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The Human Rights Framing of Maternal Health: a Strategy for Politicization or a Path to Genuine Empowerment?

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The Uses and Misuses of Human Rights

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Abstract

Every year, more than half a million women worldwide die from complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these deaths are preventable, examples of what Amartya Sen calls “remediable injustices” (2009, p. vii). The urgency of the issue became evident when, in 2000, governments around the globe decided to commit to “reduce maternal mortality” by three-quarters by the year 2015, making it one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Despite sincere and combined efforts by governments, nongovernmental organizations, and various global agencies, the goal of reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters will not be met by most countries—especially develo** ones—by 2015. The struggle to improve maternal health conditions globally has led many scholars and practitioners to assert that maternal health is not simply a public health or development issue. Rather, maternal health and preventable maternal deaths are human rights issues because such deaths result from a range of factors that include but are not limited to gender inequality and discrimination, lack of adequate recognition of women’s right to health, and insufficient acknowledgment of women’s right to life, as well as various political, economic, social, and cultural barriers that limit women’s access to appropriate interventions (Center for Reproductive Rights, 2008; Dasgupta, 2010; Hunt & Bueno De Mesquita, 2010; Yamin, 2010; Yamin & Maine, 1999).

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  1. Candace Johnson
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  1. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Graduate Center City University, New York, USA

    George Andreopoulos (professor of political science) (professor of political science)

  2. University of Connecticut, USA

    Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat (professor of political science) (professor of political science)

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© 2014 George Andreopoulos and Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat

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Johnson, C., Das, S. (2014). The Human Rights Framing of Maternal Health: a Strategy for Politicization or a Path to Genuine Empowerment?. In: Andreopoulos, G., Arat, Z.F.K. (eds) The Uses and Misuses of Human Rights. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137408341_5

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