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Protecting Reproductive Rights
During the 1990s, a series of important United
Nations conferences emphasized that the well-being of individuals,
and respect for their human rights, should be central to all development
strategies. Particular emphasis was given to reproductive rights
as a cornerstone of development, and to empowerment of women as
being an important element in ensuring the exercise of these rights.
Guided by the ICPD and other international mandates,
UNFPA takes a rights-based approach to reproductive and sexual
health.
This includes support for reproductive health services that protect
a woman's general health and well-being, that allow for well- informed
decisions,
and are respectful of individual choices.
Attaining the goals of sustainable, equitable
development requires that individuals are able to exercise control
over their sexual and reproductive lives. This includes the rights
to:
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Reproductive and sexual health as a component of overall health,
throughout the life cycle, for both men and women
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Reproductive decision-making, including voluntary choice in
marriage, family formation and determination of the number,
timing and spacing of one's children and the right to have access
to the information and means needed to exercise voluntary choice
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Equality and equity for men and women, to enable individuals
to make free and informed choices in all spheres of life, free
from discrimination based on gender
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Sexual and reproductive security, including freedom from sexual
violence and coercion, and the right to privacy.
Women's ability to exercise their reproductive
rights is integrally related to their empowerment. This is the process
by which unequal power relations are transformed and women gain
greater equality with men.
At the government
level, women's empowerment implies the extension of all
fundamental social, economic and political rights to women.
On the individual
level, empowerment implies women gaining the power to
express and defend their rights and gain greater self-esteem and
control over their own lives and personal and social relationships.
Empowerment of women was a central policy goal
of both the International Conference
on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 and the Fourth
World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Women's empowerment
has also been underscored in agreements of other important international,
regional and national conferences during the past decade, including:
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[R]eproductive rights embrace certain
human rights that are already recognized in national
laws, international human rights documents and other
consensus documents. These rights rest on the recognition
of the basic right of all couples and individuals to
decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and
timing of their children and to have the information
and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest
standard of sexual and reproductive health. It also
includes the right of all to make decisions concerning
reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence
as expressed in human rights documents.
--ICPD Programme of
Action, para 7.3 |
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All human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent
and interrelated. 