ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses that sexual and reproductive legislation on the one hand and sexual and reproductive rights on the other have played in the articulation of biopolitical space and in the inscribing of this space upon the bodies of women citizens. It discusses the perception of difference between Europe and not-Europe or the West and the not-West, not any actual difference that may or may not exist. The book assumes a biopolitical rather than a juridical model of rights and citizenship, the divisions between liberalism and authoritarianism become irrelevant. It explores the theories of rights, citizenship, biology, and reproduction that explore gender only tangentially. Finally the book shows that reproduction as a political duty is one of the most basic attributes of citizenship motherhood indeed made identical to citizenship.
