Canada – Connecting the dots between Roe v. Wade, sex workers and bodily autonomy

The same people who criminalize sex work, criminalize other “serious offences” against sexual norms such as medical treatment for trans people and access to abortion.

by Natasha Darling
June 3, 2022

The last couple of years have been rough in terms of bad news all around: a global pandemic, numerous assaults on democracy, climate change, police brutality, war in Ukraine, inflation. To add to this dumpster fire, leaked documents show that Roe v. Wade is on its way to being reversed in America. This reversal will overturn constitutional protections for abortion in the U.S.

Last week, Canadian Blood Services announced that they would no longer ban blood and plasma donations from sex workers. Instead, they would only accept donations from sex workers who haven’t seen a client in more than a year. On the surface, these two events seem unrelated. Today, I would like to connect the dots, and talk about how sex workers, bodily autonomy, and reproductive rights are interconnected.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/columnists/connecting-the-dots-between-roe-v-wade-sex-workers-and-bodily-autonomy/


Meet the naked academic who is rewriting women – and their bodies — into economic history

Meet the naked academic who is rewriting women - and their bodies — into economic history

By Eshe Nelson
May 13, 2019

In March 2018, Victoria Bateman walked into the gala dinner at the annual conference of the Royal Economic Society in Brighton, the largest gathering of economists in the UK. Amid the formal business attire, Bateman stood out; she was completely naked, except for some jewelry fitting for a gala event. Across her chest she had written “RES,” the acronym used by the society, and across her stomach “PECT.”

That day, the message to her peers was a demand for respect for women and their place in economics. This was not the beginning, nor would it be the end, of Bateman using her body to help deliver a message.

Continued: https://qz.com/1614455/victoria-bateman-is-rewriting-women-and-their-bodies-into-economic-history/


Ecuador’s Crackdown on Abortion Is Putting Women in Jail

Ecuador’s Crackdown on Abortion Is Putting Women in Jail
For decades, abortion was considered a private matter. Now, a Nation investigation shows, women who terminate—or lose—pregnancies are facing prosecution and prison time.

By Zoë Carpenter
May 7, 2019 (May 20-27 Issue, The Nation)

Last year, a lawyer named Cristina Torres got a cryptic phone call from a young woman. The caller explained that she was contacting Torres on behalf of her mother, Sara (a pseudonym), who was imprisoned in the city of Latacunga, a windy crossroads on the Pan-American Highway, high on the volcanic plateau of central Ecuador. Sara was hoping to secure a form of legal relief that would allow her to serve part of her remaining sentence outside of detention. The woman asked Torres to take on her mother’s case—but as for the crime that Sara had been charged with, the daughter preferred not to speak of it. Just go visit my mother, she pleaded.

So Torres drove to Latacunga and, in the prison’s visiting room, met a tall woman with an upturned nose and honey-colored eyes. As Torres would learn, she’d had a difficult life. As a teenager, Sara said, she was raped by her aunt’s husband and became pregnant.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/ecuador-abortion-miscarriage-prosecution/


Australia – Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll review: Fiona Patten and the right to speak

Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll review: Fiona Patten and the right to speak

By Pat Sheil
16 October 2018

MEMOIR: Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll, by Fiona Patten. Allen & Unwin, $32.99

"I am an advocate for free speech, but not of a free audience." So declared Fiona Patten, former sex worker, anti-censorship lobbyist, and founder of the Australian Sex Party during the heated debate on restricting the ability of so-called "right to life" activists to protest outside abortion clinics in the Victorian parliament in 2015.

Continued: https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/sex-drugs-and-the-electoral-roll-review-fiona-patten-and-the-right-to-speak-20181015-h16ng8.html


How did Northern Ireland lawmakers carve out an anti-abortion ‘ghetto’ within the UK?

How did Northern Ireland lawmakers carve out an anti-abortion ‘ghetto’ within the UK?
Northern Ireland remains a blind spot for equality for women and members of the LGBTIQ community. Will Ireland’s abortion referendum change this?

Stephanie Williamson
11 June 2018

More than two weeks have passed since Ireland’s historic abortion referendum was won by a groundswell of grassroots feminist activism. A large majority (66.4%) voted to repeal the country’s eighth constitutional amendment, opening the door to proposed legislation to allow abortions up to 12 weeks.

Huge numbers of repeal campaigners and voters were young women – with a staggering 94% increase in the turnout of women aged 18-24, compared to the 2016 general election. The result reflected a frank rejection of decades of misogyny and the suffocating grip of church and state on women’s rights.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/stephanie-williamson/northern-ireland-anti-abortion-ghetto-uk


Reproductive Health And Rights In An Age Of Inequality

Reproductive Health And Rights In An Age Of Inequality
Seema Jalan, Contributor
Executive Director, Universal Access Project

10/17/2017

When I visited Uganda last year, I met a woman named Sarah*. As she relayed, from the moment she was born, Sarah’s life was shaped by inequality: She was born into poverty, with no support from her family, no access to education or health care, and no job opportunities in her rural town. As a young girl of 12, she moved to the city on her own looking for economic opportunity, where she was raped by an older man and became pregnant. Through her sheer will Sarah survived: She gave birth unattended and, with no other opportunities to provide for her child, ultimately engaged in sex work so that she and her baby daughter could survive. In Sarah’s part of town, the majority of women engage in sex work to make a living, some starting as early as age 12 or 13. They do not become sex workers because they want to; there are simply no other options to provide for themselves and their children.

Continued at source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reproductive-health-and-rights-in-an-age-of-inequality_us_59e0bfaee4b003f928d5e5ea


Sex work and Abortion in Ireland

Sex work and Abortion in Ireland

Frankie Mullin
16 June 2017

Those alarmed by the bigotry-driven abortion policy, on both sides of the Irish border, should similarly be concerned by policies on prostitution that undermine sex workers’ safety.

As the slow-motion catastrophe of a Tory deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) unfolds, UK-wide attention has belatedly turned to the controversial positions held by the DUP on LGBT rights, same-sex marriage, climate change, and abortion. Unsurprisingly, feminists are appalled.

Continued at source: Verso Books: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3279-sex-work-and-abortion-in-ireland


Ireland questioned on human rights of sex workers by UN

Ireland questioned on human rights of sex workers by UN
Institutional abuse and traveller ethnicity among issues raised by UN committee

Wed, Feb 15, 2017
Kitty Holland

A Government delegation to the United Nations has been criticised as “vague and unhelpful” in its responses to questions about abortion.

Ireland was examined on Wednesday by a UN committee on women’s rights, on compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It is the first time Ireland has faced questioning by the Geneva-based CEDAW committee since 2005.

The delegation also heard calls for an international inquiry into symphysiotomy, for guarantees to protect the human rights of sex-workers and for measures to protect lone parents from poverty.

Continued at source: Irish Times: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/ireland-questioned-on-human-rights-of-sex-workers-by-un-1.2976579#.WKUPX_t9Pas.twitter


Ireland: What unites sex workers’ rights and abortion rights movements?

What unites sex workers’ rights and abortion rights movements?

February 6, 2017

By @CuteCatriona and Grace Wilentz

The Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC) and the Sex Workers’ Alliance Ireland (SWAI) are part of a larger, integrated movement for sexual rights and bodily autonomy. This includes maternity rights, access to contraception, and comprehensive sexuality education and information to name just a few. In a vision for a better world, we are building solidarity across movements and drawing out the synergies, as campaigns such as ours calling for abortion rights and sex workers’ rights do not exist in a vacuum. It is important to show our solidarity, because these campaigns represent different dimensions of a shared struggle to address different manifestations of the same underlying forces of oppression.

Continued at source: Abortion Rights Campaign: http://www.abortionrightscampaign.ie/2017/02/06/what-unites-sex-workers-rights-and-abortion-rights-movements/