: Righting and Rewriting Law (Oxford: Hart, 2015); K. Stanchi, L. Berger and B. Crawford (eds.), U.S. Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Opinions of the United States Supreme Court (Cambridge: CUP, 2016).

REPROHEALTHLAW Updates — March 2017

SUBSCRIBE TO REPROHEALTHLAW: To receive these updates monthly by email, enter your address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.

DEVELOPMENTS:
Caso I.V. v. Bolivia,   Sentencia de 30  Noviembre de 2016 (Excepciones Preliminares, Fondo, Reparaciones y Costas) Corte InterAmericana de Derechos Humanos [Inter-American Court of Human Rights].  Decision 2016 in Spanish.  Case summary by Christina Zampas.  Amicus Curiae brief by Ciara O’Connell, Diana Guarnizo-Peralta and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito in English.   Report on the Merits (2014) in English

Kenya Legal and Ethical Network on HIV & AIDS (KELIN) & 3 others v Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Health & 4 others [2016] Petition 250 of 2015 (High Court of Kenya Constitutional and Human Rights Division).  [Official collection of Kenyans’ HIV data halted, as “unconstitutional”]  Decision online.  Comment from Jurist Blog.

[Kenya] Martin C.   v. Republic, Criminal Appeal No. 32 of 2015, April 26, 2016 (High Court of Kenya, at Malindi).  [sexual relationship between adult man of 23 and girl of 14 is not “defilement” because she sought it.  Prisoner released.]  Decision online.

[South Africa] Dwenga and Others v Surgeon-General of the South African Military Health Services and Others [2014] ZAGPPHC 727, Case No. 40844/2013, the High Court at North Gauteng. [against discrimination toward HIV+ employees in the military.]  Summary for Legal Grounds III.    Decision online.

[South Africa] Gary Shane Allpass v Mooikloof Estates (Pty) Ltd. [2011], Case No. JS178/09, a Labour Court of South Africa.  [wrongful dismissal of HIV-positive employee].  Summary for Legal Grounds III.   Decision online.

CALLS:

Calls for Papers, Special Issue on “Gender and the Rise of the Global Right,” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Submit by September 15, 2017,  Detailed call for papers.

Callls for Applications, “Health Rights Litigation Intensive” June 26-30, 2017, one-week summer course at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC, USA.  Apply by April 10, 2017.  HR Litigation course info.

Gender Justice Uncovered awards 2017, is collecting the best and worst court decisions from 2016.  Nominate your best or worst case here in English.  Nomina tu caso ya  en Espanol.

RESOURCES

Abortion Law in Transnational Perspective: Cases and Controversies, ed. Rebecca J. Cook, Joanna N. Erdman and Bernard M. Dickens, Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights Series, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 
New 20% discount code: PH70.  Now in paperback (March 2017), 
Table of Contents.    Introduction online at SSRN.  Table of Cases online (Spanish and English, with links to court decisions.   ¡Ahora en español! El aborto en el derecho transnacional (CIDE/FCE, 2016)  folleto con sumario 

Brazilian Supreme Court abortion ruling – I-CONnect blog symposium of scholarly comments from five perspectives:  Rebecca J. Cook and Bernard M. Dickens, Chao-ju Chen; Grégor Puppinck; Debora Diniz and Christine Ricardo; and Rachel Rebouché. 5 perspectives on Brazilian abortion ruling.

Brazilian dossier on “Gênero, Raça e Pobreza: a abordagem de múltiplas identidades pelo Direito” [Gender, Race and Poverty: The Multiple Identities Approach to Law] Revista FGV Direito 22(2015), ed. Marta Machado, online here.  includes articles in Portuguese or English with abstracts in both languages, about: domestic violence laws, CEDAW, maternity in prison, and research in prisons (by D. Diniz), and abortion, i.e.:
—[South Africa, abortion] “Claiming and Defending Abortion Rights in South Africa” / Reivindicando e defendendo o direito ao aborto na África do Sul” by Cathi Albertyn, Revista FGV Direito 22 (2015): 429-454   English article with Portuguese abstract.

US-focused news, resources, and legal developments are available on Repro Rights Prof Blog.  View or subscribe.

JOBS

Links to other employers in the field of Reproductive and Sexual Health Law are online here

______________
Compiled by the Coordinator of the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Law Program, reprohealth*law at utoronto.ca For Program publications and resources, see our website, online here. TO JOIN THIS BLOG: enter your email address in upper right corner of this webpage, then check your email to confirm the subscription.