Protest as Counter-Hegemonic Human Rights Work: Lessons from Abortion Rights Movements

International human rights institutions provide critical support and leverage to social movements, but rather than viewing this as a top-down process, more attention ought to be paid to the bottom-up realisation of human rights. In this article, I argue that protest is an influential aspect of grassroots human rights repertoires by considering the role of protest in abortion rights movements. While international human rights bodies have increasingly placed pressure on states to provide access to abortion services, it is often the work of domestic social movements that ultimately results in legal change. However, this is not always through legal mechanisms – counter-hegemonic rights movements avoid the use of formal mechanisms, and protest is an important avenue for these movements. I demonstrate this in relation to the abortion rights movements of Ireland and Argentina, concluding that protest ought to be understood as ‘human rights work’.