Dixon, Rosalind; Bond, Jade --- "Constitutions and reproductive rights: convergence and non-convergence" [2017] ELECD 850; in Irving, Helen (ed), "Constitutions and Gender" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 438

Book Title: Constitutions and Gender

Editor(s): Irving, Helen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784716950

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Constitutions and reproductive rights: convergence and non-convergence

Author(s): Dixon, Rosalind; Bond, Jade

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

After the introduction in section 16.1, the chapter is divided into four sections. Section 16.2 outlines the decisions in Roe, Casey, Morgentaler, Abortion I and II and the Colombian Abortion Case, their key holdings, and the degree to which these decisions reveal important areas of difference in terms of the conceptualization of women’s rights and the status of the foetus. Section 16.3 discusses the extent to which, despite these differences, the decisions have produced quite similar outcomes for the regulation of first trimester abortions, in terms of their status as safe and legal but discouraged, and considers the particular commonalities in this context between the US and Germany. It also explores the degree to which all four jurisdictions share an important commitment to capital ‘C’ constitutional argument or decision-making in this context, where most jurisdictions worldwide tend to resolve these issues by means of ‘ordinary’ legislative, executive, judicial – or small ‘c’ constitutional – means. Section 16.4 considers the factors that may explain the constitutionalization of reproductive rights questions in these countries, and what, if any, lessons scholars of comparative constitutional law can draw from this area as to the key forces that drive convergence, versus divergence, in the constitutionalization of key social controversies. Section 16.5 provides a brief conclusion.