The following is a provisional translation into Japanese of "Section 7: From Rights to Justice" contained in "Chapter 6: Reproductive Health and Rights as Human Rights" of Kumi Tsukahara's 2012 book "Abortion Technology and Reproductive Rights" written in Japanese. Please note that the text translated from the English original into Japanese for my book has been translated into English this time using automatic translation, so the wording is likely to differ from the English original.
Section 7: From Rights to Justice
The importance of national women's movements in actually promoting reproductive health and rights in diverse national contexts has been demonstrated in studies by Dorothy McBride Stetson and others (Stetson [2001]). Through a survey of policies and movements surrounding abortion in ten Western democracies, they showed that whether international agreements on reproductive rights are translated into national policies and specific health care systems depends largely on the state of domestic movements (Stetson [ 2001: 295]). 2001: 295]). In their comparative study, they found that countries with strong movements were able to achieve results even under conservative regimes with poorly functioning government departments, while countries where the movements were not sovereign tended to have less success (Stetson [2001: 295]). Similarly, the authors of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy also attribute governments' promotion of reproductive rights (RR) and other women's rights to "the work of women's rights advocates around the world" and argue that "activism for women's rights in all spheres of society" is essential to promoting RR, and that the movement's "work for women's rights in all spheres of society" is essential to promoting RR. The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy [2000→2001: 227-8]).
As we have seen, the emergence of the concept of reproductive rights was itself a result of the global women's movement, and such a movement was supported by reproductive control technology as a solution to unwanted pregnancy, including safe and reliable contraception and abortion. Only when such solutions existed did women have a concrete sense of entitlement to them. On the other hand, even when safe and reliable methods of reproductive control exist, indirect or direct state prohibition or coercion through patternalistic intervention prevents women from having a sense of entitlement and, consequently, free choice.
The importance of the women's movement is also evident in cases where women's rights have actually been downplayed in countries that seemingly led the world in aspects of technology adoption. For example, according to political scientist Dag Stenvoll, abortion-on-demand was realized early on in Eastern European countries such as Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union under communism. In these countries, contraception did not spread as "unnatural, inefficient, and dangerous," while abortion became a commonplace "medical procedure" that was "traditional, safe, accessible, relatively inexpensive," and "as uncomfortable as a tooth extraction" (Stenvoll [2007: 23, 26]). However, according to Stenvoll, the policies in those countries had nothing to do with reproductive choice in modern Western Europe or North America, which involves the knowledge and means of contraception. In Russia, for example, the practice of using abortion as a substitute for contraception persisted, while the abortion care, which was cheap and readily available in public hospitals, was poor. Thus, Russian women "did not have to fight for the freedom of abortion as women in the West did, but they had to fight for more humane abortion care" (Stenvoll [2007: 23, 26]). These facts remind us of the need for the women's movement to demand safe means of birth control and abortion, as well as a more humane and respectful system for women.
As we have already noted, reproductive health and rights (RHRR) have been declared a universal human right. However, it would be meaningless if the rights that were supposed to have been acquired end up being a "picture-perfect" right. As legal scholar Lynn Freedman warns, reproductive rights are not, and should not be, "free choice in a vacuum of nothingness" (Freedman [1995: 1086]). Even if the "right to choose" were granted to all, the reality of social inequality based on class, age, race, ethnicity, culture, etc., as it is, would make "free choice" unfeasible for the disadvantaged. To address this gap between rights and reality, some non-white women have begun to advocate a new conceptual framework called reproductive justice (RJ). They moved beyond RR, which tends to focus on abortion rights, to recognize the connection between regulating, controlling, and associating women's reproductive capacity and sexuality with sin and the norms of the communities of race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality on which they themselves are based. and the adoption of this framework (Silliman et al. [2004: 4])38). Let us introduce this new movement.
According to the ACRJ, reproductive justice is "the full achievement and protection of women's human rights. According to the ACRJ, reproductive justice is a state of justice in which "the full physical, psychological, spiritual, political, social, and economic wellbeing of women and girls is achieved based on the full achievement and protection of their human rights," and they emphasize that those who are not in such a state should work collectively for justice. They emphasize that those who are not in such a state collectively work for justice. ACRJ activists placed particular emphasis on the need to work with various other movements for social justice to advance the reproductive agenda.
In the RJ movement, a woman's ability to make her own reproductive decisions is analyzed from the perspective that it is directly tied to the conditions of the community in which she lives. RJ focuses on specific issues that arise in the reality of social inequalities, and in particular on the need to ensure that every woman has an equal opportunity to decide for herself the course of her pregnancy. In this framework, the demand for privacy is a key issue. The framework goes beyond the demand for privacy and respect for individual decision-making to the provision of social support that is essential for the optimal realization of individual decision-making, and calls on national governments to fulfill their obligations to protect women's human rights to ensure that such support is provided. We will also take action to demand that their governments fulfill their obligations to protect women's human rights so that such support is provided. We also call on governments to ensure that the choices women make (for example, regarding reproduction) are always safe, affordable, and accessible, regardless of which option they choose, and that these three requirements are guaranteed for every individual's life decisions. We call for government support to ensure that these three requirements are guaranteed for every individual's life decisions.
Reproductive justice advocates are particularly concerned that the issue of abortion tends to be isolated from other social justice issues, such as issues of economic injustice, the environment, immigrant rights, disability rights, and discrimination based on race or sexual orientation. In reality, however, those social justice issues have a direct impact on the decision-making process of an individual woman40).
Therefore, ADRJ began working on RJ's movement to eliminate injustice by presenting the following three elementary frameworks to combat reproductive oppression.
1. reproductive health--working to provide services
2. reproductive rights--raising legal issues
3. reproductive justice--focus on building the movement itself
In describing this framework, which is focused on implementing a specific movement, Loretta Ross of the Sistersong Non-White Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective states, "Ultimately, any movement is about service. supports this by stating that ultimately "service," "advocacy," and "organizing" are essential to any movement (Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective et al. [2007: 4]).
Women and girls who are able to see things within a reproductive justice framework will ultimately be empowered within their own families, and RJ's analysis always aims to discuss abortion and contraception in the context of facing the realities of women and girls' situations. RJ focuses on challenging structural "power imbalances" through processes of organizing and empowering women, girls, and communities in a holistic and transformative way. RJ emphasizes challenging structural power imbalances through a process of organizing and empowering women, girls, and communities in a comprehensive and transformative way. There, "the personal will become political.
In RJ's discussion, one is reminded of the emphasis on the interrelationship of various rights, especially on whether women's rights are substantially protected or not. What is important, however, is not only whether a certain right is guaranteed to a certain individual, but also to pay attention to whether there is any abuse rooted in a system that is structurally unjust. Specifically, if a woman who finds herself pregnant decides that she is in a social situation where she has no choice but to consider it practically impossible to "give birth" and "raise a child adequately (in the way she wants)," and therefore chooses not to "give birth," that is not for her an "exercise of her rights," but rather an abrogation of her choice. It would not be an "exercise of her rights," but rather a forced choice. This viewpoint would require a change in the social system to enable her to fully exercise her "right to choose" in practice.
Furthermore, from RJ's point of view, if her psychological and mental health is hindered by the "forced choice not to give birth," as described above, because such a choice conflicts with the "ideal image of motherhood" that is considered "common sense" in her society, then it is necessary to change such "common sense," as well. From RJ's perspective, what is needed is support to give her "truly free choice. Furthermore, if measures to prevent the dilemma of whether or not to give birth (e.g., sex education and contraceptive guidance) are insufficient, then these must be changed as well. In other words, what is required here is a very comprehensive understanding of the current social problems that women and girls face, and a persistent effort to work for change one by one in a concrete manner. Since this is beyond the limits of individual abilities, a sustained "movement" that mobilizes a large number of people will be indispensable to realize this change.
The need for a grassroots, yet grand women's movement like RJ's is a corollary of the fact that until very recently in history, women have been very rarely represented at key moments of political decision-making on the rights of human beings. Even within approaches to human rights guarantees that prioritize the protection of people from direct state violations of their human rights, it has often occurred that women's human rights are sacrificed in order to protect male-defined cultural, familial, and religious rights41) (Bunch and Reilly [1994: v, 3]). However, because of their own experiences of oppression, women activists, especially feminist women, demand that gender-based oppression and discrimination be eliminated, but do not allow anyone else's human rights to be sacrificed in order to do so. This point also results in difficulties peculiar to the feminist movement, but it also brings the possibility of shifting the view of the "individual" and "human rights" itself and presenting a new view of human beings. For example, in the recent feminist human rights and health movements, the "self" is being constructed and understood as a "connected self.
According to Freedman, the reproductive rights movement was originally a confluence of the women's human rights movement and the women's health movement, but as these two movements proceeded in parallel, sometimes overlapping, they arrived at a new image of "self" (Freedman [1995: 1086 Freedman [1995: 1086]). For example, the mission statement of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), an organization of researchers and activists who question development from the perspective of Third World women, includes the following statement: "Women's reproductive health should be within the framework of comprehensive human development, where the wellbeing of all people and the full citizenship of women must be promoted," suggesting the need to view people and individuals through a "double lens" (Petchesky and Judd [1998: 4]). Thus, the feminist movement is often characterized by a view of the individual as an entity living in relation to concrete others, a view that runs through both the RHRR movement and RJ.
Whether in RHRR or RJ, feminists have embarked on a process of constructing and understanding each person as a socially and physically "united self," overcoming a worldview that sees each person as a separate and isolated self, protected by rights, having a body of its own, and cut off from the world. This is precisely the process of constructing and understanding the feminine self, which will be discussed in the next chapter. This is precisely the view of the human person that is characteristic of feminist ethics, which will be discussed in the next chapter. Perhaps the "bound self" is rooted in the very specific "self/other" experience of "pregnancy" or is gendered as a person who can have such an experience. --Perhaps this is the view of human beings that we inevitably arrive at as gendered beings capable of such experiences. This new insight still needs to be examined, but we will consider this new "self" again in relation to abortion at the end of the next chapter.
Notes:
(38) The authors introduce RJ as a new kinetic form of women of color, using it as an interchangeable concept with RR.
(39) The following description of RJ is based on Sistersong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective et al.
(40) In Japan, the problems of single parenthood and discrimination against illegitimate children, as well as the fact that the average income of women is much lower than that of men, may have a significant impact.
(41) See Bunch and Reilly [1994: 17-92] for a record of testimony on "gender-based human rights violations" conducted by the Global Campaign for Women's Rights during the Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993.
(42) According to Freedman, this view is called the "integration principle" by Pechesky and others (cf. Freedman [1995: 1086]).
