Women's Reproductive Rights Research Articles

The `Family Cap': A Popular but Unproven Method of Welfare Reform

Family Planning Perspectives standing federal requirement that states provide family planning services to AFDC recipients. Such services are estimated to prevent nearly 300,000 pregnancies annually to women on welfare.* In addition, opponents assert, the incremental increases that accompany the birth of additional children—$24–147, depending on the state and the birth order4— are too small to cover the cost of caring for a new baby and therefore are not an incentive to have another birth. But, they add, the loss of those extra payments is almost certain to result in greater hardship for poor families already striving to obtain such basic necessities as shelter and food. Moreover, many prochoice activists and antiabortion advocates share a concern that the family cap will lead to more abortions among welfare recipients faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Right-to-life groups oppose the cap because they find abortion abhorrent, while prochoice groups believe the cap violates the reproductive rights of women on welfare. This special report details the status of family caps in Congress and the states as of July 1, 1995, and examines plans for and potential barriers to evaluating their impact. It relies on state documents requesting the federal government’s permission to impose a family cap and federal documents stipulating the terms and conditions under which a cap may be implemented,5 as well as on personal interviews with individuals familiar with the implementation or evaluation of the family cap in various states.

Private Decisions, Public Debate: Women, Reproduction and Population

Ed Judith Mirsky, Marty Radlett Panos, pounds sterling8.95, pp 185 ISBN 1 870670 34 5 Abatch of publications came out in time for the international congress on population and development held in Cairo last September. Private Decisions, Public Debate was produced as part of this effort and describes the reproductive health needs of women in 12 developing countries. The conference's emphasis on ensuring women's health and reproductive rights is a response to the fact that many population programmes have been essentially concerned with thrusting contraceptives on women, with little concern for their health and …

The World Programme of Action: a new paradigm for population policy. The Cairo Conference.

There has been considerable national and international debate over the past two years on population-related issues. Women have sought to affirm their right to control fertility and to have access to health services while criticizing current population policies and programs. A new paradigm for population policy has emerged from the debate, one which focuses upon providing broadly defined reproductive health services and acknowledges women's reproductive rights and their need for empowerment. This new population policy is embodied in the World Program of Action (WPOA) adopted September 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, Egypt. WPOA is the main document emerging from the ICPD. It was developed and negotiated by participating governments during three preparatory committee meetings leading up to the conference and at ICPD itself, where it was adopted. The WPOA is slated for approval by the UN General Assembly during its current session. The WPOA is evidence of how effective women were in making women's rights and health the focus of an international document. The author discusses politics at the ICPD, the WPOA, funding the WPOA's implementation, the road ahead, and the power of women's strategies.

Abortion is a Woman's Right

Abortion is not a desired fertility control programme, write JENNY WILD and JENNY KUNST. Legalising abortion and providing adequate infrastructure secures women's reproductive rights and freedom. However, the pressure for legalisation is mainly motivated by the high rate of women's mortality caused by clandestine, unsafe procedures

Defining Reproductive Rights

Control and choice are central to women's reproductive rights. ASHA MOODLEY says the struggle for reproductive rights is a political one which requires strategies for dealing with obstacles and for creating conditions conducive to women's self-determination

The woman not the womb: Population control vs. women's reproductive rights Cassandra Balchin, Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, 1994

The woman not the womb: Population control vs. women's reproductive rights Cassandra Balchin, Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, 1994

Cornelie Usborne. <italic>The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties</italic>. (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1992. Pp. xx, 304. $42.50

Cornelie Usborne. The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties. (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1992. Pp. xx, 304. $42.50 Get access Usborne Cornelie. The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties. (Social History, Popular Culture, and Politics in Germany.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1992. Pp. xx, 304. $42.50. Amy Hackett Amy Hackett Brooklyn, New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 99, Issue 4, October 1994, Pages 1345–1346, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/99.4.1345-a Published: 01 October 1994

The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties.

The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties.

Beyond the Numbers: A Reader on Population, Consumption, and the Environment.

Beyond the Numbers presents a thought-provoking series of essays by leading authorities on issues of population and consumption. The essays both define the poles of debate and explore common ground beyond the polarized rhetoric.Specific chapters consider each of the broad topics addressed at the International Conference on Population and Development held in September 1994 in Cairo, Egypt. The essays are supplemented by sidebars and short articles featuring more-impassioned voices that highlight issues of interest not fully explored in the overviews.As well as providing a sense of the difficulties involved in dealing with these issues, the essays make clear that constructive action is possible.Topics covered include: the interrelationships between population, economic growth, consumption, and development the history of population and family planning efforts gender equality and the empowerment of women reproductive rights, reproductive health, family planning, health and mortality

Women's health and the privatization of fertility control in Brazil

In Brazil, privatization of the public sphere and neglect of public health is part of a conservative modernization strategy that is dominated by elite groups. The politics of human reproduction, consistent with this pattern, have left women dependent on the private sector for access to the means of fertility control, in spite of the existence of a conceptually-advanced public programme for comprehensive health care for women—a programme which expressed the demands of, and is widely supported by, the women's movement. While both the rate of contraceptive use and the types of methods used (oral contraceptives and surgical sterilization) are modern, the privatization of fertility control has resulted in a complete separation between fertility control and health care for poor women, who are the vast majority. Evidence indicates that many, perhaps most, women accumulate the health effects of totally uncontrolled and incorrect use of oral contraceptives, including unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions, in the end resorting to clandestine surgical sterilization, which is usually performed through unnecessary caesarean section. Data on reproductive morbidity and mortality, however, are virtually non-existent. International women's reproductive rights networks and alternative services for women have advocated greater empowerment for women, in terms of improved standards of self-care and increased power in the use of health services. As a result, a gender approach to reproductive health care is now being proposed for government programmes. The Brazilian case serves as an example of the limits faced by such programmes when adopted in a wider context of unfavorable political conditions.

Women's reproductive rights

Women's reproductive rights

Cornelie Usborne, The politics of the body in Weimar Germany: women's reproductive rights and duties. (London: Macmillan, 1992.) Pages 304. £40.00.

Cornelie Usborne, The politics of the body in Weimar Germany: women's reproductive rights and duties. (London: Macmillan, 1992.) Pages 304. £40.00.

Good, Bad, and Captive Samaritans:

This paper adds-in pregnancy and consent to the abortion debate in the context of good samaritan arguments initiated by Judith Jarvis Thomson. Drawing upon legal and medical definitions, the abortion issue is reframed as the right of a woman to consent to what will be done to her body by the fetus rather than her right merely to choose what to do with her own body. This argument shifts abortion rights from the right to decisional autonomy established in Roe to the right to bodily integrity affirmed by samaritan case law. As a result, we see why women who are pregnant without their consent, in effect, are captive samaritans, a status unsubstantiated by either legislative statutes or legal precedents. Recasting abortion as a response to nonconsensual pregnancy opens new grounds guaranteeing women's reproductive rights.

The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany: Women's Reproductive Rights and Duties

List of Plates - Preface - List of Abbreviations - Introduction: Historic Background to the Population Debate - Maternity: Production Versus Reproduction - Sexuality: The Battle against Sexual Immorality - Contraception: A Cure for the Body Politic - Abortion: Politics and Medicine - Conclusion - Appendices - Notes - Bibliography - Index

The Sexuality Connection in Reproductive Health

Sexuality and power relations based on gender are relevant to researchers, policymakers, and service providers in the reproductive health field, because they underlie virtually all of the behaviors and conditions that their programs address. Yet, a review of conventional treatments in the demographic and family planning literature reveals that, when they consider these topics at all, researchers typically adopt narrow definitions of sexual behavior and focus almost exclusively on risks of pregnancy and disease. This article proposes an analytic framework as a guide to researchers and family planning providers. It relates four dimensions of sexuality to reproductive health outcomes and concludes that family planning policies and programs should address a broader spectrum of sexual behaviors and meanings, consider questions of sexual enjoyment as well as risk, and confront ideologies of male entitlement that threaten women's sexual and reproductive rights and health.

Gender-related violence: its scope and relevance.

Policy issues for gender-related violence are reviewed with attention directed to personal violence, violence within the household, public violence, development policies and programs that abuses women, barriers to sustainable development from violence against women, violence against women as women's rights issue, and women in war and other crises. Gender violence touches all social classes and types of people in almost every country of the world. Violence against women causes human suffering, impediments to personal development, and a reduction in the contributions women can make to the lives of others. The issues is complex and reaches the highest international level in the debates about sustainable development, good government, and quality of life. Strategies must be directed to equalizing the well being and status of men and women in all sectors, and to reducing women's political and economic vulnerability. Women must have their social status raised, and their ability to gain control over their own lives must be strengthened. Recommendations for bilateral development cooperation policy included promoting the Draft Declaration on Violence Against Women, making certain that gender violence is on all human rights agendas, and promoting the adoption of gender-related violence and persecution as grounds for asylum in refugee conventions. Governments need assistance as part of bilateral aid in coping with issues of rape and domestic violence by training professionals in police and social services, and by providing safe havens. Governments must be influenced to formulate population policies and to provide family planning respectful of women's reproductive rights. Development projects should be continually monitored for gender violence violations, and research must be directed to assessing the gender impact of relief and rehabilitation projects. Women's centers and groups need support and resources for building self-help, training, networking, and building databases and circulating information. Gender violence includes any of the following acts: rape, marital rape, domestic violence, child abuse, female infanticide, denial of health care or nutrition to girls, sexual and emotional harassment, genital mutilation, prostitution, pornography, population control, war and state violence, exploitation of refugees, political violence, and reduction in state services which increases the stress and workload for women.

Reproductive Rights and the Medical Care System: A Plea for Rational Health Policy

Recently, there have been many challenges to women's reproductive rights and freedoms: court-ordered cesarean sections; criminal cases against women for prenatal child abuse; and attempts to limit the practice of mid-wifery, home birth, and the operation of alternative birth centers. In these cases, medicine has been complicit or proactive in attempts to control the behavior or health care options of pregnant women. We discuss medicine's role as an agent of social control, the medical reconstruction of problems that are social in nature, and the need for a more coherent policy framework to guide physician practices.

The politics of the body in Weimar Germany: women's reproductive rights and duties

The politics of the body in Weimar Germany: women's reproductive rights and duties

Ten Years of Women's Health: 1982–92

In 1992, Women's Health, a London-based resource centre, is celebrating its tenth anniversary. This is the first in a series of interviews, articles and other collections of information through which the organization will look back over its history. The results of these examinations will be produced as articles in the anniversary newsletter, or stored in Women's Health's archives for the use of workers in the centre, historians and those who use the centre. Women's Health formed from the merger in 1988 of two organizations, Women's Reproductive Rights Information Centre (WRRIC) and Women's Health Information Centre (WHIC). WHIC was established with its first funding in 1982 and WRRIC followed after a split within the National Abortion Campaign in 1983. At the time of the merger the new organization called itself the Women's Health and Reproductive Rights Information Centre (WHRRIC), a name chosen to ensure that the dual origins were reflected. The final (we hope!) name change is a result of a number offactors including an increased sense of identity and cohesion within the organization and a desire for a more concise name that still reflects the work of the centre. The organization has qxisted over a period of time which has been notable for its constancy and its change. The battle for abortion rights has been ongoing, both in specific campaigns, such as the Alton bill and in less visible but continuing conditions, such as the general erosion of provision of abortion. Cervical and breast cancer continue to be major causes of death despite attempts to improve the screening programme. But new technology, in the field of reproductive technology and elsewhere, has been established as a norm in a way scarcely imagined a decade ago. Single women and lesbians are having children despite the interference of the state and media. Hormone replacement therapy has

Women and HIV Disease: An Emerging Social Crisis

Women are the fastest growing category of people with AIDS in the United States, yet this fact has been consistently ignored in the social work literature. Social workers' expertise is needed to curtail the escalating social crisis of women with HIV disease. This article addresses the major social issues faced by women with HIV disease and explores gender differences in HIV transmission, disease progression, and diagnosis. The author discusses the ways in which women's sexuality and reproductive rights are affected. Specific issues are examined regarding HIV-infected women who use intravenous drugs, women of color, prostitutes, and lesbian and bisexual women. The implications for the social work profession are discussed, and social workers in the AIDS arena and all concerned about HIV-infected women are urged to address this problem on an individual as well as a community level.