Research & Academic Scholarship

While our country remains bitterly divided over the issue of abortion, many women struggle to exercise their right to abortion in a political climate that is increasingly hostile toward reproductive rights. For women of color, however, abortion access is only one battle in a much larger fight for reproductive justice.

The Reproductive Rights Movement has, throughout its history, been heavily affected by public perception. Both its proponents and opponents have therefore taken to using language in order to frame the controversial issues in ways that best achieve their respective objectives. This paper explores the terminology used to discuss such issues as birth control, sterilization, and abortion since 1914, when the term ‘birth control’ was first used.

The idea that abortion rights are central to protecting women’s health will hardly come as a surprise to most reproductive rights advocates. For example, much of the recent litigation challenging states’ legal restrictions on abortion has centered around the requirement of a health exception—that is, around the question of whether legislation regulating abortion must contain an exception for cases where the regulated procedure is necessary to protect the woman’s health.

The pro-choice movement is supportive of a woman's right to terminate pregnancy. The term was coined in the years after the Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973, in which the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of largely unrestricted abortion. Advocates adopted the phrase to emphasize the woman's choice and to counter the opposing ‘pro-life' movement. The pro-choice lobby believes that mothers-to-be should have control over their reproductive systems as a fundamental human right.

This annotated bibliography seeks to update the knowledge base on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of children, adolescents and young people through exploring recent additions to literature on this important topic.

The purpose of this Handbook is to provide NHRIs [national human rights institutions] with tools and guidance on how to integrate reproductive rights into their work. Each NHRI is as unique as the country in which it has been established but that does not mean that many of the challenges, including within the field of reproductive rights, are not the same or similar for many NHRIs. This Handbook is intended to give an introduction to reproductive rights, both what they mean in practice and their normative background, and how NHRIs can work within this field. Naturally, many NHRIs already work within the reproductive rights field, and a number of experiences from NHRIs have been gathered and are mentioned in the Handbook.

This bibliography references select works on the development, interpretation and implementation of women's international human rights as established by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and other international and regional human rights conventions. This bibliography is confined to international law and does not include materials on national or comparative sex discrimination laws, except to the extent that such articles integrate domestic human rights issues with a discussion international women's human rights law.

Harvard Law Review

Sexual and reproductive health and rights have increasingly been recognized in the international arena, but their evolution and the definition of their scope and content have not been received without controversy. From population control to human rights, from demographers’ competence to governmental prerogative, from couples’ rights to universal rights, this article will present an overview of the evolution of sexual and reproductive rights in the international arena. The development of these rights cannot be read in isolation but must be analyzed together with the broader landscape that hosts social and political movements, ideologies, religions, and revolutions. Understanding sexual and reproductive health and rights as historical creations, rather than timeless givens, enables us to devise historically informed instruments and policies that are more likely to succeed. This article contributes to the scholarly literature by providing an overview of past trends and of the conditions under which they occurred. Retracing the history of these rights enables us to clarify the scope of the state’s obligations to realize the right to sexual and reproductive health, to improve monitoring opportunities, and to ensure accountability for violations. This article explores these (and forthcoming) developments contributing to identify the existing obligations, the relevant actors, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Since the Supreme Court grounded the right to an abortion in a constitutional right to privacy, legal and societal debate has continued around the status of a fetus in utero, a woman’s countervailing claims, and the interests of states and society as a whole. As American courts have faced an issue that intertwines legal, moral, and philosophical questions, so too the halakhic process confronts analogous complexities. The main line of Jewish tradition makes a much-needed contribution to the discussion of abortion. Without sharing the view that the fetus is from conception fully a person, it stops short of a complete dismissal of the value problem in destroying a fetus. However, whatever value attaches to “potential life,” the primary concern lies with the woman. She exists. Her voice and her needs must be heard. And her life, (no matter how slim her chances of survival), health, and mental well-being come first.

Jewish Studies at Rutgers University: Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life and Department of Jewish Studies

As Israel’s Orthodox Jews struggle to live up to high fertility norms rooted in religious and Zionist ideals, an obscured model of stratified critique has emerged. Based on an ethnography of Israel...

Drawing on an ethnographic study of reproduction in Israel, in this article I demonstrate how Orthodox Jews delineate borders between the godly and the human in their daily reproductive practices. ...

Perkins Coie has been named the top law firm for women and diversity by Seramount, formerly known as Working Mother Media.

Across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex. This policy brief by the UN Secretary-General explores how women and girls’ lives are changing in the face of COVID-19, and outlines suggested priority measures to accompany both the immediate response and longer-term recovery efforts.

The Asian presence in North America predates the 13 colonies declaration of independence from Great Britain. However, since the beginning, Asian Americans have faced racism, exclusion, xenophobia or they have been upheld as a model minority. In either circumstance, prevailing racist and sexist stereotypes have created the perception of the Asian American as the other, and, as a result, their lives and issues are practically invisible to mainstream America.

"This publication provides an introduction to women’s human rights, beginning with the main provisions in international human rights law and going on to explain particularly relevant concepts for fully understanding women’s human rights. Finally, selected areas of women’s human rights are examined together with information on the main work of United Nations human rights mechanisms and others pertaining to these topics. The aim of the publication is to offer a basic understanding of the human rights of women as a whole, but because of the wide variety of issues relevant to women’s human rights, it should not be considered exhaustive.

Despite Goldman Sachs’ attempt to avoid a 12-year-old gender bias class action lawsuit, a federal judge said Monday the case will head to trial next June.

The gender wage gap is narrower among younger workers nationally, and the gap varies across geographical areas.

Sex work was not a prominent public issue in the USA a generation ago. Law and law enforcement were fairly settled. Over the past two decades, however, a robust campaign has sought to intensify the stigmatization and criminalization of the participants involved in all types of sex work, which are now conflated with human trafficking. These efforts have been remarkably successful in reshaping government policy and legal norms and in enhancing penalties for existing offenses. The article analyzes these developments within the framework of a modernized version of moral crusade theory that includes both instrumental and expressive arguments against sex work.

Title IX Oral History, Women and Sports Oral History, Women and the Law Oral History

The UN Women policy brief series synthesizes research findings, analysis and policy recommendations on key policy areas around gender equality and women’s rights in an accessible format. The series aims to bridge the research and policy divide by identifying issues that require urgent policy attention and propose a set of suitable measures to address them. The series is a joint effort of UN Women’s Policy Division, coordinated by the Research and Data Section. To ensure the quality and relevance of the content, each brief undergoes a rigorous internal and external peer review process. These concise and relevant policy-oriented documents are useful resources for gender equality advocates, civil society and other policy actors working to achieve gender equality and women’s rights.

Browse the list of issues and latest articles from Women's History Review