The Supreme Court decision Friday, June 24, 2022, on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturned Roe v. Wade. This decision effectively rolled back a decades-long effort to protect civil rights and gender equity nationally and stripped protections and programs for women’s health and reproductive needs. States will determine how access to reproductive rights will be protected. Kansas will vote on this amendment Tuesday, August 2, 2022. If passed, the constitutional amendment will add language to the state constitution that removes the constitutional right to abortion and allows legislators to restrict reproductive healthcare. This blog series raises questions of what kind of leadership is required to preserve civil liberties and human rights in a functional democracy.
In this series, scholars share knowledge on this framing from perspectives of leadership, civil rights, and social movement.
Understanding Kansans’ global responsibility on Aug. 2
–Trisha Gott, Ed.D., assistant professor and associate director of the Staley School of Leadership.
“Culture doesn’t protect you from infringing on others human rights.” – Dr. Brett Mallon
Engaging with women fighting to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), I learned about their battle for women to have basic decision-making power over their bodies. They summed up their fight as one against culture and tradition that did not value women as whole people with the right to bodily autonomy. Today, in Kansas, we fight a battle over culture. A battle over who has power over women’s bodies.
Do individual beliefs and practices (religious and otherwise) determine collective rights to accessing reproductive healthcare? This is a leadership challenge that requires collective civic engagement.
On Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022, Kansans will vote on reproductive healthcare and access in the state. The Kansas City Star unpacked the proposed constitutional amendment and related FAQs in a July 21 article.
The amendment, if passed, will effectively undo Kansas’ constitutional protection of women’s bodily autonomy in the state by adding language to the state constitution that effectively makes abortion illegal. The U.S. as a global power is a country that others look to as a bellwether for freedom and democracy. A protector of human rights. The Dobbs decision and resulting state-level votes negate those human rights and will serve to undermine protections for women’s bodily autonomy around the world.
Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins, president and CEO of PAI, wrote, “The impact our decisions in the United States have on women, youth, and other communities around the world can set them on a path to prosperity or peril.”
So, I ask, what is our collective responsibility to advance global prosperity?
Exploring this from the lens of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) we cannot separate this vote on August 2 from a potentially perilous global impact on gender equity. If you imagine the system as a pond, eliminating bodily autonomy in Kansas is like tossing a rock into a pond. The initial splash becomes ripples that gradually reach every edge of the water disturbing the entire body of water.
As a world power, the U.S. has an obligation to women globally to protect reproductive rights. Access to safe and affordable reproductive health care are precursors to women’s equality both culturally and economically. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have identified this as a key area for development. SDG Five is to advance the goal of gender equity and women’s and girls’ empowerment. This SDG demands women and girls are treated as whole beings with decision-making power over their bodies. Achieving this goal requires women to have access to reproductive healthcare and education.
I spoke with civic leaders advancing gender equity in their own communities in Senegal and Tanzania respectively.
Upendo Mtataiko works with the Masai community in Tanzania on reproductive health sensitization and education. She is focused on literacy of the reproductive system and contraception and advocacy against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
In her community, Mtataiko says, “Women don’t have choice over their bodies, and they don’t have rights to access contraception. They don’t have knowledge when it comes to their periods – regarding schooling, they must drop out because they cannot go to the school environment (on their periods or pregnant).”
Mtataiko reflected that without choice (about when to bear children, to participate or not in FGM, or to access contraception, to name a few rights of bodily autonomy) their choices and opportunities for education are at risk.
In Senegal, Rama Biteye advocates to end Femal Genital Mutilation (FGM) and secure women’s bodily autonomy. Reproductive health is key to this effort and requires education and the protection of choice for women – choice to use contraception, choice to have a child, choice not to undergo FGM.
The lack of education and access has disproportionally impacted women. Rama’s goal is for women’s reproductive rights to be secured as legal rights.
“They know more than anyone else how their body works – they should be given the opportunity to make that decision. If they are given the freedom to make these decisions, they will make the right decision. All they need is to be given the right to decide,” said Biteye.
From a Complex Adaptive Systems lens, this leaves us with a critical consideration – beyond our legacy for protecting women’s human rights in Kansas, what is our obligation to the global community?
If we refuse to provide women with comprehensive reproductive healthcare in Kansas, we are making a clear statement about our commitments to SDG Five, gender equity and women and girls empowerment.
Beyond a referendum on women’s basic human rights – to govern their own bodies – voting to remove constitutional rights to an abortion harms our global reputation and record on protecting human rights.
So, I ask once more, what is our collective responsibility to advance global prosperity? What leadership is required to ensure that culture does not infringe on human rights, but instead, that our democracy protects and upholds the rights of every person, regardless of gender?
For questions or more information on voting Aug. 2, in Kansas, please visit your local county website.
