Reproductive Rights
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS OF WOMEN: A PERSPECTIVE
Nikhat Ehsanul Haque
Reproductive Rights and Women: A Perspective
INRODUCTION:
“I am going to the sea to fetch a new baby, but my journey is long and dangerous, and I may not return.” 1
Both the Native women in North America and the African Brazilian women can have one thing in common i.e. both may be forcefully sterilized, same is the case with the Black South African women and the indigenous women in the French colony of New Caledonia who are the victims intensive fertility control propaganda targeted to wipe out their population. 2
The aim of this essay is to explore the meaning and the problems of women’s human rights vis-à-vis reproductive rights. Although women have reaped the benefits from contraception services but by and large they have been abused too by such policies. Sterilization, neglect and resistance to the use of contraceptives and safe abortion services have obstructed women’s human rights. The essay aims to link the issue of reproductive rights of women with other human rights and highlight the issue of health as human right, the essay will also try to show how the right to family planning affects the other rights of women. Analyse the problems and provide solutions to the issues.
Human Rights and Women’s Rights:
Human Rights are basic entitlements encompassing civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights to which every one is entitled to not because he or she is the citizen of a particular country or ethnic group rather because he or she is as a human being. Although the notion of human rights and human dignity has always been there in every culture and region in the world, however, human rights gained an enormous amount of impetus as a movement after the Second World War.3 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 has now become the constitution of the
Nikhat Ehsanul Haque
Reproductive Rights and Women: A Perspective
INRODUCTION:
“I am going to the sea to fetch a new baby, but my journey is long and dangerous, and I may not return.” 1
Both the Native women in North America and the African Brazilian women can have one thing in common i.e. both may be forcefully sterilized, same is the case with the Black South African women and the indigenous women in the French colony of New Caledonia who are the victims intensive fertility control propaganda targeted to wipe out their population. 2
The aim of this essay is to explore the meaning and the problems of women’s human rights vis-à-vis reproductive rights. Although women have reaped the benefits from contraception services but by and large they have been abused too by such policies. Sterilization, neglect and resistance to the use of contraceptives and safe abortion services have obstructed women’s human rights. The essay aims to link the issue of reproductive rights of women with other human rights and highlight the issue of health as human right, the essay will also try to show how the right to family planning affects the other rights of women. Analyse the problems and provide solutions to the issues.
Human Rights and Women’s Rights:
Human Rights are basic entitlements encompassing civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural rights to which every one is entitled to not because he or she is the citizen of a particular country or ethnic group rather because he or she is as a human being. Although the notion of human rights and human dignity has always been there in every culture and region in the world, however, human rights gained an enormous amount of impetus as a movement after the Second World War.3 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 has now become the constitution of the
References: The Right TO Reproductive Choice: A Study in International Law by Corinne A.A. Packer( Abo Akademi University, Institute for Human Rights Turku/Abo,1996). Population Policy and Women’s Rights: Transforming Reproductive Choice by Ruth Dixon-Mueller ( Prager Publishers, 1993). Gender Planning and Human Rights Edited by Tovi Fenster( Routledge, 1999) Reproductive Rights In Practice- A Feminist Report on the Quality of Care Edited by Anita Hardon and Elizabeth Haynes( Zed Books, 1997). Population and reproductive Rights- Feminist Perspectives From The South –Sonia Correa in Collaboration with Rebecca Reichmann ( Zed Books in association with Dawn, 1994). Reproductive Rights and Wrongs-The Global Politics Of Population Control by Besty Hartmann ( South End Press, Revised Edition, 1995). International Human Rights In Context by Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston ( Oxford, 1996). Women, Health and Poverty-An Introduction by Sarah Payne (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991). www.developmentgoals.org (Reproductive Health) www.iisd.ca/women/about2.htm (The United Nations Conference on Women, Nairobi, 1985) www.igc.org/iwraw/about/overview (Women Change the World, 2002) www.hrw.org/worldreport99/women (Women’s Human Rights) www.hsph.havard.edu/grhf/Sasia/repor3 (From family Planning to reprocductive Health-Shireen and Merrick, 1999) www.osaka.org.pl/english/articles/b1/advancing.html www.personal.ulowa.edu ( International women’s Health Poverty and Poor Health) Correase and Reichmann(1994)