The Politicization of Women’s Health and Wellbeing

Udi Sommer and Aliza Forman-Rabinovici
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Udi Sommer: Chair, Center for the Study of the United States at Tel Aviv University, School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6139601, Israel
Aliza Forman-Rabinovici: School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6139601, Israel

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 9, 1-10

Abstract: The framers and advocates of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals face a unique challenge when it comes to the goals of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, good health and wellbeing, as it concerns women’s health. The health of women, and in particular reproductive rights, have been politicized in the work of the UN. Forums of the UN have become a battleground between those who would frame reproductive rights as a morality policy versus those who frame them as a feminist policy. This problem is not new to the organization’s work. Indeed, it has been a challenge to the UN’s ability to promote women’s health for years. This article explores how the framing of women’s reproductive rights poses a unique challenge to implementing some of the goals of SDG3, and in particular targets 3.1, 3.7, and 3.8. It also offers strategies to surmount the challenge with an example of a different intergovernmental organization that managed to overcome this issue.

Keywords: SDG3; SDG5; abortion policy; reproductive rights; public health; morality policy; feminist policy; medical frame; Maputo Protocol; International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (PoA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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