Women's Human Rights and Migration: Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States and India

by Sital Kalantry

Overview

Some of the most hotly contested international women's rights issues today arise from the movement of peoples from one country to another and the practices they purportedly bring with them. In Women's Human Rights and Migration, Sital Kalantry focuses on immigrants of Asian descent living in the United States who are believed to abort female fetuses because they do not want a female child. While sex-selective abortion is a human rights concern in India, should we, for that reason, assume that the practice undermines women's equality in the United States? Although some pro-choice feminists believe that these prohibitions on sex-selective abortion promote women's equality, other feminists fiercely oppose such laws, characterizing them as a Trojan horse in the larger pursuit to overturn the reproductive rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade. Nearly half of state legislatures in the United States have proposed laws restricting sex-selective abortion since 2009 and nine have adopted them.

Kalantry argues that traditional feminist legal theories and international human rights law fail to provide adequate guidance in examining the human rights implications of the reproductive practices of immigrant women, evidenced by the fact that both supporters and opponents ground their claims in women's equality. She advocates instead for a context-based approach that is open to the possibility that sex-selective abortion practices will have significantly different human rights implications when they emerge in different national contexts. The product of extensive empirical and interdisciplinary research, Kalantry's book investigates the actual occurrence of sex-selective abortion among Asian Americans, the social and cultural contexts in which women in the United States and India practice sex-selective abortion, and the consequences of the laws in each country for women's equality. Women's Human Rights and Migration develops a transnational feminist legal approach to examining and legislating contested acts that result from migration.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812249330
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	07/03/2017
Series:	Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sital Kalantry is Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and Director of the International Human Rights Policy Advocacy Clinic.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Transnational Legal Feminist Approach to Cross-Border Practices 12

Chapter 2 Transnational Legal Feminist Approach to Sex-Selective Abortion 47

Chapter 3 The Politics of Sex-Selective Abortion Laws in the United States 74

Chapter 4 Sex Selection in the United States: From Gender-Biased Sex Selection to Family Balancing 99

Chapter 5 Sex-Selective Abortion in India: Magnitude, Causes, and Responses 126

Chapter 6 Transnational Legal Feminist Approach to Sex-Selective Abortion Bans in the United States and India 152

Chapter 7 Transnational Legal Feminist Approach to the French Veil Ban 176

Conclusion 189

Notes 197

Index 243

Acknowledgments 253

Editorial Reviews

"Women's Human Rights and Migration addresses a long-existing gap in feminist theory at the intersection of a migrant woman's experience and culturally motivated reproductive decisions. By recognising the possibility that 'practices that are oppressive to women in one country context may not have a negative impact on women in another country context' Kalantry takes an important step in creating a framework for evaluating competing human rights interests within the complex cultural contexts that arise in migrant-receiving countries."

Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law

"Sital Kalantry's trenchant and compelling book demonstrates how current debates regarding reproduction, when analyzed with a critical, global lens, reveal the shortcomings of traditional narratives surrounding women's rights."

Sonia Katyal

"Women's Human Rights and Migration offers an important intervention in feminist theory, social change literature, and reproductive rights literature. Sital Kalantry conducts a sensitive investigation of women's motives and contexts, combined with a sophisticated theoretical call for contextual feminist analysis."

Tel Aviv University Hila Shamir

"Women's Human Rights and Migration addresses a long-existing gap in feminist theory at the intersection of a migrant woman's experience and culturally motivated reproductive decisions. By recognising the possibility that 'practices that are oppressive to women in one country context may not have a negative impact on women in another country context' Kalantry takes an important step in creating a framework for evaluating competing human rights interests within the complex cultural contexts that arise in migrant-receiving countries."—Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law

"Women's Human Rights and Migration offers an important intervention in feminist theory, social change literature, and reproductive rights literature. Sital Kalantry conducts a sensitive investigation of women's motives and contexts, combined with a sophisticated theoretical call for contextual feminist analysis."—Hila Shamir, Tel Aviv University

"Sital Kalantry's trenchant and compelling book demonstrates how current debates regarding reproduction, when analyzed with a critical, global lens, reveal the shortcomings of traditional narratives surrounding women's rights."—Sonia Katyal, University of California, Berkeley

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