When your rights are no longer guaranteed
An online discussion got me thinking about what it means when women's human rights are contested
Has the US trashed abortion rights? I think so.
This week I was asked by the Byline Times team to take part in an online Q&A about an article by Anthony Barnett focused on the ‘definite left’.
There was a lot in his article I agreed with, probably more that I disagreed with. Any man that writes the left “draws on feminism, not as a woman’s movement but as a cross-gender, anti-macho form of politics” is going to get a raised eyebrow from me! Feminism is the movement for women’s liberation, and one that requires men to give up some of the privilege and power they benefit from in a patriarchy.
My question in the online discussion focused on his optimism for the left versus my pessimism – not least because of what I called the “trashing” of abortion rights in the US.
Barnett pointed out that perhaps my word “trashing” was inaccurate – after all, the Dobbs decision did not end all access to abortion in the US, and he explained that women can still travel to states where the procedure is legal (but which women can travel? and which women can’t?). We agreed that optimism can be found in the work of activists supporting women and girls to access reproductive healthcare in places where abortion is now criminalised.
But I would disagree with his disagreement. Whether abortion remains legal in some states or not, the Dobbs decision did trash abortion rights in America in that it allowed for a situation where a woman’s human right to bodily autonomy is contested. It sent a message to every woman and girl in the US that their human rights are not absolute. And it sent that message to women and girls around the world, too.
Let me explain…
Abortion is, of course, illegal in many countries around the world – including in Europe, across the Global South, and now across numerous US states. In every country where it is criminalised, the message to women and girls is clear: you are not entitled to the same level of human rights as men and boys. Your body is not your own. And the rights that your brothers, fathers, uncles, grandfathers and male friends take for granted – rights they rarely even recognise as having – are not for you.
The advancement of abortion rights is the advancement of women’s human rights. When abortion is decriminalised, women are freer. We have control over our own bodies. We have bodily integrity. When the right to abortion is denied to women, our rights over our own bodies are denied to us, too.
The Dobbs decision trashed abortion rights in America because it said loud and clear that women are not the decision-makers in our own lives. Our human rights can be taken away by men wielding pens. The rights that men take for granted are, when it comes to women, up for debate. They are a question mark. A moral conundrum. They are not a given, and they are not absolute.
This has a class element too. As soon as we decide that human rights are not for all humans – i.e. not for women – then we not only deny half the population their bodily integrity, we create a tiered society where only some women can access rights.
Sure, as Barnett says, women who need abortions in states where it is now banned can cross the border. But what about those women who can’t do that? The girls who can’t get the time off school without suspicion; the single mum who can’t afford the petrol or the airfare; the woman with mental ill health who is in denial about her pregnancy? Dobbs may allow for women and girls to travel to access reproductive healthcare, but not all women can make that journey – and that creates a classed inequality where only the rich can access their human rights. When you realise that black and minority ethnic women and girls are more likely to be in poverty, there’s a racialised element to who is denied human rights, too.
So I stand by my point that abortion rights have been trashed in the USA, for three reasons:
The principle of the Dobbs decision is that women’s rights over our bodies are not absolute in the way that men’s are
The Dobbs decision only allows a privileged few women to access their full human rights – those privileged by geography, race and class
The message of Dobbs is being heard around the world, with anti-abortion campaigners and legislators emboldened by the decision
Obligatory book plug (exciting news)
Anyone who knows me online or off will know that I have been working on a book about abortion rights for the past just-over-two-years, longer if you consider the ideas phase, the proposal phase, the lightbulb moment in 2017… and now that book is available to pre-order!
It’s called Bodies Under Siege: How The Far-Right Attack On Reproductive Rights Went Global and you can pre-order it at January sale prices from the Verso website right now.
Here’s a photo of me looking hungover and proud with the catalogue listing:
The book was also listed as a must-read by Dazed magazine, which took me back to my student years reading Dazed and Confused like the wannabe hipster 00s kid I was.
What I’m writing
It was my first day back at Byline Times this week and after a Christmas break spent here…
…and I’ll tell you now, getting back to my desk as the rain hammered against the windows was not my favourite! From 24 degrees and swimming in the sea, to sitting in my home office looking at incel forums…
However, get back to my desk I did, and published the following articles:
The Incel Hate for Andrew Tate
A GP on the frontline of the NHS’ perfect storm
Sascha Lavin and I continued our investigation into sexual violence in hospitals, with data from the Met showing more than 1700 incidents in London hospitals since January 2019.
What I’m reading
Over Christmas I binged on multiple Agatha Christie novels which is always a pleasure. I read Trespasses by Louise Kennedy which I thought was an beautifully tender novel that brought the Troubles to vivid life. Women Talking by Miriam Toews was next on my list which I loved – it was so important how the novel focused on the women’s conversations about how to respond to violence, and never triggered the reader by focusing on the violence itself, or sensationalising the rapes.
Next up was Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett which if possible I thought was even better than Pond, and at moments it was like reading my own life. I re-read The Age of Innocence because I love it – is there a more heartbreakingly romantic line than ‘each time you happen to me all over again’? I’ve just bought Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor which I am hearing great things about, and pre-ordered The New Life by Tom Crewe. Will I ever finish Little Dorrit? The jury is OUT.
What I’m watching
Yay Age of Innocence is back on Netflix so that was a treat to re-watch this week. Currently binge-watching 30 Rock before my Amazon Prime subscription expires.
That’s all! Please follow my substack for more musings on feminism and, particularly, abortion rights, as well as updates on what I am writing, reading and watching.
And if you like what I write, tell your friends to subscribe too.