Am I the only person who wonders whether there is any sexism under the surface of human rights language, particularly in the light of organisations like Amnesty and the ACLU propping up the pimp lobby and men's 'right' to whatever sexual and reproductive services they demand?

I'm really not sure about the whole 'right to life' thing in the first place. You have a right not to be killed, certainly, or at least for penalties to be imposed if you are (we typically legislate against crimes that people commit rather than the issues that don't come up).

In fact I'd say you have a right not to have your life taken away by other humans or social organisations. If a lion eats you, have your rights been violated? I don't think so. If the climate you need for your habitat becomes unlivable because of human activity, though..

And what really bugs me about this language is the assumption that you have a right to exist in the first place. You don't. You need a permit from a woman. It is entirely a woman's decision whether you get to come into the world in the first place, at all.

I've got a thread about abortion here https://twitter.com/radicalhag/status/1129816249926656000 , but I'm finding the language of abortion or reproductive 'rights', or even 'justice' increasingly troubling, and I believe it's tied to our ecological crisis, which is ultimately one of overpopulation & habitat loss.

Women should have complete reproductive authority. We are the only class of people who can come up with a just approach to dealing with overpopulation, and that's probably the only sure way out of the current disaster.

Feminism, even radical feminism, still struggles to grapple with this, because we don't like authority. Liberal feminism, meanwhile, bandies around fashionable rhetoric about 'cultural feminism' or 'white feminism' with no clue about the depths of the crisis we face.

(And no, as a technologist of 30 years' standing with a very good professional reputation, I don't think technology is going to get us out of this. It's making matters worse.)

Here's a thread and follow-up post on how we are construed in male terms, and some speculations about the unconscious male reasons for patriarchy. We'll never know for certain unless we invent a time machine, but it feels plausible : http://realfeminists.com/2020/03/16/the-tras-are-right-trans-women-are-women/

It's got a few links to things worth reading, especially the Daniel Quinn stuff. (And where IS the Women’s International Council on Population and the Sex Ratio? Seriously?)

Julia Roberts is superb here :

We have very few tools to deal with the climate and resource crisis we're facing. Women taking up our job of managing the species as a whole is one of the best ones we have. We need a feminist theory of population.