The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna strengthened international commitment to the fundamental principle that women's rights are human rights. This year, the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo has prompted the international community to focus on the role of women's human rights in the context of population policy.
The Programme of Action which emerged from the ICPD emphasizes the importance of women's human rights in both population and development objectives. It reiterates that a better quality of life for individual human beings must be the focus of government policies, and that "[t]he human rights of women...are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights." In particular, in a section titled Reproductive rights and Reproductive Health, the Programme makes the important statement that "reproductive rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents and other relevant United Nations consensus documents" and reiterates the principle that there is a "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." The Programme goes on to state that the right "includes the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion, and violence...."
[These statements in the Programme of Action reflect a growing acknowldgement by the international community] that the right to reproductive health care, in a social and health care system that ensures informed and voluntary reproductive choice, is within the scope of existing international human rights treaties and conventions. Among these are the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Economic and Social Covenant and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Collectively, these international legal instruments guarantee individuals a right to health care, the benefits of scientific progress, privacy and security of the person gender equality, non-discrimination, and freedom from government interference in marriage and family life.
Sovereign legal systems also play a role in insuring reproductive rights and health. The law's condemnation or approval of reproductive rights and health, even if unenforced or unknown to most of a population, can exert subtle and even pronounced influences on the reproductive health care options available to women and on the reproductive choices the women make.
Sovereign laws that restrict the availability or legality of contraception, sterilization and abortion can severely curtail the ability of individuals to control and time their own fertility...Restrictive abortion laws unequivocally illustrate the health consequences of such measures. Illegality, coupled with the lack of safety characterizing the abortion services that are nevertheless available, has resulted in the deaths of between 70,000 and 170,000 women around the world each year -- a figure that does not include the untold number of women suffering serious injury, infection or hemorrhage.
Factors affecting women's socio-economic status and quality of life can also help guarantee freedom of reproductive choice. Thus, domestic laws structuring the conditions in which women live and work are also critical to allowing them to make reproductive choices.
Although the phrase "human rights" is sometimes used loosely to express general norms of justice and human dignity, the term refers equally to system of rights guaranteed under the law. In assessing the contribution of the human rights framework to the formulation of population policies, it is useful to consider the national and international legal dimension outlined above. The legal expression of ethical or medical norms provides neutral, generally acceptable standards for assessing the minimum required quality of reproductive health care. It institutes accountability and the potential of enforcement against violators of these standards. It also creates a "safe harbor" or zone of protection for a specified range of reproductive options and medical procedures. Finally, it asserts the importance of individual needs over the politically determined community good. Although rights are never absolute in legal terms, the implementation of population policies consistent with such a framework implies recognition of at least a presumptive entitlement to the rights for individuals as well as the gravity of their deprivation.
[T]o make population policies fully supportive of women's rights, countries must modify restrictive national laws, enforce laws that ensure women's rights and reassess policies of non- ratification of international treaties that bear on women and reproductive rights. Countries should adopt measures that reinforce the significance of the rights of women in all policies and programs and ensure even-handed prohibition of compulsion, coercion and discrimination in all medical and counseling services.
Governments should offer an approach to family planning that
includes a wider range of reproductive health care options that
fully respect the choices of individuals to have or not have
children and the choices of women to continue or terminate
pregnancy. Finally, they should adopt laws, policies and
programs that promote the legal, medical, social and economic
conditions that empower women, thereby making reproductive health
and reproductive choice a reality of daily life. This is indeed
a daunting agenda. But it is long overdue.
© Copyright 1994 The Human Rights Brief
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