Rosalind Petchesky, distinguished professor of political science at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York, begins by stating that we need to understand reproductive health as a piece of a "much larger mosaic" that is
continually taking shape and concerned with the "politics and ethics of the body and bodily integrity." She explains that the fields of
family planning and population planning, as well as maternal and child health care, view women instrumentally, as vehicles for curbing
population growth or for producing healthier babies. The women's health movements of the 1970s through the 1990s and the International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) introduced a broad vision of sexual health and rights that was revolutionary, but still
not sufficient.
Although most people focus on practical or strategic aspects of these issues, reproductive health, "in the long run,
cannot divorce its partners: sexuality and human rights." Sexual expression and desire are universal and fundamental characteristic of
humans. Petchesky emphasizes that we must understand different aspects of the issue in concert: "I think it's a mistake to think of
health and rights as alternative perspectives because they're completely interdependent. They can't be operational without one another."
Shifting her focus to economics, Petchesky argues that the "macroeconomic context constrains the possibility for. . .
realizing reproductive and sexual rights everywhere, including in the United States. . . Macroeconomic policies make sensible, never mind
just, reproductive and health policies almost structural impossibilities." She offers HIV/AIDS as an example of the way in which
policies hinder governments from budgeting for sufficient monetary and medical support.
Finally, Petchesky considers the context of war and suggests that we "can draw a line from policies and practices that
violate sexual and reproductive rights in peaceful, ordinary settings to the sexual atrocities of war." Acts of sexual torture and
homophobia have a long history in wars, prisons, and slave systems. She states that "domination, like liberation, always starts from the
body" and the profanity of human bodies "becomes a built-in necessity of military conquest." We must view the politics of bodily
integrity as a "broader frame in which to unify a whole range of movements."
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