Sound and Fury ‒ engaging with the politics and the law of sexual rights

Abstract

Although past resistance to sexual rights in global debates has often been grounded in claims to culture, nation and religion, opposition voices are now using, rather than rejecting, the frame of international human rights. This Commentary argues that, despite opponents’ attempts to defeat sexual rights with other rights claims, a careful understanding of the principles of international human rights and its legal development exposes how the use of rights to oppose sexual rights should, and will ultimately, fail. The Commentary briefly takes up three kinds of “rights” claims made by opponents of sexual rights: limiting rights to protect rights, textual basis, and universality, and explores the rationales and impact of their application to countering sexual rights. Because sexuality and reproduction intersect as well as diverge in the opposition they face, this struggle matters intensely and plays out across advocacy, programmatic and policy worlds. Underpinning this Commentary is the understanding that opposition to sexual and reproductive health rights uses common arguments about rights principles that must be understood in order to be countered.

Résumé

Bien que la résistance passée aux droits sexuels dans les débats internationaux se soit souvent appuyée sur des revendications à la culture, la nation et la religion, les voix de l’opposition se servent maintenant du cadre des droits de l’homme internationaux, plutôt que de le rejeter. Ce commentaire avance qu’en dépit des tentatives des opposants pour venir à bout des droits sexuels avec d’autres revendications de droits, une soigneuse compréhension des principes des droits de l’homme internationaux et son développement juridique montrent comment l’utilisation des droits pour s’opposer aux droits sexuels devrait échouer, et échouera en fin de compte. Le commentaire se penche brièvement sur trois types de revendications de « droits » présentées par les opposants aux droits sexuels : la limitation des droits à protéger les droits, la base textuelle et l’universalité. Il explore les raisons d’être et l’impact de leur application pour contrer les droits sexuels. Puisque la sexualité et la procréation se rejoignent et divergent à la fois dans l’opposition qu’elles rencontrent, cette lutte est intensément importante et joue un rôle dans le plaidoyer, les mondes programmatiques et politiques. Ce Commentaire repose sur la notion selon laquelle l’opposition aux droits à la santé sexuelle et génésique utilise des arguments communs sur les principes de droits qui doivent être compris pour être vaincus.

Resumen

Aunque en el pasado la resistencia a los derechos sexuales en debates mundiales a menudo se basaba en afirmaciones relacionadas con la cultura, nación y religión, las voces de oposición ahora están utilizando, y no rechazando, el marco de derechos humanos internacionales. Este Comentario argumenta que, pese a los intentos de los oponentes por derrotar los derechos sexuales con otras afirmaciones de derechos, un cuidadoso entendimiento de los principios de los derechos humanos internacionales y su desarrollo jurídico expone cómo el uso de los derechos para oponerse a los derechos sexuales debería fallar y a la larga fallará. El Comentario examina de manera resumida tres tipos de afirmaciones de "derechos" hechas por oponentes de los derechos sexuales: limitar los derechos para proteger los derechos, base textual y universalidad, y explora las justificativas y el impacto de su aplicación para contrarrestar los derechos sexuales. Dado que la sexualidad y reproducción coinciden y divergen en la oposición que enfrentan, esta lucha es de suma importancia y atañe a los campos de promoción y defensa, programas y políticas. Este Comentario se basa en el entendimiento de que la oposición a los derechos de salud sexual y reproductiva utiliza argumentos comunes acerca de los principios de derechos que deben ser entendidos para poder ser contrarrestados.

Key words:

• sexual rights
• methods and politics of legal development
• universality
• rights in conflict
• legitimizing sexual rights

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Rachel Lipstein for her research and editorial assistance.

Notes

* We use three terms – culture, tradition and morality – to cover a great deal of ground. Historically and regionally different manifestations of almost all religions, whether they stem from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism or other faiths, have been mobilized by powerful actors in political settings to regulate sexual behavior or reproductive capacity. Over the last twenty-five to thirty years, scholarship in Reproductive Health Matters and elsewhere has detailed a specific intensification and distinct shape of the opposition to the new paradigms of “sexual and reproductive health and rights”, dating back to the “globalized focus” on this developed during the World Conference on Human Rights (1993), the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995). For a comprehensive analysis of some of the commonalities across opposition to sexual rights as posed by a family of religious claims designated as “fundamentalisms”, see: Freedman, Lynn P. The Challenge of Fundamentalisms. Reproductive Health Matters Volume 4, Issue 8, 55–69.

† We note here that the rules guiding how the speech, association, or information-seeking rights of persons under 18 can be limited in ways distinct from adults, but the Committee on the Rights of the Child has made clear that these limits can be scrutinized and struck down, even in the face of family objection if they counteract core principles of non-discrimination and fail to respect the evolving capacity of the child, including the need to combat gender stereotypes and promote health. See our “Guide” in this volume for more elaboration.