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Backlash or Widening the Gap?: Women’s Reproductive Rights in the Twenty-First Century

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  • Dorota Anna Gozdecka

    (Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
    The author would like to thank Professor Margaret Thornton and two anonymous reviewers whose comments have been invaluable in the process of revising this article.)

Abstract

This article examines legal challenges to women’s reproductive rights in Ireland and the United States, arguing that backlash against reproductive rights is a consequence of the long unsettled position of women’s reproductive freedom in liberal democracies and the catalogue of rights. It examines the legal foundations of reproductive rights and their perceived conflicts with other values, such as religion, and focuses on the current legal challenges to women’s bodily autonomy regarding choice and motherhood. It demonstrates the many contexts in which women have not acquired full reproductive freedom, and explores the nature of the current backlash. It argues that the nature of the backlash is not simply a reclamation of what has been legally guaranteed, but instead a deepening of the preexisting divides within reproductive justice globally.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorota Anna Gozdecka, 2020. "Backlash or Widening the Gap?: Women’s Reproductive Rights in the Twenty-First Century," Laws, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlawss:v:9:y:2020:i:1:p:8-:d:323072
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wald, Kenneth D. & Owen, Dennis E. & Hill, Samuel S., 1988. "Churches as Political Communities," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 82(2), pages 531-548, June.
    2. Levine, Phillip B. & Trainor, Amy B. & Zimmerman, David J., 1996. "The effect of Medicaid abortion funding restrictions on abortions, pregnancies and births," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 555-578, October.
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