The Legal Regulation and Construction of the Gendered Body and of Disability in Canadian Health Law and Policy

This study seeks to document and analyze the uneasy relationship between that most ubiquitous and unyielding form of social control – the institution of law – and the “unwieldy...humanness” of women’s bodies “in all their glorious imperfection”. Our over-riding objective is to make visible and concrete the links between a woman’s lived experience of health, and the organization of her experience by law. We pursue a critique of Canadian health law and policy in an effort to explore such questions as: - What are the concepts of health and gender embedded in the law?- What are the norms operating through law to circumscribe the concept of “health” by reference to bodily markers? - What is the impact of legal frameworks and forms of legal control that construct disability in women’s lives so as to regulate their access to and interactions with the health system?- What are the ways in which the law operates to shape the social and economic policies and institutions that affect women’s health and well-being?- How does the law regulate and/or circumscribe the sexual and reproductive lives of women with disabilities?