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Examining the changing pluralities of contemporary abortion debate in Britain, this innovative and important book shows why it is necessary to move beyond an understanding of abortion politics as characterised in binary terms by ‘pro-choice’ versus ‘pro-life’.
Amery traces the evolution of political and parliamentary discourses from the passage of the Abortion Act in the 1960s to the present day, and argues that the current provision of abortion in Britain rests on assumptions about medical authority over women’s reproductive decision-making which are unsustainable.
She explores new arguments around sex-selective abortion, disability rights, pre-abortion counselling and the push for decriminalization, and radically reconceptualizes the debate to account for these new battlegrounds in abortion politics.
Most workers on temporary, zero hours and involuntary part-time contracts in the UK are women. Many are also carers. Yet employment law tends to exclude such women from family-friendly rights.
Drawing on interviews with women in precarious work, this book exposes the everyday problems that these workers face balancing work and care. It argues for stronger and more extensive rights that address precarious workers’ distinctive experiences.
Introducing complex legal issues in an accessible way, this crucial text exposes the failures of family-friendly rights and explains how to grant these women effective rights in the wake of COVID-19.
EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
What is feminist peace? How can we advocate for peace from patriarchy? What do women, globally, advocate for when they use the term 'peace'? This edited collection brings together conversations across borders and boundaries to explore plural, intersectional and interdisciplinary concepts of feminist peace.
The book includes contributions from a geographically diverse range of scholars, judges, practitioners and activists, and the chapters cut across themes of movement building and resistance and explore the limits of institutionalised peacebuilding. The chapters deal with a range of issues, such as environmental degradation, militarization, online violence and arms spending.
Offering a resource to advance theoretical development and to advocate for policy change, this book transcends traditional approaches to the study of peace and security and embraces diverse voices and perspectives which are absent in both academic and policy spaces.
This book examines the divergent medical, political and legal constructions of intersex. The authors use empirical data to explore how intersex people are embodied through these frameworks which in turn influence their lived experiences.
Through their analysis, the authors reveal the factors that motivate and influence the way in which policy makers and legislators approach the area of intersex rights. They reflect on the limitations of law as the primary vehicle in challenging healthcare’s framing of intersex as a ‘disorder’ in need of fixing. Finally, they offer a more holistic account of intersex justice which is underpinned by psychosocial support and bodily integrity.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded, stark social inequalities have increasingly been revealed and, in many cases, been exacerbated by the global health crisis.
This book explores these inequalities, identifying three thematic strands: power and governance, gender, and marginalised communities. By examining these three themes in relation to the effects of the pandemic, the book uncovers how unequal the pandemic truly is. It brings together invaluable insights from a range of international scholars across multiple disciplines to critically analyse how these inequalities have played out in the context of COVID-19 as a first step towards achieving social justice.
Slaves, mistresses, concubines – the English courts have used these terms to describe polygamous wives in the past, but are they still seen this way today?
Using a critical postcolonial feminist lens, this book provides a contextualised exploration of English legal responses to polygamy. Through the legacies of British imperialism, the book shows how attitudes to polygamy are shaped by indifference and hostility towards its participants. This goes beyond the law, as shown by the stories of women shared throughout the book negotiating their identities and relationships in the UK today.
Through its analysis, the book demonstrates how polygamy and polygamous wives are subjected to imperialist and orientalist discourses which dehumanise them for practising a relationship that has existed for millennia.
More than 15 years have passed since the law regarding sex workers in New Zealand has changed. As a model it has been endorsed as best practice by international organisations, leading scholars and sex worker-led organisations. Yet in some corners, speculation is ongoing regarding its impacts on the ground.
Written by an international group of experts, this groundbreaking collection provides the much needed in-depth research into how decriminalisation is playing out in sex workers' lives and how different groups of sex workers are experiencing it, while uncovering the challenges and tensions that remain to be negotiated in this field.
Using the evidence from New Zealand, it makes an invaluable contribution to the international debates regarding sex work laws and the global struggle to realise sex workers' rights.
At a time when gender diversity is gaining increasing public attention, this book presents a poignant account of the current policy approaches to self-determining sex and gender in the UK and beyond.
Davy shows how legal, medical and pedagogical policy developments are interconnected, while unique interviews with parents of sex/gender expansive children reveal how policy affects and is affected by experiences and advocacy.
Written by an internationally renowned scholar, this book sparks new debate on the challenges and opportunities surrounding sex/gender self-determination.
). Serious Crime Bill, 2015 Became Serious Crime Act Two amendments were tabled relating to sex-selective abortion: Fiona Bruce’s amendment explicitly criminalising the practice (which failed), and a further amendment requiring to government to collect evidence on sex-selective abortion (which passed). Lord Shinkwin, 2016 Report stage (Lords) Remove the clause permitting abortions in the case of severe disability after 24 weeks’ gestation. Johnson, 2016 First Reading Repeal sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861
law The sex-selection debate is just one example of how the terrain of abortion politics has changed in the UK in the 21st century. Recently, disability rights campaigners have sought to abolish the section of the Abortion Act that allows abortion up until birth if ‘there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped’, arguing that it represents discrimination on the grounds of disability. MPs have also introduced Bills attempting to regulate the provision of counselling
