Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 207-212 PDF PERSPECTIVE A. Kayum Ahmed, Joe Baker, and Hadrien Coumans Introduction Human rights have historically advanced an anthropocentric world view that reinforces the right to health of human beings, disconnected from the health of nonhuman nature and what the Lenape people refer to as Kahèsëna Hàki (Mother Earth).[1] For the Lenape and other American Indian nations, as well as many Indigenous communities globally, the border…
Challenging the US Supreme Court’s Majority Ruling on Roe v. Wade at the International Human Rights Level
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 195-206 PDF PERSPECTIVE Marge Berer Abstract This paper proposes that US human rights experts and abortion rights advocates challenge the striking down of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 by the majority of US Supreme Court justices because of the multiple human rights violations it has engendered. The paper has three parts. The first part summarizes the compelling response of the three dissenting Supreme Court justices…
Five Lessons for Advancing Maternal Health Rights in an Age of Neoliberal Globalization and Conservative Backlash
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 185-194 PDF Alicia Ely Yamin Abstract After considerable progress in recent decades, maternal mortality and morbidity (MMM) either stagnated or worsened in most regions of the globe between 2016 and 2020. The world should be outraged given that we have known the key interventions necessary for preventing MMM for over three-quarters of a century. Since the 1990s, human rights advocacy on MMM has gained crucial ground,…
Self-Managed Abortion in Africa: The Decriminalization Imperative in Regional Human Rights Standards
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 171-183 PDF Lucía Berro Pizzarossa, Michelle Maziwisa, and Ebenezer Durojaye Abstract Self-managed abortion holds particular promise for revolutionizing people’s access to quality reproductive care in Africa, where the burden of abortion-related mortality is the highest globally and where abortion remains criminalized, in violation of various internationally and regionally recognized human rights. Increasingly safe and effective, self-managed medication abortion is still subject to many restrictions, including criminal…
Awareness of the Need for Change: A Constructivist Grounded Theory of Medical Students’ Understanding of Human Rights in Mental Health
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 161-169 PDF Peter MacSorley, Sarah Gordon, Tracey Gardiner, and Giles Newton-Howes Abstract Traditionally, teaching in psychiatry has had a passing focus on human rights. Against this backdrop, the aim of this study was to construct a theory of the learning value of a service user-led human rights-focused teaching program for final-year medical students. We used descriptive qualitative analysis based on constructivist grounded theory to examine final-year…
Does New Mental Health Legislation in Victoria, Australia, Advance Human Rights?
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 149-160 PDF Chris Maylea Abstract In introducing the Mental Health and Wellbeing Bill of 2022 into Parliament in Victoria, Australia, the state government claimed that the new legislation “delivers on the vision for rights-based mental health and wellbeing laws.” This paper examines the new legislation in light of both local human rights legislation and international human rights law. Drawing primarily on the United Nations Convention on…
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BOOK REVIEW Health Rights for All: The Imperative of Including All Migrants
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 223-226 PDF Jacqueline Bhabha Irregular Migrants and the Right to Health, Stefano Angeleri (Cambridge University Press, 2022) At the start of the 2022–2023 academic year, a group of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students approached me to ask whether I would agree to be their academic adviser for a new proposed student group on immigrant health. Apparently, no such group existed; the students told…
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STUDENT ESSAY No Dignity on the Floor: A Human Rights Argument for Adult-Sized Changing Tables in Public Restrooms in the United States
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 213-221 PDF Geffen Treiman Abstract Many individuals with disabilities utilize adult-sized changing tables to take care of their toileting needs with the help of a caregiver.[1] These tables are not explicitly required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and no legal case in the United States has yet addressed whether the ADA requires public restrooms to have adult changing tables.[2] This paper draws on an…
Social Accountability and Legal Empowerment Initiatives: Improving the Health of Underserved Roma Communities in Eastern Europe
Volume 25/1, 2023, pp. 67-80 | PDF Marek Szilvasi and Maja Saitovic-Jovanovic Abstract Improving the protection of the right to health of ethnic Roma people is one of the most pressing public health challenges in contemporary Europe, as their life expectancy and health status remain significantly lower than their non-Roma counterparts.[1] This paper analyzes Roma-led accountability initiatives that embrace social accountability and legal empowerment approaches to advocate for equitable fulfillment…
From Apathy to Structural Competency and the Right to Health: An Institutional Ethnography of a Maternal and Child Wellness Center
Vol 25/1, 2023, pp. 23-38 PDF Margaret Mary Downey and Ariana Thompson-Lastad Abstract Given the persistence of health inequities in the United States, scholars and health professionals alike have turned to the social determinants of health (SDH) framework to understand the overlapping factors that produce and shape these inequities. However, there is scant empirical literature on how frontline health and social service workers perceive and apply the SDH framework, or…