ABSTRACT
Since Bucharest in 1974, dissident voices began questioning the demographic rationale and instead proposed a health and rights-based rationale as the reason women should be afforded reproductive rights and health services. This chapter analyzes the unfolding process of normative change and nascent norm emergence. It traces the process of nascent norm emergence and documented the normative significance of Cairo. The chapter also explores the necessary alliance between the global women's health and rights movement (GWHRM) and the population control establishment. Finally, it demonstrates how the Clinton administration was integral in helping to move the discourse from population control to reproductive rights and health. On the one hand, Cairo called for the full respect of religious and cultural traditions as a general norm; yet, on the other hand, it simultaneously recognized the need to "undo" cultural norms and religious practices that perpetuate violations of women's reproductive rights and jeopardize women's reproductive health.
