09 March 2024
Enshrining Abortion Rights in the French Constitution
On International Women’s Day 2024, President Emmanuel Macron signed an amendment, that enshrines abortion rights in the French Constitution. Abortion is now a constitutionally “guaranteed freedom” for women in France: but constitutionally guaranteeing this freedom is also — if not even more — a call-out to the rest of the world. By constitutionalizing the right to abortion, French parliamentarians and government officials aimed to signal this commitment to the global community, with a particular emphasis on the United States. Continue reading >>
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19 August 2022
Dobbs in the EU
EU leaders and institutions have reacted strongly to the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, which overturned Roe v. Wade and held that the right to abortion was not consitutionally protected. Shortly after the decision was made public, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning Dobbs, and calling for the right to abortion to be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Continue reading >>
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12 August 2022
Privacy in Peril
On Saturday, 25 June 2022, American women woke up to a different reality – one day earlier, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, five justices on the US Supreme Court decided that the US Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. This undoing of women’s autonomy comes in part from the Dobbs majority’s failure to recognize that the right to terminate a pregnancy derives from a right to privacy. Roe and Casey recognized that reproductive freedom implicates bodily integrity and physical privacy, along with a decisional privacy interest in the critical life choices surrounding reproduction and family planning. In the space of a single day, the Dobbs Court eviscerated the freedom and the privacy rights Americans have relied on since 1973. Moreover, in an era driven by an information economy and rapidly expanding surveillance technologies, the Dobbs Court’s eradication of the right to terminate a pregnancy also severely compromises informational privacy, which involves the right to shield information from disclosure. Continue reading >>
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28 July 2022
Accessing Information about Abortion
The U.S. Supreme Court decision of 24 June 2022 overruled a half century of precedent supporting a constitutional right to abortion across the U.S. established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. Essentially, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization left the decision on abortion to individual states. The ruling, although astonishing, was not necessarily a surprise, after its draft had leaked a few weeks earlier. But to the surprise of many, almost immediately, Facebook and Instagram started removing posts informing about access to abortion pills, the Associated Press and Vice first reported. Continue reading >>
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01 July 2022
The Logic of Patriarchy
With two decisions, the highest court in the U.S. judicial system shed the mantle of law. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the two-thirds majority of five male justices and one female justice of the Supreme Court declared the abortion right, vouchsafed in the legendary Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, to be moot and gave its blessing to Mississippi's abortion ban. Within just a week, the same majority, half appointed by Donald Trump, tore the controversial right to keep and bear arms from its dogmatic moorings in the Second Amendment. As overtly political measures, both rulings combine a preference for patriarchal society with a bonus for toxic masculinity. It remains to be asked how long the structurally minoritized women justices of the Court will participate in this legitimacy game Continue reading >>30 June 2022
Identitätspolitik als emanzipatorisches Instrument in der Debatte um den Schwangerschaftsabbruch
Der 24.06.2022 war ein Tag voller großer Entscheidungen. So wurde im deutschen Bundestag nach jahrelangem Kampf beschlossen, § 219a StGB endlich vollkommen zu streichen. Umso tragischer war, dass am selben Tag in den USA das Grundsatzurteil Roe v. Wade aus dem Jahr 1973 aufgehoben wurde. Das Recht auf Schwangerschaftsabbruch, bis dato ein Verfassungsrecht, existiert nun dort nicht mehr. Aus einer identitätspolitischen Perspektive wird sichtbar, wieso beide Ereignisse fundamental miteinander verknüpft sind – und wie bestimmte Positionen in öffentlichen Debatten durch strategische Delegitimierungsprozesse aus dem Diskurs verdrängt werden können. Continue reading >>27 June 2022