The Regulation of Reproductive Rights: Mobilizing Knowledge and Technology

Abstract

Reproductive rights are the epitome of the feminist claim that the private is political. Debates about reproduction bring to the fore competing conceptualizations of what it means to have autonomy over one’s own body and life, and who should be the subject of rights in societies. After the fight for women's right to suffrage, the right to self-determined abortion turned into a central issue of women's movements during the 20th and 21st century. Since the 1960s, laws have increasingly been liberalized globally. However, abortion and women’s reproductive rights remain highly contested political and cultural issues, with competing narratives – ranging from women’s rights to medical concerns and religious arguments – being employed to liberalize or restrict access. States do not only regulate the choice to not have children, they also determine access to technological advances that allow for new methods of reproduction. So-called assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) have triggered new questions around state regulation and negotiations of societal and legal norms. So far, white, heterosexual, middle-class cis women have often been the primary subject of abortion policies as well as literature on abortion and reproductive rights. This panel explores how different types of knowledge are – and were historically – mobilized to oppress, protect, and expand reproductive rights. In doing so, the panel invites reflections on what debates about abortion and ARTs reveal about distinct actors’ understandings of the rights of citizens – and especially of minoritized people – and what implications this has for the development of reproductive justice. Combining quantitative and qualitative research both on historical and contemporary phenomena, this panel explores patterns of change and continuity across the 20th and 21st century in empirical settings ranging from egg donation in Iran to abortion legislation in socialist states during the Cold War.

Title	Details
‘It is like spinning around yourself’: Privatisation of reproductive care and routinisation of egg donation in Iran	View Paper Details
Governance of Kinship and Reproduction in an Era of Advanced Reproductive Technology	View Paper Details
The Family’s Right to Decide: Anti-Gender Coalitions in the Struggle Against Sexual Education Policy in Mexico 1932-2016	View Paper Details
Between Liberalization and Bodily Control: Abortion Rights in Socialist States during the Cold War, 1960 – 1989	View Paper Details
The Mobilization of Fetal Pain in Abortion Legislation	View Paper Details