‘Gendercide’, abortion policy, and the disciplining of prenatal sex-selection in neoliberal Europe

Purewal, Navtej K.; Eklund, Lisa

doi:10.1080/17441692.2017.1289230

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Instead, in February 2015, she decided to re-articulate this as an amendment to the Serious Crime Bill and proposed to criminalise abortion on the grounds of sex selection. As Purewal and Eklund (2017) point out, the amendment on sex selective abortion 'exemplified how a public health issue could become quickly incorporated into a crime discourse as a means of furthering the neoliberal state's shrinking role in terms of service provision (e.g. through pregnancy and post-natal support services), meanwhile heightening its penal role'.…”

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They depicted this as a form of violence against women and girls. One activist referred to this as 'womb terrorism' (as quoted by Purewal and Eklund, 2017). In defence of her amendment, Bruce declared that sex selective abortion is 'the first and most fundamental form of violence against women and girls' (as quoted in Lee, 2017) particularly mobilising the terms 'gendercide' and 'honour killings'.…”

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the pro-choice lobby raised alarm bells about the push to make the term ''unborn child'' a part of UK law as this would give the foetus rights, potentially undermining and criminalising all abortion. They also highlighted the lack of clear evidence regarding the incidence of sex selective abortion in the UK and the potential for racial profiling in the provision of abortion services (Purewal and Eklund, 2017). They pushed against criminalisation and in favour of state investment in VAWG services to tackle the issue.…”

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Christian Fundamentalists in the UK

Dhaliwal

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article considers two streams of Christian Right mobilisation in the UK -the Christian Peoples Alliance and the Conservative Christian Fellowship -in the context of neoliberalism and resurgent communitarianism. The article notes their roles as moral swords of justice in challenging a lack of local democracy, the weight of multi-national corporations, racism and hostility towards migrants. Conversely this article also shows how that same morality underlines an assault on women's reproductive rights and enables the perpetuation of Christian supremacy and anti-Muslim sentiment within the context of a national turn to communitarianism and a discourse about British values and cohesion. The article concludes by highlighting the conditions within which these Christian Right organisations garner political space and legitimacy, the registers they utilise to make their claims and the specific aspects of their interventions and ideology that make them fundamentalist formations.

show abstract

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dhaliwal Feministmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Christian Fundamentalists in the UK

Dhaliwal

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Recent moves in a number of Western contexts such as the EU, the UK, and across the United States, have shown that criminalization as an approach towards abortion is not limited to Third World or developing country contexts. For example, the 23 February 2015 UK parliamentary debate on the inclusion of SSA in the Serious Crime Bill highlighted a concerted attempt to capitalize on several years of media reportage on blurred lines between medical ethics and the supposed “social problem” of SSA (Lee, 2017; Purewal & Eklund, forthcoming). Moreover, sex selection is being contested by both pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates; not least in relation to Asian “cultural” preference for sons.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, sex selection is being contested by both pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates; not least in relation to Asian “cultural” preference for sons. Thus, SSA presents a conundrum between gender discrimination against the birth of female babies and the reproductive rights of women to have access to safe abortion (Purewal & Eklund, forthcoming). These recent shifts in rhetoric around abortion call for an analysis of how the two countries with the most skewed sex ratios have addressed the problem through various policy responses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The bio-politics of population control and sex-selective abortion in China and India

Eklund

Purewal

2017

Feminism & Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

China and India, two countries with skewed sex ratios in favor of males, have introduced a wide range of policies over the past few decades to prevent couples from deselecting daughters, including criminalizing sex-selective abortion (SSA) through legal jurisdiction. This article aims to analyse how such policies are situated within the bio-politics of population control and how some of the outcomes reflect each government's inadequacy in addressing the social dynamics around abortion decision-making and the social, physical, and psychological effects on women's wellbeing in the face of criminalization of SSA. The analysis finds that overall, the criminalization of sex selection has not been successful in these two countries. Further, the broader economic, social, and cultural dynamics which produce bias against females must be a part of the strategy to combat sex selection, rather than a narrow criminalization of abortion which endangers women's access to safe reproductive health services and their social, physical, and psychological wellbeing.

show abstract

Civic Action Against Son Preference in Tirupati, India: Critical International Law Put into Practice?

Strandberg Hassellind

2023

Law Critique

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper based on original fieldwork, I seek to contribute to critical scholarship in international law by providing an investigation into the engagement with international law by actors in civil society working against son preference primarily in Tirupati, India. I suggest that the turn to the international legal order by civic actors should be theorized as something else than as merely coming ‘from above’, ‘from below’ or as a ‘translation’ of ‘global’ law to ‘local’ conditions. Instead, I propose that the mobilization of international law within Tirupati’s civil society should be seen as an emancipatory undertaking, an act of resistance with the overarching ambition to reclaim the zenana. In that, I argue, the strategies within Tirupati’s civil society are more appropriately understood as critical international law put into practice.

show abstract

‘Gendercide’, abortion policy, and the disciplining of prenatal sex-selection in neoliberal Europe

Cited by 12 publications

References 18 publications

Christian Fundamentalists in the UK

Christian Fundamentalists in the UK

The bio-politics of population control and sex-selective abortion in China and India

Civic Action Against Son Preference in Tirupati, India: Critical International Law Put into Practice?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About