Women's Rights & Gender Equality Archive

The U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which had guaranteed a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion since 1973, has brought the question of state involvement in reproductive rights issues on both sides of the Pacific into sharp focus. Abortion is not overtly central to debates about China’s One Child policy, a mass-scale reproductive control infrastructure introduced in 1980 that is now being gradually rolled back. But as in the post-Roe U.S., the Chinese state’s encroachment on individual autonomy and family planning choices nonetheless looms large when it comes to reproductive rights. Forced intrauterine devices, or […]

In a bombshell decision, no less stunning for having been leaked in early May, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that in 1973 guaranteed a woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. The 6-3 majority opinion marks the sudden culmination of what had been a gradual erosion in recent years of abortion rights and access in U.S. states governed by the Republican Party.  Some of those states already have laws to outlaw abortion on the books, but in abeyance, while others have similar laws prepared for legislative passage. As a result, the ruling […]