African Feminist Philosophy and the Politics of Reproductive Rights in Nigeria: A Critical Analysis

This study provides a critical philosophical analysis of African feminist philosophy and its application to the politics of reproductive rights in Nigeria, examining whether African feminist philosophical frameworks provide adequate grounds for challenging restrictive abortion law and inadequate reproductive healthcare access across the South West and North West geopolitical zones. African feminist philosophy, including the work of Nkiru Nzegwu, Obiageli Nnaemeka, and Sylvia Tamale, has developed distinctive theoretical resources that differ from Western liberal feminist approaches by centring communal responsibility, embodied experience, and African women's epistemic authority. A mixed-methods philosophical design is employed, combining systematic analysis of African feminist philosophy with a qualitative study of 35 interviews with women's health advocates, feminist philosophers, and reproductive health researchers in Ibadan and Kano, supplemented by documentary analysis of reproductive health policy documents from 2019 to 2024. Findings reveal that African feminist philosophy provides a philosophically coherent critique of restrictive reproductive policies that is more contextually resonant than Western liberal rights arguments because it grounds reproductive rights in African women's communal and bodily authority rather than in individualist autonomy claims. The study contributes an original African feminist philosophical framework for reproductive rights advocacy in Nigeria that navigates between Western liberal and local religious patriarchal positions. Keywords: African feminist philosophy, reproductive rights, abortion ethics, Nigerian women, bodily autonomy.