This is an extremely important topic because of how many intersections lead to women’s rights. Women still deal with an immense amount of violence and discrimination, and we hope that by examining the monstrosities perpetrated against women in the United States we will bring more awareness to this topic. We also hope that by examining CEDAW, we can propose potential solutions. CEDAW is a brilliant jumping-off place because it has been in formation for so many decades. With this, there is a certain awareness of what works, and what doesn’t in the context of women’s reproductive justice. Specifically, we want to understand why a state would not prescribe to a convention protecting its members, such as CEDAW, and if there is a better way to mandate women’s reproductive rights. This will require us to examine women’s rights intersectionally, and focus on who benefits from them, and who does not. We will attempt to explore solutions, those that involve the United Nations, and those that do not. Our end goal, especially as women living in a state that is boarding a country committing horrific acts of violence against women, is to use our class knowledge of international human rights to shed light on how reproductive injustice in America is affecting women.
References:
Catherine A. MacKinnon, Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues (United States of America: Harvard University Press, 2007) at 141. HumanRightsWatch. (2022, June 24). Human rights 101 | episode 11: Why is access to
abortion a human rights issue? YouTube. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEMtBL0kTwg
Rachael Johnstone (2006). "Feminist Influences on the United Nations Human Rights Treaty
Bodies." Human Rights Quarterly, 28(1), 148-185.
Nussbaum, Marth (2016). “Women’s Progress and Women’s Human Rights.” Human Rights
Quarterly 38 589–622. https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/article/627628/pdf
The New York Times. (2022, May 24). Tracking the states where abortion is now banned. The
New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/us/abortion-laws-roe-v-wade.html
Zwingel, Susanne (2013). "International Feminist Strategies: Strengths and Challenges of the
Rights-Based Approach." Politics & Gender, 9: 344-351.