Reproductive Rights or Reproductive Justice? Lessons from Argentina

Bibliographic Data

ID12440238
AuthorsLynn M Morgan (0000-0002-7681-9739, Mount Holyoke College, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume17
Issue1
Pages136-136
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth and Human Rights (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1079-0969 • E-ISSN: 2150-4113
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/healhumarigh.17.1.136
PMID26204578
OpenAlexW1780785695
LanguageEN
Citations received17

Argentine sexual and reproductive rights activists insist on using the language and framework of "human rights," even when many reproductive rights activists in the US and elsewhere now prefer the framework of "reproductive justice." Reflecting on conversations with Argentine feminist anthropologists, social scientists, and reproductive rights activists, this paper analyzes why the Argentine movement to legalize abortion relies on the contested concept of human rights. Its conclusion that "women's rights are human rights" is a powerful claim in post-dictatorship politics where abortion is not yet legal and the full scope of women's rights has yet to be included in the government's human rights agenda. Argentine feminist human rights activists have long been attentive to the ways that social class, gender, migration, and racism intersect with reproduction. Because their government respects and responds to a human rights framework, however, they have not felt it necessary--as U.S. feminists have--to invent a new notion of reproductive justice in order to be heard. Given the increasing popularity of reproductive justice in health and human rights, the Argentine case shows that rights-based claims can still be politically useful when a State values the concept of human rights

Abortion · Democracy · Dictatorship · Economic Justice · Feminism · Fundamental rights · Human rights · International human rights law · Political science · Politics · Population · Reproductive health · Reproductive justice · Reproductive rights · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Feminist Theory and Gender Studies · Gender Studies · Law

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