S茅minaires d鈥櫭﹖茅: Narrating Innocent Suffering in Abortion Law
Cet 茅t茅, le Centre Paul-Andr茅 Cr茅peau de droit priv茅 et compar茅 tiendra une s茅rie de s茅minaires d鈥櫭﹖茅 auxquels toute la communaut茅 de la Facult茅 de droit est invit茅e 脿 prendre part. Le but principal de ce s茅minaire d鈥櫭﹖茅 est d鈥檕ffrir un forum aux jeunes chercheurs pour pr茅senter leurs id茅es et d茅battre de celle d鈥檃utres chercheurs dans un cadre informel.
Boissons froides et biscuits seront servis.
颁辞苍蹿茅谤别苍肠颈猫谤别: Lisa Kelly, Faculty of Law, Harvard University
Titre: Narrating Innocent Suffering in Abortion Law
搁茅蝉耻尘茅 (en anglais seulement): Over the past decade, reproductive rights advocates have pursued a series of lawful abortion access cases from Latin America before the United Nations and Inter-American human rights systems.聽 These cases have met with resounding legal success.聽 Advocates celebrate these decisions as important victories for the advancement of abortion rights in international human rights law.聽 In this presentation, I offer a more ambivalent reading of these cases, however, specifically of how they narrate abortion and sexuality.聽 All but one of these claims has involved rape, and all but one has concerned minors. I identify in these cases a recurring narrative of innocent suffering: an adolescent girl, figured often as a child, is raped, becomes pregnant, and with the support of her parents seeks to terminate the pregnancy. This narrative proves powerful but also perilous for abortion rights advocates.聽 Cases involving adolescent rape and parental beneficence resonate powerfully with publics and with legal decision-makers.聽 And yet by narrating sympathetic cases likely to secure greater support for abortion access, advocates risk reinforcing narrow conceptions of the reasonable or deserved abortion. Thus, narratives of innocent suffering can sustain lines of argument and (re)produce legal rules that undercut the very emancipatory goals of the reproductive rights movement.
