So close, so far: Vulnerability and sexual and reproductive rights in the COVID-19 era

Abstract

The transformation that human societies are undergoing due to COVID-19 has significantly impacted the sexual and reproductive rights of women and their infants. Pregnant and puerperal women, as well as their babies, are victims of the gynaecobstetric patriarchal paradigm, which prevails —and even becomes amplified— in times of pandemic. In this chapter we present an analysis of the right to autonomous and respected childbirth, which includes lactation rights, as well as to abortion processes, which have been specifically compromised since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the disparities between both situations, which each entail different needs, timing and responses, we argue that they coincide in the lack of recognition of pregnant women’s sexual and reproductive rights, as the measures adopted respond to healthcare inertias and ideological interests rather than to public health needs. This lack of recognition also affects their infants, to the extent that they are intrinsically interdependent on their mothers. The demand to reflect on sexual and reproductive health rights arises within an epistemic framework that includes the implications of both gendered dimensions as well as other potential sources of vulnerability in relation to the virus. Applying both intersectionality and the obstetric violence paradigm as a methodological approach, we claim that pregnant women’s rights can be protected during the pandemic by ensuring their freedom of choice, without significantly threatening public health safety. We hold that the crisis unleashed by COVID-19 can be an opportunity to bring visibility to situations of sexual and reproductive injustice and to promote changes aimed to avoid it.