Women reproductive rights

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Reproductive health, as defined by the World Health Organization, is a state of physical, mental, and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system at all stages of life. Reproductive health implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so. Implicit in this definition are the rights of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable, and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, and the right to appropriate health-care services that enable women to safely go through pregnancy and childbirth.

While reading the chapter I kept having in my mind one of the images I showed in class during my presentation, “Your Body is a Battleground” (Fig. 1) by Barbara Kruger, piece that was originally used in a march in Washington DC supporting a pro-choice position and reproductive rights for women in 1989.

What I like about Barbara Kruger’s work is that it is not always self-explanatory and is open to interpretation. The image of the woman and the text superimposed upon it summarized what protesters felt about the issue: “Where is the boundary between inside and outside, private and public, and who will control it?

Her message also implicated the conservative agenda in power at this time.  A woman’s body is no longer her own, not if conservatives have anything to say about it.  In 1990, using the same slogan, Kruger designed a billboard that was placed directly next to another from a pro-life organization (Fig. 2).The contrast is striking. A woman’s screaming face appears, an eight week old fetus’s life placed before hers. In 1992, Kruger pressed the issue of woman vs. fetus again in a poster that asked “How Come Only the Unborn Have the Right to Life?” (Fig. 3)

 

These designs were more than the works of an artist. They were the works of an activist, who was adamant about her beliefs in a woman’s rights. In these works, power (and who wields this power) is a primary concern. The power that Kruger challenges and confronts may be invisible; there is no denying that some of it can be pinpointed.

The fight over a woman’s right to choose what happens with her own body is one that intensely revolves around power. In her essay “Biologically Correct,” feminist writer Natalie Angier writes that there is a struggle between men and women “over the same valuable piece of real estate—the female body” (Angier, 2003, p. 10). There is a constant push and pull between the sexes: women fight to have control over their physical bodies as well as their places in society, while men fight to maintain their dominance over women in society.