CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Hodzic, Lejla |
|---|---|
| Title | Right to Reproductive Health as Legal Avenue for Access to Safe Abortion in Ireland, Poland and Croatia |
| Summary | Fight for access to safe abortion and legal guarantee of it have mainly focused on the right to reproductive choice and women’s autonomy. Despite unsafe abortion being a public health concern, abortion is rarely discussed as a matter of reproductive health endangering women’s health and lives. While reproductive autonomy remains the pillar of women’s access to safe abortion, alone it is insufficient to guarantee legal and effective abortion in societies which have a history of institutionalized gender discrimination and where abortion is a complex social construct. The thesis argues how right to reproductive health can be a legal ground for ensuring effective access to safe abortion, since it imposes positive obligations on states to fulfill elements and conditions of reproductive health care in domestic systems. The thesis analyzes how women’s rights are affected by the dynamics of lawmaking and prevalence of socio-cultural factors over scientific achievements in reproductive medicine. Relying on the feminist critique of liberal theory of human rights, the thesis addresses the shortcomings of the theory in the context of access to safe abortion as part of the right to reproductive health in states with historically strong opposition to reproductive rights. The thesis argues that if abortion is part of the right to reproductive health, it is hard to ensure effective access to safe abortion without states considering and addressing socio-economic, political and cultural determinants of women’s access to abortion through states positive obligations. |
| Supervisor | Sandor, Judit |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/hodi_lejla.pdf |
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