By Dr. Shirley Graham, Director, Gender Equality Initiative in International Affairs, GW Elliott School of International Affairs.
GEIA condemns the draft opinion from the Supreme Court on the overturning of Roe V. Wade. Not only is it a violation of women’s human rights in the US but it also has serious implications for women’s rights globally. Nearly one in four women in the US will have an abortion. The World Health Organization recognizes abortion as an essential aspect of healthcare. And, the United Nation’s Beijing Platform for Action, a 12-step pathway to achieving gender equity globally, states that ‘the human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.’ In 2015, the United Nations developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) often referred to as the 2030 Agenda. These 17 goals are a pathway to protecting life on Earth. They include goals on access to clean water, renewable sources of energy, and quality education. The cross-cutting goal, the one that is necessary to achieve all the other goals, is women’s empowerment and gender equality. Why? Because the evidence-based data tells us that when women have access to resources and decision-making power it is not only better for them but also for their children, their families and their communities. For example, women politicians are more likely to advocate for maternity and paternity leave, affordable childcare, women’s access to equal pay, and social safety nets that protect the most vulnerable in society. When women have access to decision-making power, everyone is better off.
Women’s status in their country is an indicator of that country’s stability and prosperity. The erosion of women’s rights not only creates insecurity and harms women in their own country but it also erodes peace and security globally.
Women’s rights, and the rights of gender and sexual minorities, are being rolled back by authoritarian, rightwing, populist regimes in many countries, including Poland, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, Turkey and the Philippines. Fundamentalist and extremist groups and ideologies use women’s bodies to define the boundaries of their values and beliefs, whether they are in the US or Afghanistan, women are seen as the biological and cultural reproducers of national, religious and ethnic identity. That is why these groups fight to control women’s bodies.
On the fourth day of Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017 he signed the Mexico City protocol commonly known as the global gag rule. It stopped any USAID supported/funded clinics or medical centers in the global south from being able to provide, or even inform women about, abortions. It didn’t matter if these were girls or women who had been systematically raped by soldiers during war, or if they were carrying a fetus with a fatal abnormality, these women could not access the critical medical care they required. We know that a majority of Americans support women’s right to choose. But, we also know that the fact that a right has existed for almost 50 years does not guarantee its continuation.
What is to be done?
Time and time again it has been demonstrated that national women’s rights movements coming together with transnational feminist movements are the most powerful way to advocate for and protect women’s rights. In Colombia earlier this year the Green Wave Movement led to the legalization of abortion, this followed a wave of rights won by women in other Latin American countries such as Argentina and Mexico. Women in Ireland had travelled to the UK to access abortions for decades because the Irish State preferred to export ‘the problem’ rather than provide the healthcare women required. In 2018, women’s activism, inspired and supported by the global feminist movement, led to the Repeal of the 8th amendment, paving the way for the provision of safe, legal abortions.
If Roe V. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, women, and all people with a uterus in the US, will have lost their constitutional right to access abortions and to have sovereignty over their own bodies. Take action, raise your voice, vote in the midterm elections and demand women’s right to choose. Voting will not only protect rights domestically it will also ensure that the US provides strong leadership in the protection of women’s rights and human rights globally.
“What we see globally is that very often when right wing authoritarian regimes take power, one of the first things they do is push back women’s rights. It really raises the alarm bells in terms of the issue here in the U.S.”
– Dr. Shirley Graham in U.S. News & World Report “The U.S. Is Poised to Be a Global Outlier on Abortion.’
Since the ERA HAS been ratified – can we get Biden to expand the deadline date? As it stands, women are not protected by the constitution.