View source for Reproductive rights

{{Short description|Legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2023}}
{{Rights|Groups}}
'''Reproductive rights''' are [[legal right]]s and freedoms relating to [[human reproduction|reproduction]] and [[reproductive health]] that vary amongst countries around the world.<ref name="COOK">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2950752 |jstor=2950752 |title=Advancing Reproductive Rights Beyond Cairo and Beijing |journal=International Family Planning Perspectives |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=115–21 |year=1996 |last1=Cook |first1=Rebecca J. |last2=Fathalla |first2=Mahmoud F. }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Parker |first1=Willie J. |title=The moral imperative of reproductive rights, health, and justice |journal=Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology |date=2020 |volume=62 |pages=3–10 |doi=10.1016/j.bpobgyn.2019.07.006|pmid=31540808 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adami |first1=Valentina |title=Women's Reproductive Rights: A literary perspective |journal=Pólemos |date=2012 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=101–123 |doi=10.1515/pol-2012-0007}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Tan |first1=Jolene |title=Beyond fertility figures: towards reproductive rights and choices |journal=[[Humanities and Social Sciences Communications]] |date=2024 |volume=11 |pages=112 |doi=10.1057/s41599-024-02608-2 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The [[World Health Organization]] defines reproductive rights:<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite web |url=http://who.int/reproductive-health/gender/index.html |title=Gender and reproductive rights |website=[[World Health Organization|WHO]] |access-date=2010-08-29 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090726150133/http://www.who.int//reproductive-health/gender/index.html |archive-date=2009-07-26 }}</ref>
<blockquote>
Reproductive 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. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.</blockquote>

Reproductive rights may include some or all of: [[right to abortion]]; [[birth control]]; freedom from [[compulsory sterilization|coerced sterilization]] and contraception; the right to reproduce and start a family,<ref name="e070">{{cite web | title=International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 10 | website=OHCHR | date=3 January 1976 | url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights}}</ref> the right to access good-quality [[reproductive health]]care; and the right to [[family planning]] in order to make free and informed reproductive choices.<ref name="AMNESTY"/> Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive [[sex education|education]] about [[Sexually transmitted disease|sexually transmitted infections]] and other aspects of sexuality, right to [[menstrual health]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/sexual-and-reproductive-health/news/news/2018/11/tackling-the-taboo-of-menstrual-hygiene-in-the-european-region|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728123705/http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/sexual-and-reproductive-health/news/news/2018/11/tackling-the-taboo-of-menstrual-hygiene-in-the-european-region|archive-date=28 July 2019|url-status=live|title=Tackling the taboo of menstrual hygiene in the European Region|website=[[World Health Organization|WHO]]|date=8 November 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Singh|first1=Susheela|title=Inclusion of menstrual health in sexual and reproductive health and rights — Authors' reply|journal=The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health|volume=2|issue=8|pages=e19|year=2018|doi=10.1016/S2352-4642(18)30219-0|pmid=30119725|s2cid=52031096|url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(18)30219-0/fulltext|url-access=registration}}</ref> and protection from practices such as [[female genital mutilation]] (FGM).<ref name="COOK"/><ref name="AMNESTY"/><ref name="FREEDMAN"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/fourth/zavales4.html|author=Anastasios Zavales|title={{title case|GENITAL MUTILATION & THE UNITED NATIONS: MALE AND FEMALE CIRCUMCISION, HUMAN RIGHTS, & THE RESTORATION OF SPIRITUAL INTEGRITY & FREEDOM}}|website=Nocirc.org|access-date=19 August 2017}}</ref> Protections from mistreatment during pregnancy, labor, delivery, and postpartum are also part of the reproductive rights framework, which calls into questions practices like [[Use of restraints on pregnant women|shackling pregnant people]] in correctional facilities.<ref name="Sichel">{{cite journal |last1=Sichel |first1=D.L. |date=2008 |title=Giving Birth in Shackles: A Constitutional and Human Rights Violation |url=http://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/genderlaw/16/2sichel.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=223–255 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140724214517/https://www.wcl.american.edu/journal/genderlaw/16/2sichel.pdf |archive-date=2014-07-24 |access-date=2014-10-20}}</ref>

Reproductive rights began to develop as a subset of [[human rights]] at the United Nation's 1968 International Conference on Human Rights.<ref name="FREEDMAN" /> The resulting [[Non-binding resolution|non-binding]] Proclamation of Tehran was the first international document to recognize one of these rights when it stated that: "Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children."<ref name="FREEDMAN">{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/2939211 |pmid=8475521 |jstor=2939211 |title=Human Rights and Reproductive Choice |journal=Studies in Family Planning |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=18–30 |year=1993 |last1=Freedman |first1=Lynn P. |last2=Isaacs |first2=Stephen L. }}</ref><ref name=teheran_proc>{{cite web |title=Proclamation of Teheran|publisher=International Conference on Human Rights|year= 1968|url=http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/b_tehern.htm|access-date=8 November 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071017025912/http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/b_tehern.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 17 October 2007}}</ref> Women's sexual, gynecological, and mental health issues were not a priority of the United Nations until its Decade of Women (1975–1985) brought them to the fore.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cutting the rose : female genital mutilation : the practice and its prevention|last=Dorkenoo, Efua.|date=1995|publisher=Minority Rights Publications|isbn=1873194609|oclc=905780971}}</ref> States, though, have been slow in incorporating these rights in [[treaty|internationally legally binding instruments]]. Thus, while some of these rights have been recognized in [[soft law|hard law]], that is, in legally binding [[international human rights instruments]], others have been mentioned only in non binding recommendations and, therefore, have at best the status of [[soft law]] in [[international law]], while a further group is yet to be accepted by the international community and remains at the level of [[advocacy]].<ref>Center for Reproductive Rights, International Legal Program, [http://thomas.loc.gov Establishing International Reproductive Rights Norms: Theory for Change] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150830093514/http://thomas.loc.gov/ |date=30 August 2015 }}, US CONG. REC. 108th CONG. 1 Sess. E2534 E2547 (Rep. Smith) (8 December 2003):<blockquote>
We have been leaders in bringing arguments for a woman's right to choose abortion within the rubric of international human rights. However, there is no binding hard norm that recognizes women's right to terminate a pregnancy. (...) While there are hard norms prohibiting sex discrimination that apply to girl adolescents, these are problematic since they must be applied to a substantive right (i.e., the right to health) and the substantive reproductive rights of adolescents are not `hard' (yet!). There are no hard norms on age discrimination that would protect adolescents' ability to exercise their rights to reproductive health, sexual education, or reproductive decisionmaking. In addition, there are no hard norms prohibiting discrimination based on marital status, which is often an issue with respect to unmarried adolescents' access to reproductive health services and information. The soft norms support the idea that the hard norms apply to adolescents under 18. They also fill in the substantive gaps in the hard norms with respect to reproductive health services and information as well as adolescents' reproductive autonomy. (...) There are no hard norms in international human rights law that directly address HIV/AIDS directly. At the same time, a number of human rights bodies have developed soft norms to secure rights that are rendered vulnerable by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. (...) Practices with implications for women's reproductive rights in relation to HIV/AIDS are still not fully covered under existing international law, although soft norms have addressed them to some extent. (...) There is a lack of explicit prohibition of mandatory testing of HIV-positive pregnant women under international law. (...) None of the global human rights treaties explicitly prohibit child marriage and no treaty prescribes an appropriate minimum age for marriage. The onus of specifying a minimum age at marriage rests with the states' parties to these treaties. (...) We have to rely extensively on soft norms that have evolved from the TMBs and that are contained in conference documents to assert that child marriage is a violation of fundamental human rights.</blockquote></ref>

Issues related to reproductive rights are some of the most vigorously contested rights' issues worldwide, regardless of the population's [[socioeconomic]] level, [[religion]] or [[culture]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/1 1] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>

The issue of reproductive rights is frequently presented as vitally important in discussions and articles by [[List of population concern organizations|population concern organizations]] such as [[Population Matters]].<ref name=popsearch>{{cite web|title=Population Matters search on "reproductive rights"|url=http://populationmatters.org/search_results.php?q=%22reproductive+rights%22|website=Populationmatters.org/|access-date=19 August 2017}}{{dead link|date=May 2020|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref>

Reproductive rights are a subset of [[sexual and reproductive health and rights]].

==History==
===Proclamation of Tehran===
In 1945, the [[United Nations Charter]] included the obligation "to promote... universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without discrimination as to race, sex, language, or religion". However, the Charter did not define these rights. Three years later, the [[United Nations|UN]] adopted the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] (UDHR), the first international legal document to delineate [[human rights]]; the UDHR does not mention reproductive rights.  Reproductive rights began to appear as a subset of human rights in the 1968 Proclamation of Tehran, which states: "Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children".<ref name=teheran_proc />

This right was affirmed by the [[United Nations General Assembly|UN General Assembly]] in the 1969<ref>[https://www.ohchr.org/en/resources/educators/human-rights-education-training/6-declaration-social-progress-and-development-1969 Declaration on Social Progress and Development]</ref> which states "The family as a basic unit of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members, particularly children and youth, should be assisted and protected so that it may fully assume its responsibilities within the community. Parents have the exclusive right to determine freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children."<ref name="FREEDMAN"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/m_progre.htm|title=unhchr.ch|website=Unhchr.ch}}</ref> The [[International Women's Year#International|1975 UN International Women's Year Conference]] echoed the Proclamation of Tehran.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995|url=https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/mexico.html|access-date=7 July 2020|website=www.un.org}}</ref>

===Cairo Programme of Action===
The twenty-year "Cairo Programme of Action" was adopted in 1994 at the [[International Conference on Population and Development]] (ICPD) in [[Cairo]]. The [[Non-binding resolution|non-binding]] Programme of Action asserted that governments have a responsibility to meet individuals' reproductive needs, rather than demographic targets. It recommended that [[family planning]] services be provided in the context of other reproductive health services, including services for healthy and safe childbirth, care for sexually transmitted infections, and [[post-abortion care]]. The ICPD also addressed issues such as [[violence against women]], [[sex trafficking]], and adolescent health.<ref name="Knudsen 2006 5–6">{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/5 5]–6 |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> The Cairo Program is the first international policy document to define [[reproductive health]],<ref name="Knudsen 2006 5–6"/> stating:<ref name="COOK" />
<blockquote>Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and its functions and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed [about] and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods for regulation of fertility which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant [para. 72].</blockquote>

Unlike previous population conferences, a wide range of interests from grassroots to government level were represented in Cairo. 179 nations attended the ICPD and overall eleven thousand representatives from governments, [[non-governmental organization|NGOs]], international agencies and citizen activists participated.<ref name="Knudsen 2006 5–6"/> The ICPD did not address the far-reaching implications of the [[Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS|HIV/AIDS epidemic]]. In 1999, recommendations at the ICPD+5 were expanded to include commitment to AIDS education, research, and prevention of mother-to-child transmission, as well as to the development of vaccines and microbicides.<ref name="Knudsen 2006 7">{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/7 7] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>

The Cairo Programme of Action was adopted by 184 UN member states. Nevertheless, many Latin American and Islamic states made [[Reservation (law)|formal reservations]] to the programme, in particular, to its concept of reproductive rights and sexual freedom, to its treatment of abortion, and to its potential incompatibility with [[Sharia|Islamic law]].<ref name="un.org">{{cite web|url=https://www.un.org/popin/icpd/conference/offeng/poa.html|title=A/CONF.171/13: Report of the ICPD (94/10/18) (385k)|website=Un.org|access-date=19 August 2017}}</ref>

Implementation of the Cairo Programme of Action varies considerably from country to country. In many countries, post-ICPD tensions emerged as the [[human rights]]-based approach was implemented. Since the ICPD, many countries have broadened their reproductive health programs and attempted to integrate maternal and child health services with family planning. More attention is paid to adolescent health and the consequences of unsafe abortion. Lara Knudsen observes that the ICPD succeeded in getting [[feminist]] language into governments' and population agencies' literature, but in many countries, the underlying concepts are not widely put into practice.<ref name="Knudsen 2006 7"/> In two preparatory meetings for the ICPD+10 in Asia and Latin America, the United States, under the George W. Bush administration, was the only nation opposing the ICPD's Programme of Action.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/9 9] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>

===Beijing Platform===
The 1995 [[Fourth World Conference on Women]] in Beijing, in its [[non-binding resolution|non-binding]] [[Beijing Declaration|Declaration]] and [[Beijing Platform for Action|Platform for Action]], supported the Cairo Programme's definition of reproductive health, but established a broader context of reproductive rights:<ref name="COOK" />
<blockquote>The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. Equal relationships between women and men in matters of sexual relations and reproduction, including full respect for the integrity of the person, require mutual respect, consent and shared responsibility for sexual behavior and its consequences [para. 96].</blockquote> The Beijing Platform demarcated twelve interrelated critical areas of the human rights of women that require advocacy. The Platform framed women's reproductive rights as "indivisible, universal and inalienable human rights."<ref name="BUNCH">{{cite journal |doi=10.1086/495143 |jstor=3175048 |title=Beijing '95: Moving Women's Human Rights from Margin to Center |journal=Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=200–4 |year=1996 |last1=Bunch |first1=Charlotte |last2=Fried |first2=Susana |s2cid=144075825 }}</ref> The platform for the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women included a section that denounced gender-based violence and included forced sterilization as a human rights violation.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women, Violence, and the Human Rights System. Women, Gender, and Human Rights: A Global Perspective|last=Merry|first=S.E. |editor=M. Agosin|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2001|location=New Brunswick|pages=83–97}}</ref> However, the international community at large has not confirmed that women have a right to reproductive healthcare and in ensuing years since the 1995 conference, countries have proposed language to weaken reproductive and sexual rights.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nowicka|first=Wanda|date=2011|title=Sexual and reproductive rights and the human rights agenda: controversial and contested|journal=Reproductive Health Matters|volume=19|issue=38|pages=119–128|doi=10.1016/s0968-8080(11)38574-6|pmid=22118146|s2cid=206112752|issn=0968-8080}}</ref> This conference also referenced for the first time indigenous rights and women's rights at the same time, combining them into one category needing specific representation.<ref>{{Cite book|title={{title case|INDIGENOUS WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS IN LATIN AMERICA : gender and ethnicity in peru, mexico, and bolivia}}|author1=Rousseau, Stephanie|author2=Morales Hudon, Anahi|date=2019|publisher=PALGRAVE MACMILLAN|isbn=978-1349957194|oclc=1047563400}}</ref> Reproductive rights are highly politicized, making it difficult to enact legislation.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Reproductive politics : what everyone needs to know|last=Solinger, Rickie|date=27 February 2013|publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199811458|oclc=830323649}}</ref>

===Yogyakarta Principles===
The [[Yogyakarta Principles]] on the Application of International Human Rights Law in relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, proposed by a group of experts in November 2006<ref name=YOGYABOUT>{{cite web|url=http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/principles_en_about.htm|title=About the Yogyakarta Principles|website=Yogyakartaprinciples.org|access-date=19 August 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304122237/http://www.yogyakartaprinciples.org/principles_en_about.htm|archive-date=4 March 2016}}</ref> but not yet incorporated by States in international law,<ref>International Service for Human Rights, [http://www.ishr.ch/archive-general-assembly/933-majority-of-ga-third-committee-unable-to-accept-report-on-the-human-right-to-sexual-education Majority of GA Third Committee unable to accept report on the human right to sexual education ] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130515111556/http://www.ishr.ch/archive-general-assembly/933-majority-of-ga-third-committee-unable-to-accept-report-on-the-human-right-to-sexual-education |date=15 May 2013 }}</ref> declares in its Preamble that "the [[international community]] has recognized the rights of persons to decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination, and violence." In relation to reproductive health, Principle 9 on "The Right to Treatment with Humanity while in Detention" requires that "States shall... <nowiki>[p]rovide</nowiki> adequate access to medical care and counseling appropriate to the needs of those in custody, recognizing any particular needs of persons on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity, including with regard to reproductive health, access to [[HIV/AIDS]] information and therapy and access to [[hormone therapy|hormonal]] or other therapy as well as to [[gender-affirming care|gender-reassignment treatments]] where desired."<ref>"The Yogyakarta Principles" Preamble and Principle 9. The Rights to Treatment with Humanity While in Detention</ref> Nonetheless, African, Caribbean and Islamic Countries, as well as the [[Russian Federation]], have objected to the use of these principles as Human Rights standards.<ref>United Nations General Assembly, Official Records, Third Committee, [http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/576/53/PDF/N0957653.pdf?OpenElement Summary record of the 29th meeting held in New York, on Monday, 25 October 2010, at 3 p.m] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120927135721/http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N09/576/53/PDF/N0957653.pdf?OpenElement |date=27 September 2012 }}. For instance, [[Malawi]], speaking on behalf of all African States, argued that the Yogyakarta Principles were "controversial and unrecognized," while the representative of the Russian Federation said that they "had not been agreed to at the intergovernmental level, and which therefore could not be considered as authoritative expressions of the opinion of the international community" (para. 9, 23).</ref>

===State interventions===
State interventions that contradict at least some reproductive rights have happened both under right-wing and left-wing governments. Examples include attempts to forcefully increase the birth rate – one of the most notorious [[natalist]] policies of the 20th century was that which occurred in [[communist Romania]] in the period of 1967–1990 during communist leader [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]], who adopted a very aggressive natalist policy which included outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women, [[Tax on childlessness|taxes on childlessness]], and legal discrimination against childless people – as well as attempts to decrease the fertility rate – [[China]]'s [[one child policy]] (1978–2015). State mandated [[forced marriage]] was also practiced by authoritarian governments as a way to meet population targets: the [[Khmer Rouge]] regime in [[Cambodia]] systematically forced people into marriages, in order to increase the population and continue the revolution.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.d.dccam.org/Abouts/Intern/Natalae_Forced_marriage.pdf |first=Natalae|last=Anderson|title=Memorandum: Charging Forced Marriage as a Crime Against Humanity|date=22 September 2010|website=D.dccam.org|access-date=19 August 2017}}</ref> Some governments have implemented racist policies of [[forced sterilizations]] of 'undesirable' ethnicities. Such policies were carried out against ethnic minorities in Europe and North America in the 20th century, and more recently in Latin America against the Indigenous population in the 1990s; in [[Peru]], President [[Alberto Fujimori]] (in office from 1990 to 2000) has been accused of [[genocide]] and [[crimes against humanity]] as a result of a sterilization program put in place by his administration targeting indigenous people (mainly the [[Quechua people|Quechuas]] and the [[Aymara people|Aymaras]]).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2148793.stm|title=BBC NEWS – World – Americas – Mass sterilisation scandal shocks Peru|website=News.bbc.co.uk|access-date=19 August 2017|date=24 July 2002}}</ref>

==Prohibition of forced sterilization and forced abortion==
The [[Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence|Istanbul convention]], the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.oas.org/es/mesecvi/docs/CSW-SideEvent2014-Flyer-EN.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=20 November 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304093634/https://www.oas.org/es/mesecvi/docs/CSW-SideEvent2014-Flyer-EN.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 }}</ref> prohibits [[forced sterilization]] and [[forced abortion]]:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=090000168046031c |title=Archived copy |access-date=26 September 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160708000957/https://rm.coe.int/CoERMPublicCommonSearchServices/DisplayDCTMContent?documentId=090000168046031c |archive-date=8 July 2016 }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|Article 39 – Forced abortion and forced sterilisation
:Parties shall take the necessary legislative or other measures to ensure that the following intentional conducts are criminalised:
* a performing an abortion on a woman without her prior and informed consent;
* b performing surgery which has the purpose or effect of terminating a woman's capacity to naturally reproduce without her prior and informed consent or understanding of the procedure}}

==Human rights==
[[File:Family planning Ethiopia (good effects).JPG|thumbnail|right|Placard showing positive effects of [[family planning]] (Ethiopia)]]
{{See also|Human rights}}
Human rights have been used as a framework to analyze and gauge abuses, especially for coercive or oppressive governmental policies. The framing of reproductive (human) rights and population control programs are split along race and class lines, with white, western women predominately focused on abortion access (especially during the second wave feminism of the 1970–1980s), silencing women of colour in the Global South or marginalized women in the Global North (black and indigenous women, prisoners, welfare recipients) who were subjected to forced sterilization or contraceptive usage campaigns.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Wilson|first=K.|date=2017|title=In the name of reproductive rights: race, neoliberalism and the embodied violence of population policies|url=https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/20444/1/Kalpana%20Wilson%20New%20Formations%202017.pdf|journal=New Formations|volume=91|issue=91|pages=50–68|doi=10.3898/NEWF:91.03.2017|s2cid=148987919}}</ref> The hemisphere divide has also been framed as Global North feminists advocating for women's bodily autonomy and political rights, while Global South women advocate for basic needs through poverty reduction and equality in the economy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Globalization of the Local/Localization of the Global: Mapping Transnational Women's Movements. In Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives|last=Basu|first=A. |editor=C. R. a. K. McCann, Seung-kyung)|publisher=Routledge|year=2000|location=United Kingdom|pages=68–76}}</ref>

This divide between first world versus third world women established as feminists focused on women's issues (from the first world largely promoting sexual liberation) versus women focused on political issues (from the third world often opposing dictatorships and policies).<ref>{{Cite book|title=The politics of motherhood maternity and women's rights in twentieth-century Chile|author=Mooney, Jadwiga E. Pieper|date=2009|publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press|isbn=9780822960430|oclc=690336424}}</ref>  In Latin America, this is complicated as feminists tend to align with first world ideals of feminism (sexual/reproductive rights, violence against women, domestic violence) and reject religious institutions such as the Catholic Church and Evangelicals, which attempt to control women's reproduction. On the other side, human rights advocates are often aligned with religious institutions that are specifically combating political violence, instead of focusing on issues of individual bodily autonomy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Feminist and human rights struggles in Peru : decolonizing transitional justice|author=Bueno-Hansen, Pascha|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2015|isbn=9780252097539|location=Urbana|oclc=1004369974}}</ref>

The debate regarding whether women should have complete autonomous control over their bodies has been espoused by the United Nations and individual countries, but many of those same countries fail to implement these human rights for their female citizens. This shortfall may be partly due to the delay of including women-specific issues in the human rights framework.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Women's Rights as Human Rights: Women as Agents of Social Change. Women, Gender, and Human Rights: A Global Perspective|last=Kaplan|first=T. |editor=M. Agosin|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2001|location=New Brunswick|pages=191–204}}</ref> However, multiple human rights documents and declarations specifically proclaim reproductive rights of women, including the ability to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions regarding family planning, including: the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948),<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Universal declaration of human rights|journal=Radical Teacher|date=28 May 2014|volume=113|pages=56–57|doi = 10.18356/b0fc2dba-en|s2cid=197795262 |url = http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/591|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979),<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Marsha A|first1=Freeman|last2=Christine|first2=Chinkin|last3=Beate|first3=Rudolf|date=1 January 2012|title=Violence Against Women|journal=The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women|volume=1|doi=10.5422/fso/9780199565061.003.0019}}</ref> the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/|title=U.N. Millennium Development Goals}}</ref> and the new [[Sustainable Development Goals]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/|title=U.N. Sustainable Development Goals}}</ref> which are focused on integrating universal reproductive healthcare access into national family planning programs.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Murray|first=Christopher, J.L.|date=2015|title=Shifting to Sustainable Development Goals – Implications for Global Health|journal=New England Journal of Medicine|volume=373|issue=15|pages=1390–1393|doi=10.1056/NEJMp1510082|pmid=26376045}}</ref> Unfortunately, the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, did not address indigenous women's reproductive or maternal healthcare rights or access.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Bant|first1=Astrid|last2=Girard|first2=Françoise|date=2008|title=Sexuality, health, and human rights: self-identified priorities of indigenous women in Peru|journal=Gender & Development|volume=16|issue=2|pages=247–256|doi=10.1080/13552070802120426|s2cid=72449191|issn=1355-2074}}</ref>

Since most existing legally binding [[international human rights instruments]] do not explicitly mention sexual and reproductive rights, a [[Epistemic community (international relations)|broad coalition]] of NGOs, civil servants, and experts working in [[international organizations]] have been promoting a reinterpretation of those instruments to link the realization of the already internationally recognized human rights with the realization of reproductive rights.<ref>Amnesty International, [https://www.amnesty.org/en/human-rights-defenders/issues/challenges/srr-defenders Defenders of Sexual and Reproductive Rights] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002004052/http://www.amnesty.org/en/human-rights-defenders/issues/challenges/srr-defenders |date=2 October 2013 }}; [http://www.iwhc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3326&Itemid=548 International Women's Health Coalition and the United Nations],  [http://www.iwhc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=205&Itemid=110 Campaign for an Inter-American Convention on Sexual and Reproductive Rights], Women's Health Collection, [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=105915323 Abortion as a human right: possible strategies in unexplored territory. (Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights)], (2003); and Shanthi Dairiam, [http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=90988094 Applying the CEDAW Convention for the recognition of women's health rights], Arrows For Change, (2002).  In this regard, the Center for Reproductive Rights has noted that: <blockquote>
Our goal is to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee women's reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are bound to do so. The two principal prerequisites for achieving this goal are: (1) the strengthening of international legal norms protecting reproductive rights; and (2) consistent and effective action on the part of civil society and the international community to enforce these norms. Each of these conditions, in turn, depends upon profound social change at the local, national and international (including regional) levels. (...) Ultimately, we must persuade governments to accept reproductive rights as binding norms. Again, our approach can move forward on several fronts, with interventions both at the national and international levels. Governments' recognition of reproductive rights norms may be indicated by their support for progressive language in international conference documents or by their adoption and implementation of appropriate national-level legislative and policy instruments. In order to counter opposition to an expansion of recognized reproductive rights norms, we have questioned the credibility of such reactionary yet influential international actors as the United States and the Holy See. Our activities to garner support for international protections of reproductive rights include: Lobbying government delegations at UN conferences and producing supporting analyses/materials; fostering alliances with members of civil society who may become influential on their national delegations to the UN; and preparing briefing papers and factsheets exposing the broad anti-woman agenda of our opposition.</blockquote>Center for Reproductive Rights, International Legal Program, [http://thomas.loc.gov Establishing International Reproductive Rights Norms: Theory for Change] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150830093514/http://thomas.loc.gov/ |date=30 August 2015 }}, US CONG. REC. 108th CONG. 1 Sess. E2534 E2547 (Rep. Smith) (8 December 2003)</ref> An example of this linkage is provided by the 1994 Cairo Programme of Action:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.iisd.ca/Cairo/program/p07002.html |title=[programme&#93; Basis for action |publisher=Iisd.ca |access-date=2015-02-17 |archive-date=16 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216090500/http://www.iisd.ca/Cairo/program/p07002.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> <blockquote>
Reproductive rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognized in national laws, international human rights documents and other relevant United Nations 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. In the exercise of this right, they should take into account the needs of their living and future children and their responsibilities towards the community.</blockquote>
Similarly, [[Amnesty International]] has argued that the realisation of reproductive rights is linked with the realisation of a series of recognised [[human rights]], including the [[right to health]], the right to freedom from [[discrimination]], the [[right to privacy]], and the right not to be subjected to torture or ill-treatment.<ref name="AMNESTY">{{cite web |url=http://www.amnestyusa.org/Stop_Violence_Against_Women_SVAW/Reproductive_Rights/page.do?id=1108242&n1=3&n2=39&n3=1101 |title=Stop Violence Against Women: Reproductive rights |access-date=8 December 2007 |author=Amnesty International USA |year=2007 |work=SVAW |publisher=Amnesty International USA |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080120140923/http://www.amnestyusa.org/Stop_Violence_Against_Women_SVAW/Reproductive_Rights/page.do?id=1108242&n1=3&n2=39&n3=1101 |archive-date=20 January 2008 }}</ref>

The [[World Health Organization]] states that:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/gender_rights/srh-rights-comment/en/|title=WHO {{!}} Sexual and reproductive health and rights: a global development, health, and human rights priority|website=WHO|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref>
<blockquote> Sexual and reproductive health and rights encompass efforts to eliminate preventable maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, to ensure quality sexual and reproductive health services, including contraceptive services, and to address sexually transmitted infections (STI) and cervical cancer, violence against women and girls, and sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents. Universal access to sexual and reproductive health is essential not only to achieve sustainable development but also to ensure that this new framework speaks to the needs and aspirations of people around the world and leads to realisation of their health and human rights.</blockquote>

However, not all states have accepted the inclusion of reproductive rights in the body of internationally recognized human rights. At the Cairo Conference, several states made [[Reservation (law)|formal reservations]] either to the concept of reproductive rights or to its specific content. [[Ecuador]], for instance, stated that:<ref name="un.org" /> <blockquote>
With regard to the Programme of Action of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and laws of Ecuador and the norms of international law, the delegation of Ecuador reaffirms, inter alia, the following principles embodied in its Constitution:  the inviolability of life, the protection of children from the moment of conception, freedom of conscience and religion, the protection of the family as the fundamental unit of society, responsible paternity, the right of parents to bring up their children and the formulation of population and development plans by the Government in accordance with the principles of respect for sovereignty. Accordingly, the delegation of Ecuador enters a reservation with respect to all terms such as "regulation of fertility", "interruption of pregnancy", "reproductive health", "reproductive rights" and "unwanted children", which in one way or another, within the context of the Programme of Action, could involve abortion.</blockquote>
Similar reservations were made by [[Argentina]], [[Dominican Republic]], [[El Salvador]], [[Honduras]], [[Malta]], [[Nicaragua]], [[Paraguay]], [[Peru]] and the [[Holy See]]. Islamic Countries, such as [[Brunei]], [[Djibouti]], [[Iran]], [[Jordan]], [[Kuwait]], [[Libya]], [[Syria]], [[United Arab Emirates]], and [[Yemen]] made broad reservations against any element of the programme that could be interpreted as contrary to the [[Sharia]]. Guatemala even questioned whether the conference could legally proclaim new human rights.<ref>[https://www.un.org/popin/icpd/conference/offeng/poa.html United Nations, Report of the Fourth International Conference on Population and Development, Cario, 5 – 13 September 1994]. Guatemala entered the following reservation:<blockquote>
Chapter VII:  we enter a reservation on the whole chapter, for the General Assembly's mandate to the Conference does not extend to the creation or formulation of rights; this reservation therefore applies to all references in the document to "reproductive rights", "sexual rights", "reproductive health", "fertility regulation", "sexual health", "individuals", "sexual education and services for minors", "abortion in all its forms", "distribution of contraceptives" and "safe motherhood"</blockquote></ref>

==Family rights==
{{Excerpt|Family rights|paragraphs=1|only=paragraphs|hat=no}}

==Women's rights==
{{See also|Women's rights|Reproductive justice}}
{{Feminism sidebar}}
The [[United Nations Population Fund]] (UNFPA) and the [[World Health Organization]] (WHO) advocate for reproductive rights with a primary emphasis on [[women's rights]]. In this respect the UN and WHO focus on a range of issues from access to [[family planning]] services, sex education, [[menopause]], and the reduction of [[obstetric fistula]], to the relationship between reproductive health and economic status.

The reproductive rights of women are advanced in the context of the right to freedom from [[discrimination]] and the social and economic status of women. The group [[Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era]] (DAWN) explained the link in the following statement:<ref name="FREEDMAN" />
<blockquote>Control over reproduction is a basic need and a basic right for all women. Linked as it is to women's health and social status, as well as the powerful social structures of religion, state control and administrative inertia, and private profit, it is from the perspective of poor women that this right can best be understood and affirmed. Women know that childbearing is a social, not a purely personal, phenomenon; nor do we deny that world population trends are likely to exert considerable pressure on resources and institutions by the end of this century. But our bodies have become a pawn in the struggles among states, religions, male heads of households, and private corporations. Programs that do not take the interests of women into account are unlikely to succeed...</blockquote>

Women's reproductive rights have long retained key issue status in the debate on [[overpopulation]].<ref name=popsearch/>
<blockquote>"The only ray of hope I can see – and it's not much – is that wherever women are put in control of their lives, both politically and socially; where medical facilities allow them to deal with birth control and where their husbands allow them to make those decisions, birth rate falls. Women don't want to have 12 kids of whom nine will die." [[David Attenborough|David&nbsp;Attenborough]]<ref>{{cite news|title=Sir David Attenborough on the roots of Climatic problems|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/sir-david-attenborough-this-awful-summer-weve-only-ourselves-to-blame-7942405.html|newspaper=The Independent}}</ref></blockquote>

According to [[OHCHR]]: "Women's sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the prohibition of discrimination".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/women/wrgs/pages/healthrights.aspx|title=OHCHR {{!}} Sexual and reproductive health and rights|website=www.ohchr.org|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref>

Attempts have been made to analyse the socioeconomic conditions that affect the realisation of a woman's reproductive rights. The term [[reproductive justice]] has been used to describe these broader social and economic issues. Proponents of reproductive justice argue that while the right to [[abortion law|legalized abortion]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/gov/bl_roe_e.htm|title=Women's History|website=Womenshistory.about.com|access-date=19 August 2017}}</ref> and contraception applies to everyone, these choices are only meaningful to those with resources and that there is a growing gap between access and affordability.<ref>Kirk, Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives (Third Edition) 2004.</ref>

This more nuanced framework of reproductive justice that recognizes that even with the necessary access to reproductive health, there are other influences beyond choice that determine a women's ability to control her bodily autonomy is discussed in ''Battles Over Abortion and Reproductive Rights'' (2017) by Suzanne Staggenborg and Marie B. Skoczylas. They define this concept as detailed below.

* Reproductive Justice: interrelationships among issues, linking reproductive health and rights to other social issues (broader human rights framework)
* White-dominated sectors of the pro-choice movement that focused solely on abortion and downplayed the reality that reproduction is encouraged for some women and discouraged for others{{cn|date=April 2025}}

==Men's rights==
{{See also|Men's rights}}
{{Masculism sidebar}}
Men's reproductive rights have been claimed by various organizations, both for issues of reproductive health, and other rights related to sexual reproduction. Three international issues in men's reproductive health are [[sexually transmitted infection]]s, [[cancer]], and exposure to [[toxins]].<ref name = "NETWORK">{{cite journal |url=http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/Network/v18_3/NW183ch2.htm |title=Men's Reproductive Health Risks: Threats to men's fertility and reproductive health include disease, cancer and exposure to toxins |access-date=2 January 2008 |last1=Best |first1=Kim |date=Spring 1998 |journal=Network |pages=7–10 }}</ref>

Recently men's reproductive right with regards to paternity have become subject of debate in the U.S. The term "[[male abortion]]" was coined by Melanie McCulley, a [[South Carolina]] attorney, in a 1998 article. The theory begins with the premise that when a woman becomes pregnant she has the option of abortion, adoption, or parenthood. A man, however, has none of those options, but will still be affected by the woman's decision. It argues, in the context of legally recognized [[gender equality]], that in the earliest stages of pregnancy the putative (alleged) father should have the right to relinquish all future parental rights and financial responsibility, leaving the informed mother with the same three options.<ref>{{cite journal | author = McCulley Melanie G | year = 1998 | title = The male abortion: the putative father's right to terminate his interests in and obligations to the unborn child | journal = The Journal of Law and Policy | volume = VII | issue =1 | pages =1–55 |pmid=12666677 }}</ref> This concept has been supported by a former president of the feminist organization [[National Organization for Women]], attorney [[Karen DeCrow]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2000/10/19/mens_choice|title=A man's right to choose|last1=Young|first1=Kathy|date=19 October 2000|work=Salon.com|access-date= 10 May 2011}}</ref> The [[feminist]] argument for male reproductive choice contends that the uneven ability to choose experienced by men and women in regards to parenthood is evidence of a state-enforced [[coercion]] favoring traditional [[sex roles]].<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Lisa Lucile |last1=Owens |year=2013 |title=Coerced Parenthood as Family Policy: Feminism, the Moral Agency of Women, and Men's 'Right to Choose' |journal=Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review |volume=5 |pages=1–33 |ssrn=2439294 }}</ref>

In 2006, the National Center for Men brought a case in the US, ''[[Dubay v. Wells]]'' (dubbed by some "''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' for men"), that argued that in the event of an unplanned pregnancy, when an unmarried woman informs a man that she is pregnant by him, he should have an opportunity to give up all paternity rights and responsibilities.  Supporters argue that this would allow the woman time to make an informed decision and give men the same reproductive rights as women.<ref>Traister, Rebecca. (13 March 2006). "[http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/03/13/roe_for_men/ Roe for men?]" ''Salon.com.'' Retrieved 17 December 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalcenterformen.org/page7.shtml|title=ROE vs. WADE... FOR MEN: Men's Center files pro-choice lawsuit in federal court|website=Nationalcenterformen.org}}</ref>  In its dismissal of the case, the U.S. Court of Appeals (Sixth Circuit) stated that "the Fourteenth Amendment does not deny to [the] State the power to treat different classes of persons in different ways."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0442p-06.pdf |title=U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, case No. 06-11016}}</ref>

The opportunity to give men the right for a [[paper abortion]] is heavily discussed. [[Sperm theft]] is another related issue.

==Intersex and reproductive rights==
{{See also|Intersex}}
Intersex, in [[human]]s and other [[animal]]s, is a variation in [[sex]] characteristics including [[chromosome]]s, [[gonad]]s, or [[genital]]s that do not allow an individual to be distinctly identified as male or female. Such variation may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal [[genotype]] and sexual [[phenotype]] other than XY-male and XX-female.<ref name="Money">{{cite book |last=Money |first=John |author-link = John Money |author2=Ehrhardt, Anke A. |title=Man & Woman Boy & Girl. Differentiation and dimorphism of gender identity from conception to maturity |year=1972 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |location=USA |isbn=978-0-8018-1405-1 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/manwomanboygirl00mone }}</ref><ref name="Dreger">{{cite book |last=Domurat Dreger |first=Alice |title=Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex |year=2001 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=USA |isbn=978-0-674-00189-3 }}</ref> Intersex persons are often subjected to involuntary "sex normalizing" surgical and hormonal treatments in infancy and childhood, often also including sterilization.<ref name="coe1952">[http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=20174&lang=en Resolution 1952/2013, Provision version, Children's right to physical integrity], [[Council of Europe]], 1 October 2013</ref><ref name="SenateOnSterilisation">[http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Community_Affairs/Involuntary_Sterilisation/Sec_Report/index Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia], [[Australian Senate]] Community Affairs Committee, October 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-15/carpenter-its-time-to-defend-intersex-rights/5093966 It's time to defend intersex rights], Morgan Carpenter at [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]], 15 November 2013.</ref><ref>[http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/australian-parliament-committee-releases-intersex-rights-report281013 Australian Parliament committee releases intersex rights report] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160115130147/http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/australian-parliament-committee-releases-intersex-rights-report281013/ |date=15 January 2016 }}, [[Gay Star News]], 28 October 2013.</ref><ref name="swissnek">[http://www.bag.admin.ch/nek-cne/04229/04232/index.html?lang=en&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ad1IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCKfX96f2ym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A-- On the management of differences of sex development, Ethical issues relating to "intersexuality", Opinion No. 20/2012] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620231438/http://www.bag.admin.ch/nek-cne/04229/04232/index.html?lang=en&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ad1IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCKfX96f2ym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A-- |date=20 June 2013 }}, Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, November 2012.</ref>

UN agencies have begun to take note. On 1 February 2013, Juan E Mendés, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, issued a statement condemning non-consensual surgical intervention on intersex people. His report stated, "Children who are born with atypical sex characteristics are often subject to irreversible sex assignment, involuntary sterilization, involuntary genital normalizing surgery, performed without their informed consent, or that of their parents, "in an attempt to fix their sex", leaving them with permanent, irreversible infertility and causing severe mental suffering".<ref name="untorture">[http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session22/A.HRC.22.53_English.pdf Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture], [[Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights]], February 2013.</ref> In May 2014, the [[World Health Organization]] issued a joint statement on ''Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization, An interagency statement'' with the [[OHCHR]], [[UN Women]], [[UNAIDS]], [[UNDP]], [[UNFPA]] and [[UNICEF]]. The report references the involuntary surgical "sex-normalising or other procedures" on "intersex persons". It questions the medical necessity of such treatments, patients' ability to consent, and a weak evidence base.<ref>[http://oii.org.au/27189/who-and-other-un-agencies-issues-statement-on-involuntary-or-coerced-sterilisation/ WHO/UN interagency statement on involuntary or coerced sterilisation], [[Organisation Intersex International Australia]], 30 May 2014.</ref> The report recommends a range of guiding principles to prevent [[compulsory sterilization]] in medical treatment, including ensuring patient autonomy in decision-making, ensuring non-discrimination, accountability and access to remedies.<ref>[https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/gender_rights/eliminating-forced-sterilization/en/ Eliminating forced, coercive and otherwise involuntary sterilization, An interagency statement], [[World Health Organization]], May 2014.</ref>

==Youth rights and access==
{{Further|Sex education}}

===Minors===
{{Further|Parental consent}}
In many jurisdictions minors require parental consent or parental notification in order to access various reproductive services, such as contraception, abortion, gynecological consultations, testing for STIs etc. The requirement that minors have parental consent/notification for testing for [[HIV/AIDS]] is especially controversial as it can cause delayed diagnosis and treatment.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK217962/|title=HIV and Adolescents: Guidance for HIV Testing and Counselling and Care for Adolescents Living with HIV|series=WHO Guidelines Approved by the Guidelines Review Committee |publisher=[[World Health Organization]]|pmid=25032477|page=3|date=2013|isbn=978-92-4-150616-8 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/696753/doh-backs-bill-allowing-minor-to-get-hiv-aids-tests-without-parental-consent|title=DOH backs bill allowing minor to get HIV, AIDS tests without parental consent|first=Jocelyn R.|last=Uy|website=Newsinfo.inquirer.net|date=7 June 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2014/july/20140723_youth|title=Challenging parental consent laws to increase young people's access to vital HIV services – UNAIDS|website=Unaids.org}}</ref> Balancing minors' rights versus parental rights is considered an [[ethical]] problem in medicine and law, and there have been many court cases on this issue in the US.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Maradiegue|first1=Ann|title=Minor's Rights Versus Parental Rights: Review of Legal Issues in Adolescent Health Care|journal=Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health|volume=48|issue=3|year=2003|pages=170–177|doi=10.1016/S1526-9523(03)00070-9|pmid=12764301|url=http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/456472_6|url-access=subscription}}</ref> An important concept recognized since 1989 by the [[Convention on the Rights of the Child]] is that of the [[evolving capacities|
evolving capacities of a minor]], namely that minors should, in accordance with their maturity and level of understanding, be involved in decisions that affect them.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ippfwhr.org/sites/default/files/srrightsyoungen.pdf|title=Sexual and Reproductive Rights of Young People: Autonomous decision making and confidential services|work=International Planned Parenthood Federation|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref>

[[Youth]] are often denied equal access to reproductive health services because [[health workers]] view adolescent sexual activity as unacceptable,<ref name=Mugisha>{{cite book |last=Mugisha|first=Frederick |editor-first=Andy|editor-last=Furlong|title=Handbook of Youth and Young Adulthood |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |pages=344–352 |chapter=Chapter 42: HIV and AIDS, STIs and sexual health among young people |isbn=978-0-415-44541-2}}</ref> or see sex education as the responsibility of parents.  Providers of reproductive health have little accountability to youth clients, a primary factor in denying youth access to reproductive health care.<ref name=Mugisha /> In many countries, regardless of legislation, minors are denied even the most basic reproductive care, if they are not accompanied by parents: in India, for instance, in 2017, a 17-year-old girl who was rejected by her family due to her pregnancy, was also rejected by hospitals and gave birth in the street.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/india-chandil-homeless-street-jharkand-medical-centre-a7918611.html|title=Homeless girl in India forced to give birth on street metres away from health centre: She was shivering and unable to lift and cuddle her infant|date=29 August 2017|first=Andrew|last=Lowry|work=The Independent|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref> In recent years the lack of reproductive rights for adolescents has been a concern of international organizations, such as [[UNFPA]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unfpa.org/resources/adolescent-sexual-and-reproductive-health|title=Adolescent sexual and reproductive health – UNFPA – United Nations Population Fund|website=Unfpa.org}}</ref>

Mandatory involvement of parents in cases where the minor has sufficient maturity to understand their situation is considered by health organization as a violation of minor's rights and detrimental to their health. The [[World Health Organization]] has criticized parental consent/notification laws:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2017/discrimination-in-health-care/en/|title=Joint United Nations statement on ending discrimination in health care settings — Joint WHO/UN statement|work=World Health Organization|date=27 June 2017|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref>
<blockquote>
Discrimination in health care settings takes many forms and is often manifested when an individual or group is denied access to health care services that are otherwise available to others. It can also occur through denial of services that are only needed by certain groups, such as women. Examples include specific individuals or groups being subjected to physical and verbal abuse or violence; involuntary treatment; breaches of confidentiality and/or denial of autonomous decision-making, such as the requirement of consent to treatment by parents, spouses or guardians; and lack of free and informed consent. ... Laws and policies must respect the principles of autonomy in health care decision-making; guarantee free and informed consent, privacy and confidentiality; prohibit mandatory HIV testing; prohibit screening procedures that are not of benefit to the individual or the public; and ban involuntary treatment and mandatory third-party authorization and notification requirements.
</blockquote>

According to UNICEF: "When dealing with sexual and reproductive health, the obligation to inform parents and obtain their consent becomes a significant barrier with consequences for adolescents' lives and for public health in general."<ref name="UnicefBAJA">{{cite web|last=Sedletzki|first=Vanessa|year=2016|title=Legal minimum ages and the realization of adolescents' rights|url=https://www.unicef.org/lac/1._DIG._Min_age_of_medical_consent_PDF_BAJA_.pdf|
website=Unicef|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013014033/https://www.unicef.org/lac/1._DIG._Min_age_of_medical_consent_PDF_BAJA_.pdf|archive-date=13 October 2017|access-date=12 October 2017}} [https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/20160406_UNICEF_Edades_Minima_Eng1_.pdf Alt URL]</ref> One specific issue which is seen as a form of hypocrisy of legislators is that of having a higher age of medical consent for the purpose of reproductive and sexual health than the [[age of sexual consent]] – in such cases the law allows youth to engage in sexual activity, but does not allow them to consent to medical procedures that may arise from being sexually active; UNICEF states that "On sexual and reproductive health matters, the minimum age of medical consent should never be higher than the age of sexual consent."<ref name="UnicefBAJA"/>

===Africa===
{{Further|HIV/AIDS in Africa}}
[[File:Ian Mackenzie High School Classroom.jpg|thumb|left|A classroom in [[South Africa]]]]
[[File:No Sex Signage in Ghana.jpg|thumb|Ad promoting abstinence in [[Ghana]]: ''No Sex Ad'' (Anti-[[HIV/AIDS]] ― [[signage]]). [[Abstinence-only sex education]] is a form of [[sex education]] that teaches [[Sexual abstinence|not having sex]] outside of marriage, most often excluding other types of [[sexual and reproductive health]] education, such as [[birth control]] and [[safe sex]]. [[Comprehensive Sex Education|Comprehensive sex education]], by contrast, covers the use of birth control and sexual abstinence.]]

Many [[unintended pregnancies]] stem from traditional contraceptive methods or no [[contraceptive]] measures.<ref name=Lukale>{{cite journal|last=Lukale|first=Nelly|title=Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights for Young People in Africa|journal=ARROWs for Change|year=2012|volume=18|issue=2|pages=7–8}}</ref>

Youth sexual education in Uganda is relatively low. [[Comprehensive sex education]] is not generally taught in schools; even if it was, the majority of young people do not stay in school after the age of fifteen, so information would be limited regardless.<ref name=Knudson>{{cite book|last=Knudson|first=Lara|title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context: South Africa, Uganda, Peru, Denmark, United States, Vietnam, Jordan|year=2006|publisher=Vanderbilt University Press|location=Nashville, TN}}{{page needed|date=February 2017}}</ref>

[[Africa]] experiences high rates of unintended pregnancy, along with high rates of [[HIV/AIDS]].  Young women aged 15–24 are eight times more likely to have HIV/AIDS than young men. [[Sub-Saharan Africa]] is the world region most affected by HIV/AIDS, with approximately 25 million people living with HIV in 2015. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for two-thirds of the global total of new HIV infections.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/hivaids|title=HIV/AIDS Factsheet|work=World Health Organization|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref>

Attempted [[abortions]] and [[unsafe abortions]] are a risk for youth in Africa.  On average, there are 2.4 million unsafe abortions in East Africa, 1.8 million in Western Africa, over 900,000 in Middle Africa, and over 100,000 in Southern Africa each year.<ref name=Lukale /> The [[Guttmacher Institute]] estimates that, over the time range of 2015 to 2019, 77% of abortions in Sub-Saharan Africa are unsafe, with a fatality rate of 185 deaths per 100,000 abortions, making it the unsafest region for abortions.<ref name="Bankole et al">{{Cite journal |last1=Bankole |first1=Akinrinola |last2=Remez |first2=Lisa |last3=Owolabi |first3=Onikepe |last4=Philbin |first4=Jesse |last5=Williams |first5=Patrice |date=December 2020 |title=From Unsafe to Safe Abortion in Sub-Saharan Africa: Slow but Steady Progress |url=https://www.guttmacher.org/report/from-unsafe-to-safe-abortion-in-subsaharan-africa |access-date=24 December 2022 |website=Guttmacher Institute|doi=10.1363/2020.32446 |s2cid=234402025 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

In [[Uganda]], abortion is illegal except to save the mother's life.  However, 78% of teenagers report knowing someone who has had an abortion and the police do not always prosecute everyone who has an abortion.  An estimated 22% of all [[maternal deaths]] in the area stem from illegal, unsafe abortions.<ref name=Knudson />

As of 2022, the only countries in Africa in which abortion is broadly legal are [[Abortion in Benin|Benin]], [[Abortion in Cape Verde|Cape Verde]], [[Abortion-rights movements#Africa|Mozambique]], [[Abortion in South Africa|South Africa]], and [[Abortion-rights movements#Africa|Tunisia]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Peltier |first=Elian |date=13 Nov 2022 |title=While Abortion Rights Shrink in U.S., This Small Country Expanded Access |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/13/world/africa/benin-abortions.html |access-date=24 December 2022}}</ref> [[Abortion in Zambia|Zambia]] allows abortion for health or socioeconomic reasons, though there are limitations to access.<ref name="Bankole et al" /> Discussion about legalizing abortion is ongoing in [[Abortion in Liberia|Liberia]] and [[Abortion in Sierra Leone|Sierra Leone]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=10 Nov 2022 |title=UN Report on Sexual and Reproductive Justice Highlights Global Progress (and Lost Ground) |url=https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/un-report-sexual-and-reproductive-justice-highlights-global-progress-and-lost-ground |access-date=24 December 2022 |website=Columbia Public Health}}</ref>

The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, also known as the [[Maputo Protocol]], states in Article 14(2)c that governments must "protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus."<ref name="Bankole et al" /> It is the only human rights charter that details conditions for abortion. Since the protocol was written in 2003, 39 countries have ratified it. It has played a significant part in the easing of abortion laws in several African countries.

===European Union===
Over 85% of European women (all ages) have used some form of [[birth control]] in their lives.<ref name=Irala />  Europeans as an aggregate report using [[Oral contraceptive pill|the pill]] and [[condoms]] as the most commonly used contraceptives.<ref name=Irala>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/j.contraception.2011.04.004 |pmid=22078183 |title=Choice of birth control methods among European women and the role of partners and providers |journal=Contraception |volume=84 |issue=6 |pages=558–64 |year=2011 |last1=De Irala |first1=Jokin |last2=Osorio |first2=Alfonso |last3=Carlos |first3=Silvia |last4=Lopez-Del Burgo |first4=Cristina |hdl=10171/19110 |url=http://dadun.unav.edu/bitstream/10171/19110/3/Choice%20of%20birth%20control%20methods%20among%20European%20women%20and%20the%20role%20of%20partners%20and%20providers.pdf |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Sweden has the highest percentage of lifetime contraceptive use, with 96% of its inhabitants claiming to have used birth control at some point in their life.<ref name=Irala /> Sweden also has a high self-reported rate of [[Emergency contraception|postcoital pill use]].<ref name=Irala />  A 2007 anonymous survey of Swedish 18-year-olds showed that three out of four youth were sexually active, with 5% reporting having had an [[abortion]] and 4% reporting the contraction of an [[Sexually transmitted disease|STI]].<ref name=Larsson>{{cite journal |doi=10.1080/13625180701217026 |pmid=17559009 |title=Contraceptive use and associated factors among Swedish high school students |journal=The European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=119–24 |year=2009 |last1=Larsson |first1=Margareta |last2=Tydén |first2=Tanja |last3=Hanson |first3=Ulf |last4=Häggström-Nordin |first4=Elisabet |s2cid=36601350 }}</ref>

In the [[European Union]], reproductive rights are protected through the [[European Convention on Human Rights]] and its jurisprudence, as well as the [[Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence]] (the Istanbul Convention).<ref name="Europarl">{{cite book |title=Sexual and reproductive health rights and the implication of conscientious objection : study. |isbn=978-92-846-2976-3 |url=https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/604969/IPOL_STU(2018)604969_EN.pdf|last1=Anedda |first1=Ludovica |year=2018 |publisher=European Parliament }}</ref>
However, these rights are denied or restricted by the laws, policies and practices of member states.<ref name="Council of Eu">{{cite web |title=Women's sexual and reproductive rights in Europe |url=https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/women-s-sexual-and-reproductive-rights-in-europe |website=Commissioner for Human Rights}}</ref>
In fact, some countries criminalize medical staff, have stricter regulations than the international norm or exclude legal abortion and contraception from public health insurance.<ref name="Europarl"/>
A study conducted by Policy Departments, at the request of the [[European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality]], recommends the EU to strengthen the legal framework on equal access to sexual and reproductive health goods and services.<ref name="Europarl"/>

===Latin America===
{{Main|Reproductive rights in Latin America}}
[[Latin America]] has come to international attention due to its harsh anti-abortion laws. Latin America is home to some of the few countries of the world with a complete ban on abortion, without an exception for saving [[maternal mortality|maternal life]].<ref name="ChileCourt">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41005517|title=Chile abortion: Court approves easing total ban|date=21 August 2017|work=BBC|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref> In some of these countries, particularity in [[Central America]], the enforcement of such laws is very aggressive: [[Abortion in El Salvador|El Salvador]] and [[Abortion in Nicaragua|Nicaragua]] have drawn international attention for strong enforcement of their complete bans on abortion. In 2017, [[Abortion in Chile|Chile]] relaxed its total ban, allowing abortion to be performed when the woman's life is in danger, when a fetus is unviable, or in cases of rape.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/chile-the-long-road-to-abortion-reform-a7917791.html|title=Chile: the long road to abortion reform — After a fierce debate, one of the most restrictive reproductive laws in the world has been eased|date=29 August 2017|first=Cordelia|last=Freeman |work=The Independent|access-date=1 October 2017}}</ref>

In [[Ecuador]], education and class play a large role in the definition of which young women become pregnant and which do not – 50% of young women who are illiterate get pregnant, compared to 11% of girls with secondary education.  The same is true for poorer individuals – 28% become impregnated while only 11% of young women in wealthier households do.  Furthermore, access to reproductive rights, including contraceptives, are limited, due to age and the perception of female morality.  Health care providers often discuss contraception theoretically, not as a device to be used on a regular basis.  Decisions concerning sexual activity often involve secrecy and taboos, as well as a lack of access to accurate information.  Even more telling, young women have much easier access to maternal healthcare than they do to contraceptive help, which helps explain high pregnancy rates in the region.<ref name=Goicolea>{{cite journal|last=Goicolea|first=Isabel|title=Adolescent Pregnancies in the Amazon Basin of Ecuador: A Rights and Gender Approach to Adolescents' Sexual and Reproductive Health|journal=Global Health Action|year=2010|volume=3|pages=1–11|doi=10.3402/gha.v3i0.5280|pmid=20596248|pmc=2893010}}</ref>

Rates of [[adolescent pregnancy]] in Latin America number over a million each year.<ref name=Goicolea />

===United States===
{{See also|Birth control in the United States}}
Among sexually experienced teenagers, 78% of teenage females and 85% of teenage males used contraception the first time they had sex; 86% and 93% of these same females and males, respectively, reported using contraception the last time they had sex.<ref name="Fact Sheet Guttmacher">{{cite web|title=Fact Sheet: Contraceptive Use in the United States|url=http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html|publisher=Guttmacher Institute|access-date=24 April 2013|date=4 August 2004|archive-date=4 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004232616/http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>  The male [[condom]] is the most commonly used method during first sex, although 54% of young women in the United States rely upon the [[Combined oral contraceptive pill|pill]].<ref name="Fact Sheet Guttmacher" />

Young people in the U.S. are no more sexually active than individuals in other developed countries, but they are significantly less knowledgeable about contraception and safe sex practices.<ref name=Knudson /> As of 2006, only twenty states required [[sex education]] in schools – of these, only ten required information about contraception.<ref name=Knudson />  On the whole, less than 10% of American students receive sex education that includes topical coverage of [[abortion]], [[homosexuality]], [[Intimate relationships|relationships]], [[pregnancy]], and STI prevention.<ref name=Knudson /> [[Abstinence-only education]] was used throughout much of the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s.<ref name=Knudson />  Based upon the moral principle that sex outside of marriage is unacceptable, the programs often misled students about their rights to have sex, the consequences, and prevention of pregnancy and STIs.<ref name=Knudson />

[[Abortion in the United States]] was a [[constitutional right]] since the [[United States Supreme Court]] decision ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'' which decriminalised abortion nationwide in 1973, and established a minimal period during which abortion is legal (with more or fewer restrictions throughout the pregnancy) until this decision was overturned in June 2022 by the decision ''[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]''. Abortion rights are now decided at the state level with only [[Abortion in California|California]], [[Abortion in Michigan|Michigan]], [[Abortion in Ohio|Ohio]], and [[Abortion in Vermont|Vermont]] conferring explicit rights to abortions. The state constitutions of [[Abortion in Alabama|Alabama]], [[Abortion in Louisiana|Louisiana]], [[Abortion in Tennessee|Tennessee]], and [[Abortion in West Virginia|West Virginia]] explicitly contain no right to an abortion.

==Lack of knowledge about rights==
One of the many reasons why reproductive rights are poor in many places, is not only that they are restricted but that the vast majority of the population may not know what the law is. Not only are ordinary people uninformed, but so are medical doctors. A study in Brazil on medical doctors found considerable ignorance and misunderstanding of the law on abortion (which is severely restricted, but not completely illegal).<ref>{{cite journal|title=Brazilian obstetrician-gynecologists and abortion: a survey of knowledge, opinions and practices|first1=Lisa A.|last1=Goldman|first2=Sandra G.|last2=García|first3=Juan|last3=Díaz|first4=Eileen A.|last4=Yam|date=15 November 2005|journal=Reproductive Health|volume=2|pages=10|doi=10.1186/1742-4755-2-10|pmid=16288647|pmc=1308861 |doi-access=free }}</ref> In Ghana, abortion, while restricted, is permitted on several grounds, but only 3% of pregnant women and 6% of those seeking an abortion were aware of the legal status of abortion.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/abortion-ghana|title=Abortion in Ghana|date=24 February 2016}}</ref> In Nepal, abortion was legalized in 2002, but a study in 2009 found that only half of women knew that abortion was legalized.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ipsnews.net/2006/09/nepal-only-half-of-women-know-abortion-is-legal/|title=NEPAL: Only Half of Women Know Abortion is Legal – Inter Press Service|website=www.ipsnews.net|date=9 September 2006}}</ref> Many people also do not understand the laws on [[sexual violence]]: in Hungary, where [[marital rape]] was made illegal in 1997, in a study in 2006, 62% of people did not know that marital rape was a crime.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur27/002/2007/en/|title=Wayback Machine|newspaper=Amnesty International |date=8 June 2011}}</ref> The United Nations Development Programme states that, in order to advance gender justice, "Women must know their rights and be able to access legal systems",<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Eight Point Agenda: Practical, positive outcomes for girls and women in crisis|url=http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/crisis%20prevention/undp-cpr-8-point-agenda-practical-positive-outcomes-girls-women-crisis.pdf|access-date=2021-06-10|archive-date=17 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180517093148/http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/crisis%20prevention/undp-cpr-8-point-agenda-practical-positive-outcomes-girls-women-crisis.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women states at Art. 4 (d) [...] "States should also inform women of their rights in seeking redress through such mechanisms".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un-documents.net/a48r104.htm|title=A/RES/48/104 – Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women – UN Documents: Gathering a body of global agreements|first=United Nations General|last=Assembly|website=www.un-documents.net}}</ref> In the UK, [[Beverley Lawrence Beech]] understood the importance of women knowing their rights so that they can make decisions about the place and manner of the birth of their children.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Beech |first=Beverley |title=Am I allowed? What every woman should know before she gives birth. |publisher=[[Birth Practice and Politics Forum]]  |year=2021 |isbn=978-1916060609 |edition=4th |location=Edinburgh}}</ref>

==Gender equality and violence against women==
{{Further|Gender equality|Violence against women|Sexual violence|Forced marriage|Child marriage}}
Addressing issues of gender-based violence is crucial for attaining reproductive rights. The [[United Nations Population Fund]] refers to "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" and "Sexual and reproductive security, including freedom from sexual violence and coercion, and the right to privacy," as part of achieving reproductive rights,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unfpa.org/rights/rights.htm |title=United Nations Population Fund &#124; Supporting the Constellation of Reproductive Rights |publisher=UNFPA |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> and states that the right to liberty and security of the person which is fundamental to reproductive rights obliges states to:<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/english/ch3/ch3_box9.htm |title=United Nations Population Fund &#124; State of World Population 2005 |publisher=UNFPA |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>
* Take measures to prevent, punish and eradicate all forms of gender-based violence
* Eliminate female genital mutilation/cutting

The WHO states:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/hhr/activities/GRR/en/ |title=WHO &#124; Gender and Reproductive Rights |publisher=Who.int |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>
:Gender and Reproductive Rights (GRR) aims to promote and protect human rights and gender equality as they relate to sexual and reproductive health by developing strategies and mechanisms for promoting gender equity and equality and human rights in the Departments global and national activities, as well as within the functioning and priority-setting of the Department itself.

Amnesty International writes that:<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/campaigns/stop-violence-against-women/issues/implementation-existing-laws/srr |title=Sexual and reproductive rights &#124; Amnesty International |publisher=Amnesty.org |date=6 November 2007 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>
:Violence against women violates women's rights to life, physical and mental integrity, to the highest attainable standard of health, to freedom from torture and it violates their sexual and reproductive rights.

One key issue for achieving reproductive rights is criminalization of [[sexual violence]]. If a woman is not protected from forced sexual intercourse, she is not protected from [[forced pregnancy]], namely [[pregnancy from rape]]. In order for a woman to be able to have reproductive rights, she must have the right to choose with whom and when to reproduce; and first of all, decide whether, when, and under what circumstances to be sexually active.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/gender_rights/sexual_health/en/ |title=WHO &#124; Gender and human rights |publisher=Who.int |date=31 January 2002 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> In many countries, these rights of women are not respected, because women do not have a choice in regard to their partner, with [[forced marriage]] and [[child marriage]] being common in parts of the world; and neither do they have any rights in regard to sexual activity, as many countries do not allow women to refuse to engage in sexual intercourse when they do not want to (because [[marital rape]] is not criminalized in those countries) or to engage in consensual sexual intercourse if they want to (because sex outside marriage is illegal in those countries). In addition to legal barriers, there are also social barriers, because in many countries a complete sexual subordination of a woman to her husband is expected (for instance, in one survey 74% of women in Mali said that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bioline.org.br/request?rh04047 |title=Bioline International Official Site (site up-dated regularly) |publisher=Bioline.org.br |date=9 February 2015 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>), while sexual/romantic relations disapproved by family members, or generally sex outside marriage, can result in serious violence, such as [[honor killings]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/honourcrimes/ |title=Ethics: Honour Crimes |publisher=BBC |date=1 January 1970 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>

==HIV/AIDS==
{{Further|HIV/AIDS}}

[[File:AIDS and HIV prevalence 2008.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt= A map of the world where most of the land is coloured green or yellow except for sub Saharan Africa which is coloured red|Estimated [[prevalence]] in % of HIV among young adults (15–49) per country as of 2011.<ref>{{cite web|title=AIDSinfo|url=http://www.unaids.org/en/dataanalysis/datatools/aidsinfo/|work=UNAIDS|access-date=4 March 2013}}</ref>

{{Col-begin}}
{{Col-break}}
{{legend|#787878|<small>No data</small>}}
{{legend|#94bf8b|<small><0.10</small>}}
{{legend|#f4e2ba|<small>0.10–0.5</small>}}
{{legend|#eaca83|<small>0.5–1</small>}}
{{Col-break}}
{{legend|#f07568|<small>1–5</small>}}
{{legend|#ff4800|<small>5–15</small>}}
{{legend|#b00000|<small>15–50</small>}}
{{col-end}}]]

According to the CDC, "HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus. It weakens a person's immune system by destroying important cells that fight disease and infection. No effective cure exists for HIV. But with proper medical care, HIV can be controlled."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/index.html|title=HIV Basics {{!}} HIV/AIDS {{!}} CDC|website=Cdc.gov|access-date=5 October 2016|date=23 July 2018}}</ref>  HIV amelioration is an important aspect of reproductive rights because the virus can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy or birth, or via breast milk.

The WHO states that: "All women, including those with HIV, have the right "to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights"".<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/11/08-059360/en/ |title=WHO &#124; Reproductive choices for women with HIV |publisher=Who.int |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> The reproductive rights of people living with HIV, and their health, are very important. The link between HIV and reproductive rights exists in regard to four main issues:<ref name="ReferenceA"/>
* prevention of unwanted pregnancy
* help to plan wanted pregnancy
* healthcare during and after pregnancy
* access to abortion services

==Child and forced marriage==
{{Main|Child marriage|Forced marriage}}
The WHO states that the reproductive rights and health of girls in child marriages are negatively affected.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/Life-stages/sexual-and-reproductive-health/news/news/2012/12/child-marriage-a-threat-to-health|title=Child marriage – a threat to health|date=20 December 2012|website=www.euro.who.int}}</ref>
The [[United Nations Population Fund|UNPF]] calls child marriage a "human rights violation" and states that in developing countries, one in every three girls is married before reaching age 18, and one in nine is married under age 15.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.unfpa.org/child-marriage|title=Child marriage – UNFPA – United Nations Population Fund|website=www.unfpa.org}}</ref> A [[forced marriage]] is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will. The [[Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence|Istanbul convention]], the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.oas.org/es/mesecvi/docs/CSW-SideEvent2014-Flyer-EN.pdf |title=The Convention of Belem do Para and the Istanbul Convention : A response to violence against women worldwide |publisher=Oas.org |access-date=20 November 2015}}</ref> requires countries which ratify it to prohibit [[forced marriage]] (Article 37) and to ensure that forced marriages can be easily voided without further victimization (Article 32).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence|url=https://rm.coe.int/168046031c|access-date=2021-06-10}}</ref>

==Sexual violence in armed conflict==
{{Main|Wartime sexual violence|Pregnancy from rape}}
Sexual violence in armed conflict is [[sexual violence]] committed by [[combatant]]s during [[armed conflict]], war, or [[military occupation]] often as [[War looting|spoils of war]]; but sometimes, particularly in [[ethnic conflict]], the phenomenon has broader sociological motives. It often includes [[gang rape]]. Rape is often used as a tactic of war and a threat to international security.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ohchr.org/en/newsevents/pages/rapeweaponwar.aspx|title=OHCHR {{!}} Rape: Weapon of war|website=www.ohchr.org|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref> Sexual violence in armed conflict is a violation of reproductive rights, and often leads to [[forced pregnancy]]  and [[sexually transmitted infections]]. Such sexual violations affect mostly women and girls,<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/00981389.2016.1240134 | pmid=27754779 | volume=56 | issue=1 | title=Women, war, and reproductive health in developing countries | year=2017 | journal=Social Work in Health Care | pages=28–44 |first1=Pillai |last1=Vijayan |first2=Wang |last2=Ya-Chien |first3=Maleku|last3=Arati| s2cid=3507352 }}</ref> but [[rape of men]] can also occur, such as in [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]].<ref name=Melhado>{{cite journal|last=Melhado|first=L|title=Rates of Sexual Violence Are High in Democratic Republic of the Congo|journal=International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health|volume=36|number=4|year=2010|page=210|jstor=41038670}}</ref><ref name=Autesserre>{{cite journal|last=Autesserre|first=Séverine|title=Dangerous Tales: Dominant Narratives on the Congo and their Unintended Consequences|journal=African Affairs|volume=111|issue=443|year=2012|pages=202–222|doi=10.1093/afraf/adr080}}</ref>

==Maternal mortality==
{{Main|Maternal death}}
[[File:Maternal mortality rate worldwide.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Maternal Mortality Rate]] worldwide, as defined by the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management, excluding accidental or incidental causes<ref name=CIA2010>[https://web.archive.org/web/20111024112608/https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2223rank.html?countryName=Australia&countryCode=as&regionCode=aus&rank=156#as Country Comparison: Maternal Mortality Rate] in [[:en:The World Factbook|The CIA World Factbook]]. Date of Information: 2010</ref>]]
Maternal death is defined by the [[World Health Organization]] (WHO) as "the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of [[pregnancy]], irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/indmaternalmortality/en/|title=WHO – Maternal mortality ratio (per 100 000 live births)|website=www.who.int}}</ref> It is estimated that in 2015, about 303,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth, and 99% of such deaths occur in developing countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/|title=Maternal mortality|website=World Health Organization}}</ref>

==Issues==
===Birth control===
{{See also|Forced pregnancy}}
[[Birth control]], also known as contraception and fertility control, is a method or device used to prevent [[pregnancy]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Definition of Birth control|url=http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53351|work=MedicineNet|access-date=9 August 2012|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120806234913/http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=53351|archive-date=6 August 2012}}</ref> Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth control only became available in the 20th century.<ref name=Hopkins2010>{{cite book|last1=Hanson|first1=S.J.|last2=Burke|first2=Anne E.|date=21 December 2010|chapter=Fertility control: contraception, sterilization, and abortion|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Sg5sXyiBvkC&pg=PR232|editor1-last=Hurt|editor1-first=K. Joseph|editor2-last=Guile|editor2-first=Matthew W.|editor3-last=Bienstock|editor3-first=Jessica L.|editor4-last=Fox|editor4-first=Harold E.|editor5-last=Wallach|editor5-first=Edward E.|title=The Johns Hopkins manual of gynecology and obstetrics|edition=4th|location=Philadelphia|publisher=Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins|pages=382–395|isbn=978-1-60547-433-5}}</ref> Planning, making available, and using birth control is called [[family planning]].<ref name=OED2012>{{cite book|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/19395|title=Oxford English Dictionary|date=June 2012|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref><ref name="WHO-health-topic">{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/topics/family_planning/en/|title=Family planning|author=World Health Organization (WHO)|publisher=World Health Organization (WHO)|work=Health topics|access-date=28 March 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318195523/http://www.who.int/topics/family_planning/en/|archive-date=18 March 2016}}</ref> Some cultures limit or discourage access to birth control because they consider it to be morally, religiously, or politically undesirable.<ref name=Hopkins2010 />

All birth control methods meet opposition, especially [[religion|religious]] opposition, in some parts of the world. Opposition does not only target modern methods, but also 'traditional' ones; for example, the [[Quiverfull]] movement, a conservative Christian ideology, encourages the maximization of procreation, and opposes all forms of birth control, including [[natural family planning]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/arrows-war/|title=Arrows for the War|last=Joyce|first=Kathryn|journal=The Nation|date=9 November 2006|access-date=19 June 2019|language=en-US|issn=0027-8378}}</ref>

===Abortion===
{{Further|Abortion law|Abortion-rights movements}}
According to a study by WHO and the Guttmacher Institute worldwide, 25 million [[unsafe abortion]]s (45% of all abortions) occurred every year between 2010 and 2014. 97% of unsafe abortions occur in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. By contrast, most abortions that take place in Western and Northern Europe and North America are safe.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/unsafe-abortions-worldwide/en/|title=Worldwide, an estimated 25 million unsafe abortions occur each year|website=World Health Organization}}</ref>

The [[Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women]] considers the criminalization of abortion a "violations of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights" and a form of "gender-based violence"; paragraph 18 of its ''General recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19'' states that: "Violations of women's sexual and reproductive health and rights, such as forced sterilizations, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, criminalisation of abortion, denial or delay of safe abortion and post-abortion care, forced continuation of pregnancy, abuse and mistreatment of women and girls seeking sexual and reproductive health information, goods and services, are forms of [[violence against women|gender based violence]] that, depending on the circumstances, may amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."<ref name="tbinternet.ohchr.org">{{cite web|url=https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CEDAW/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/CEDAW_C_GC_35_8267_E.pdf |title=General recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19 |author=Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women |publisher=UN Human Rights |date=14 July 2017 |access-date=23 October 2020}}</ref> The same ''General Recommendation'' also urges countries at paragraph 31 to [...] "In particular, repeal:
a) Provisions that allow, tolerate or condone forms of gender-based violence against women, including [...] legislation that criminalises abortion."<ref name="tbinternet.ohchr.org"/>

An article from the World Health Organization calls safe, legal abortion a "[[fundamental right]] of women, irrespective of where they live" and [[unsafe abortion]] a "silent [[pandemic]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/unsafe_abortion/ua_paper/en/index.html|title=WHO: Unsafe Abortion – The Preventable Pandemic|access-date=16 January 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100113104553/http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/unsafe_abortion/ua_paper/en/index.html|archive-date=13 January 2010}}</ref> The article states "ending the silent pandemic of unsafe abortion is an urgent [[public health|public-health]] and [[human-rights]] imperative." It also states "access to safe abortion improves [[women's health]], and vice versa, as documented in [[Romania]] during the regime of President [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]]" and "legalisation of abortion on request is a necessary but insufficient step toward improving women's health" citing that in some countries, such as India where abortion has been legal for decades, access to competent care remains restricted because of other barriers. WHO's Global Strategy on Reproductive Health, adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2004, noted: "As a preventable cause of maternal mortality and morbidity, unsafe abortion must be dealt with as part of the MDG on improving maternal health and other international development goals and targets."<ref name="who.int">{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/unsafe_abortion/hrpwork/en/index.html |title=WHO &#124; Preventing unsafe abortion |publisher=World Health Organization |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> The WHO's Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP), whose research concerns people's sexual and reproductive health and lives,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/hrp/en/ |title=HRP &#124; World Health Organization |publisher=World Health Organization |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> has an overall strategy to combat unsafe abortion that comprises four inter-related activities:<ref name="who.int"/>
* to collate, synthesize and generate scientifically sound evidence on unsafe abortion prevalence and practices;
* to develop improved technologies and implement interventions to make abortion safer;
* to translate evidence into norms, tools and guidelines;
* and to assist in the development of programmes and policies that reduce unsafe abortion and improve access to safe abortion and high quality post-abortion care

The UN has estimated in 2017 that repealing anti-abortion laws would save the lives of nearly 50,000 women a year.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=55141|title=UN News – Repealing anti-abortion laws would save the lives of nearly 50,000 women a year – UN experts|author=United Nations News Service Section |date=27 September 2016|website=UN News Service Section}}</ref> 209,519 abortions take place in England and Wales alone.<ref>{{Cite web|date=11 June 2020|title=Abortion Statistics, England and Wales: 2019|url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/891405/abortion-statistics-commentary-2019.pdf}}</ref> Unsafe abortions take place primarily in countries where abortion is illegal, but also occur in countries where it is legal. Despite its legal status, an abortion is ''[[de facto]]'' hardly optional for women due to most doctors being [[conscientious objector]]s.<ref>{{Cite news|
url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/11/italian-gynaecologists-refuse-abortions-miscarriages|title=Seven in 10 Italian gynaecologists refuse to carry out abortions|journal=The Guardian|last1=Kirchgaessner |first1=Stephanie|last2=Duncan|first2=Pamela|last3=Nardelli|first3=Alberto|last4=Robineau|first4=Delphine|date=11 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Milekic|first=Sven|
url=http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/doctors-refusal-to-perform-abortions-divides-croatia-02-13-2017|title=Doctors' Refusal to Perform Abortions Divides Croatia |website=Balkan Insight|date=14 February 2017}}</ref> Other reasons include the lack of knowledge that abortions are legal, lower socioeconomic backgrounds and spatial disparities.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Upadhyay|first1=Ushma D.|last2=Jones|first2=Rachel K.|last3=Weitz|first3=Tracy A.|date=2013|title=At What Cost? Payment for Abortion Care by U.S. Women|journal=Women's Health Issues|volume=23|issue=3|pages=173–178|doi=10.1016/j.whi.2013.03.001|pmid=23660430|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Bearak|first1=Jonathan M.|last2=Burke|first2=Kristen L.|last3=Jones|first3=Rachel K.|date=2017|title=Disparities and change over time in distance women would need to travel to have an abortion in the USA: a spatial analysis|journal=The Lancet Public Health|volume=2|issue=11|pages=493–500|doi=10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30158-5|pmid=29253373|pmc=5943037}}</ref>{{Globalize inline|US|date=October 2020|reason=Any financial barriers outside the US?}} Concerns have been raised about these practical considerations; the UN in its 2017 resolution on ''Intensification of efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls: domestic violence'' urged states to guarantee access to "safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/71/170|title=Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2016: 71/170. Intensification of efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls: domestic violence |date=7 February 2017 |access-date=23 October 2020 |website=United Nations}}</ref> In 2008, [[Human Rights Watch]] stated that "In fact, even where abortion is permitted by law, women often have severely limited access to safe abortion services because of lack of proper regulation, health services, or political will" and estimated that "Approximately 13 percent of maternal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe abortion—between 68,000 and 78,000 deaths annually."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hrw.org/legacy/women/abortion.html|title=Women's Human Rights: Abortion|website=Human Rights Watch}}</ref>

The [[Maputo Protocol]], which was adopted by the [[African Union]] in the form of a protocol to the [[African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights]], states at Article 14 (Health and Reproductive Rights) that: "(2). States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to: [...] c) protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.achpr.org/instruments/women-protocol/#14|title=Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa / Legal Instruments / ACHPR|website=ACHPR|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref> The Maputo Protocol is the first international treaty to recognize abortion, under certain conditions, as a woman's human right.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.achpr.org/instruments/general-comment-two-rights-women/|title=General Comment No. 2 on Article 14.1 (a), (b), (c) and (f) and Article 14. 2 (a) and (c) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa / Legal Instruments / ACHPR|website=ACHPR|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref>

The ''General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the [[International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]], on the right to life'', adopted by the [[Human Rights Committee]] in 2018, defines, for the first time ever, a human right to abortion – in certain circumstances (however these UN general comments are considered [[soft law]],<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/un-human-rights-treaty-bodies/general-comments-of-the-human-rights-committee-and-their-legitimacy/EF8328BB5B2B3EC932E44C45E192EB9B|title=General Comments of the Human Rights Committee and their legitimacy|last1=Grover|first1=Leena|last2=Keller|first2=Helen|editor1-first=Helen|editor1-last=Keller|editor2-first=Geir|editor2-last=Ulfstein|date=April 2012|website=UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Law and Legitimacy|pages=116–198|doi=10.1017/CBO9781139047593.005|isbn=9781139047593|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref> and, as such, not legally binding).

<blockquote>Although States parties may adopt measures designed to regulate voluntary terminations of pregnancy, such measures must not result in violation of the right to life of a pregnant woman or girl, or her other rights under the Covenant. Thus, restrictions on the ability of women or girls to seek abortion must not, inter alia, jeopardize their lives, subject them to physical or mental pain or suffering which violates article 7, discriminate against them or arbitrarily interfere with their privacy. ''States parties must provide safe, legal and effective access to abortion where the life and health of the pregnant woman or girl is at risk, and where carrying a pregnancy to term would cause the pregnant woman or girl substantial pain or suffering, most notably where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or is not viable.'' In addition, States parties may not regulate pregnancy or abortion in all other cases in a manner that runs contrary to their duty to ensure that women and girls do not have to undertake unsafe abortions, and they should revise their abortion laws accordingly. For example, they should not take measures such as criminalizing pregnancies by unmarried women or apply criminal sanctions against women and girls undergoing abortion or against medical service providers assisting them in doing so, since taking such measures compel women and girls to resort to unsafe abortion. States parties should not introduce new barriers and should remove existing barriers that deny effective access by women and girls to safe and legal abortion, including barriers caused as a result of the exercise of conscientious objection by individual medical providers.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/1_Global/CCPR_C_GC_36_8785_E.pdf |title=General comment No. 36 (2018) on article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on the right to life |author=Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights |publisher=UN Human Rights |date=30 October 2018 |access-date=23 October 2020}}</ref></blockquote>

When negotiating the Cairo Programme of Action at the 1994 [[International Conference on Population and Development]] (ICPD), the issue was so contentious that delegates eventually decided to omit any recommendation to legalize abortion, instead advising governments to provide proper post-abortion care and to invest in programs that will decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies.<ref>{{cite book|title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher=Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/6 6] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration}}</ref>

On 18 April 2008 the [[Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]], a group comprising members from 47 European countries, adopted a resolution calling for the decriminalization of abortion within reasonable gestational limits and guaranteed access to safe abortion procedures. The nonbinding resolution was passed on 16 April by a vote of 102 to 69.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2008/04/18/index.html |title=Council of Europe Urges Member States to Decriminalize Abortion |publisher=Guttmacher.org |date=18 April 2008 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref>

During and after the ICPD, some interested parties attempted to interpret the term "reproductive health" in the sense that it implies abortion as a means of family planning or, indeed, a right to abortion. These interpretations, however, do not reflect the consensus reached at the Conference.
For the European Union, where legislation on abortion is certainly less restrictive than elsewhere, the Council Presidency has clearly stated that the Council's commitment to promote "reproductive health" did not include the promotion of abortion.<ref>European Parliament, 4 December 2003: Oral Question (H-0794/03) for Question Time at the part-session in December 2003 pursuant to Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure by Dana Scallon to the Council. In the written record of that session, one reads: Posselt (PPE-DE): "Does the term 'reproductive health' include the promotion of abortion, yes or no?" – Antonione, Council: "No."</ref> Likewise, the European Commission, in response to a question from a Member of the European Parliament, clarified:<ref>European Parliament, 24 October 2002: Question no 86 by Dana Scallon (H-0670/02)</ref>

<blockquote>The term reproductive health was defined by the United Nations (UN) in 1994 at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. All Member States of the Union endorsed the Programme of Action adopted at Cairo. The Union has never adopted an alternative definition of 'reproductive health' to that given in the Programme of Action, which makes no reference to abortion.</blockquote>

With regard to the U.S., only a few days prior to the Cairo Conference, the head of the U.S. delegation, Vice President Al Gore, had stated for the record:<ref>Jyoti Shankar Singh, Creating a New Consensus on Population (London: Earthscan, 1998), 60</ref>

<blockquote>Let us get a false issue off the table: the US does not seek to establish a new international right to abortion, and we do not believe that abortion should be encouraged as a method of family planning.</blockquote>

Some years later, the position of the U.S. administration in this debate was reconfirmed by U.S. Ambassador to the UN, [[Ellen Sauerbrey]], when she stated at a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women that: "nongovernmental organizations are attempting to assert that Beijing in some way creates or contributes to the creation of an internationally recognized fundamental right to abortion".<ref>Lederer, AP/''San Francisco Chronicle'', 1 March 2005</ref> She added: "There is no fundamental right to abortion. And yet it keeps coming up largely driven by NGOs trying to hijack the term and trying to make it into a definition".<ref>Leopold, Reuters, 28 February 2005</ref>

Collaborative research from the [[Institute of Development Studies]] states that "access to safe abortion is a matter of human rights, democracy and public health, and the denial of such access is a major cause of death and impairment, with significant costs to [international] development".<ref name=IDS2009>{{cite journal|url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121649491/issue |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130105065424/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121649491/issue |url-status=dead |archive-date=5 January 2013 |title=Unsafe Abortion: A Development Issue |journal=Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin |volume=39 |date=July 2009 |issue=3}}</ref> The research highlights the inequities of access to safe abortion both globally and nationally and emphasises the importance of global and national movements for reform to address this. The shift by campaigners of reproductive rights from an issue-based agenda (the right to abortion), to safe, legal abortion not only as a human right, but bound up with democratic and citizenship rights, has been an important way of reframing the abortion debate and reproductive justice agenda.<ref name=IDS2009 />

Meanwhile, the [[European Court of Human Rights]] complicated the question even more through a landmark judgment (case of ''[[A. B. and C. v. Ireland]]''), in which it is stated that the denial of abortion for health and/or well-being reasons is an interference with an individual's right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 of the [[European Convention on Human Rights]], an interference which in some cases can be justified.

===Population control===
{{See also|Population control}}
[[File:Nicolae Ceauşescu addressing his New Year's Eve message on tv and radio, 1. January 1978.jpg|thumb|[[Nicolae Ceaușescu]], Romanian communist leader, enacted one of the most infamous [[natalist]] policies of the 20th century]]
[[File:Danshan Nongguang Village Bulletin board.jpg|thumb|A community bulletin board in Nonguang Village, [[Sichuan province]], China, keeping track of the town's female population, listing recent births by name and noting that several thousand yuan of fines for unauthorized births remain unpaid from the previous year]]
A desire to achieve certain population targets has resulted throughout history in severely abusive practices, in cases where governments ignored human rights and enacted aggressive demographic policies. In the 20th century, several authoritarian governments have sought either to increase or to decrease the births rates, often through forceful intervention. One of the most notorious [[natalist]] policies is that which occurred in [[communist Romania]] in the period of 1967–1990 during communist leader [[Nicolae Ceaușescu]], who adopted a very aggressive natalist policy which included outlawing abortion and contraception, routine pregnancy tests for women, [[Tax on childlessness|taxes on childlessness]], and legal discrimination against childless people.  Ceaușescu's policy resulted in over 9,000 women who died due to [[illegal abortion]]s,<ref name="Kligman short">Kligman, Gail. "Political Demography: The Banning of Abortion in Ceausescu's Romania". In Ginsburg, Faye D.; Rapp, Rayna, eds. ''Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction.'' Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995 :234–255. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE KIE/49442.</ref> large numbers of children put into [[Romanian orphanages]] by parents who could not cope with raising them, [[street children]] in the 1990s (when many orphanages were closed and the children ended on the streets), and [[overcrowding]] in homes and schools. The irony of Ceaușescu's aggressive natalist policy was a generation that may not have been born would eventually lead the [[Romanian Revolution]] which would overthrow and have him [[Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu#Execution|executed]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Freakonomics|last=Levitt & Dubner|first=Steven & Stephen|publisher=Penguin Group|year=2005|isbn=9780141019017|location=80 Strand, London WC2R ORL England|page=107}}</ref>

In stark opposition with Ceaușescu's natalist policy was China's [[one child policy|one-child policy]], in effect from 1978 to 2015, which included abuses such as [[forced abortion]]s.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-18435126 |title=China forced abortion photo sparks outrage – BBC News |journal=BBC News |date= 14 June 2012|access-date=11 March 2017}}</ref> This policy has also been deemed responsible for the common practice of [[sex-selective abortion]] which led to an imbalanced [[sex ratio]] in the country.<ref name="Bulte, Heerink, & Zhang, 2011">{{cite journal|author1=Bulte, E.|author2=Heerink, N.|author3=Zhang, X.|title=China's one-child policy and 'the mystery of missing women': ethnic minorities and male-biased sex ratios.|journal=Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics|year=2011|volume=73|issue=1|pages=0305–9049|doi=10.1111/j.1468-0084.2010.00601.x|s2cid=145107264}}</ref>

From the 1970s to 1980s, tension grew between women's health activists who advance women's reproductive rights as part of a human rights-based approach on the one hand, and population control advocates on the other.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/2 2] |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref> At the 1984 UN World Population Conference in Mexico City population control policies came under attack from women's health advocates who argued that the policies' narrow focus led to coercion and decreased quality of care, and that these policies ignored the varied social and cultural contexts in which family planning was provided in developing countries. In the 1980s the HIV/AIDS epidemic forced a broader discussion of sex into the public discourse in many countries, leading to more emphasis on reproductive health issues beyond reducing fertility. The growing opposition to the narrow population control focus led to a significant departure in the early 1990s from past population control policies.<ref>{{cite book |title=Reproductive Rights in a Global Context |last= Knudsen |first=Lara |year=2006 |publisher= Vanderbilt University Press |isbn=978-0-8265-1528-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud/page/4 4]–5 |url=https://archive.org/details/reproductiverigh0000knud |url-access=registration |quote=reproductive rights. }}</ref>  In the United States, abortion opponents have begun to foment [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] about reproductive rights advocates, accusing them of advancing a [[Racism|racist]] agenda of [[eugenics]], and of trying to reduce the [[African American]] birth rate in the U.S.<ref name=Dewan>{{Cite news | last = Dewan | first = Shaila | title = To Court Blacks, Foes of Abortion Make Racial Case | newspaper = [[New York Times]] | date = 26 February 2010 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html | access-date = 7 June 2010 }}</ref>

===Female genital mutilation===
[[File:FGM prevalence UNICEF 2016.svg|thumb|Prevalence of FGM]]
[[Female genital mutilation]] (FGM) is defined as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=https://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/|title=Female genital mutilation|website=World Health Organization}}</ref> The procedure has no health benefits, and can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, cysts, infections, and complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.<ref name="auto"/> It is performed for traditional, cultural or religious reasons in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, and in some parts of Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Yemen.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGMC_2016_brochure_final_UNICEF_SPREAD.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=13 December 2022 |archive-date=22 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190522171154/https://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGMC_2016_brochure_final_UNICEF_SPREAD.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.stopfgmmideast.org/countries/malaysia/ | title=» Malaysia }}</ref> The [[Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence|Istanbul Convention]] prohibits FGM (Article 38).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://rm.coe.int/168046031c |title=Archived copy |access-date=7 August 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170531114057/https://rm.coe.int/168046031c |archive-date=31 May 2017 }}</ref> It is estimated that 200 million women worldwide had undergone FGM, including at least 500,000 immigrant women in Europe.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_192 | title=Press corner }}</ref> [[Infibulation]], also referred to as Type 3 FGM,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation | title=Female genital mutilation }}</ref> is the most extreme form of FGM, and is practiced mainly in [[northeastern Africa]], particularly in [[Djibouti]], [[Eritrea]], [[Ethiopia]], [[Somalia]], and [[Sudan]].<ref name=Yoder2008>{{cite web|last1=Yoder|first1=P. Stanley|last2=Khan|first2=Shane|date=March 2008|title=Numbers of women circumcised in Africa: The Production of a Total|url=http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/WP39/WP39.pdf|publisher=USAID, DHS Working Papers|issue=39|pages=13–14}}</ref>

===Bride kidnapping or buying and reproductive slavery===
{{Main|Bride kidnapping|Bride price}}

[[File:Johann Moritz Rugendas-el rapto.jpg|thumb|left|The painting depicts a Chilean woman being kidnapped during a [[malón]]]]

[[Bride kidnapping]] or marriage by abduction, is the practice whereby a woman or girl is abducted for the purpose of a [[forced marriage]]. Bride kidnapping has been practiced historically in many parts of the world, and it continues to occur today in some places, especially in [[Central Asia]] and the [[Caucasus]], in countries such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia, as well as in Ethiopia.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kyrgyzstan-women-bride-kidnapping/one-in-five-girls-and-women-kidnapped-for-marriage-in-kyrgyzstan-study-idUSKBN1AH5GI | title=One in five girls and women kidnapped for marriage in Kyrgyzstan| journal=Reuters| date=August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-10913297 | title=Chechen stolen brides 'exorcised'| journal=BBC News| date=10 August 2010| last1=Ash| first1=Lucy}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/kidnapped-raped-married-the-extraordinary-rebellion-of-ethiopias-abducted-wives-1922263.html | title=Kidnapped. Raped. Married. The extraordinary rebellion of Ethiopia's| website=[[Independent.co.uk]]| date=17 March 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4763185.stm#sa-link_location=story-body&intlink_from_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld-africa-13681053&intlink_ts=1522860542128-sa | title=Ethiopian girls fear forced marriage| date=14 May 2006}}</ref> Bride kidnapping is often preceded or followed by rape (which may result in pregnancy), in order to force the marriage – a practice also supported by "[[marry-your-rapist law]]" (laws regarding sexual violence, abduction or similar acts, whereby the perpetrator avoids prosecution or punishment if he marries the victim<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Mellen|first1=Ruby|title=The Rapist's Loophole: Marriage|journal=Foreign Policy|date=March–April 2017|issue=223|page=20}}</ref>). Abducting of women may happen on an individual scale or on a mass scale. [[Raptio]] is a Latin term referring to the large-scale abduction of women, usually for marriage or sexual slavery, particularly during wartime.

[[Bride price]], also called bridewealth, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the parents of the woman he marries. The practice of bride price sometimes leads to parents selling young daughters into marriage and to trafficking.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Human+rights+groups+ask+NWFP+Govt.+to+ban+%27bride+price%27+to+curb+women...-a0216984357 | title=Human rights groups ask NWFP Govt. To ban 'bride price' to curb women Trafficking. – Free Online Library}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.islandsbusiness.com/news/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=130/focusContentID=26256/tableName=mediaRelease/overideSkinName=newsArticle-full.tpl | archive-url=https://archive.today/20130126135528/http://www.islandsbusiness.com/news/index_dynamic/containerNameToReplace=MiddleMiddle/focusModuleID=130/focusContentID=26256/tableName=mediaRelease/overideSkinName=newsArticle-full.tpl | url-status=dead | archive-date=26 January 2013 | title=Islands Business – PNG Police blame bride price for violence in marri...| date=26 January 2013}}</ref> Bride price is common across Africa.<ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33810273 | title=Bride price practices in Africa| journal=BBC News| date=6 August 2015}}</ref> Such forced marriages often lead to [[sexual violence]], and [[forced pregnancy]]. In [[northern Ghana]], for example, the payment of bride price signifies a woman's requirement to bear children, and women using birth control are at risks of threats and coercion.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Bawah | first1 = Ayaga Agula | last2 = Akweongo | first2 = Patricia | last3 = Simmons | first3 = Ruth | last4 = Phillips | first4 = James F. | title = Women's fears and men's anxieties: the impact of family planning on gender relations in Northern Ghana | journal = [[Studies in Family Planning]] | volume = 30 | issue = 1 | pages = 54–66 | date = 1999 | url = https://www.popcouncil.org/research/womens-fears-and-mens-anxieties-the-impact-of-family-planning-on-gender-rel | doi=10.1111/j.1728-4465.1999.00054.x| pmid = 10216896 | hdl = 2027.42/73927 | hdl-access = free }} [http://www.popcouncil.org/uploads/pdfs/councilarticles/sfp/SFP301Bawah.pdf Pdf.]</ref>

The 1956 [[Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery]] defines "institutions and practices similar to slavery" to include:<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/SupplementaryConventionAbolitionOfSlavery.aspx | title=OHCHR &#124; Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery}}</ref>

c) Any institution or practice whereby:
* (i) A woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or in kind to her parents, guardian, family or any other person or group; or
* (ii) The husband of a woman, his family, or his clan, has the right to transfer her to another person for value received or otherwise; or
* (iii) A woman on the death of her husband is liable to be inherited by another person;

===Sperm donation===
{{Further|Sperm donation|Sperm donor limitation by country}}
Laws in many countries and states require [[sperm donation|sperm donors]] to be either anonymous or known to the recipient, or the laws restrict the number of children each donor may father. Although many donors choose to remain anonymous, new [[technologies]] such as the Internet and DNA technology have opened up new avenues for those wishing to know more about the biological father, siblings and half-siblings.

===Compulsory sterilization===
[[File:SOU 1929 14 Betänkande med förslag till steriliseringslag s 57 Laughlin.jpg|250px|thumb|right|A map from a 1929 Swedish royal commission report displays the U.S. states that had implemented sterilization legislation by then]]
{{Main|Compulsory sterilization}}
{{See also|Chemical castration|Eugenics}}

====Ethnic minority women====
{{Further|Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Roma people|}}
Ethnic minority women have often been victims of forced sterilization programs, such as [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Amerindian women]] in parts of Latin America of [[Roma people|Roma women]].

In [[Peru]], President [[Alberto Fujimori]] (in office from 1990 to 2000) has been accused of [[genocide]] and [[crimes against humanity]] as a result of the ''[[Programa Nacional de Población]]'', a sterilization program put in place by his administration.<ref name="bbc">{{cite news | title=Mass sterilization scandal shocks Peru | date=24 July 2002 | access-date=30 April 2006 | work=[[BBC News]] | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2148793.stm | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060630062037/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2148793.stm | archive-date=30 June 2006 }}</ref> During his presidency, Fujimori put in place a program of forced sterilizations against [[Indigenous peoples in Peru|indigenous people]] (mainly the [[Quechua people|Quechuas]] and the [[Aymara people|Aymaras]]), in the name of a "[[public health]] plan", presented on 28 July 1995.

During the 20th century, forced sterilization of [[Romani people|Roma]] women in European countries, especially in former Communist countries, was practiced,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8375960.stm |title=Czech regret over sterilisation |work=BBC News |date=24 November 2009 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://popdev.hampshire.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/u4763/DT+71+Albert.pdf|title=PopDev|website=popdev.hampshire.edu}}</ref> and there are allegations that these practices continue unofficially in some countries, such as Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.<ref>{{cite news|last=Denysenko |first=Marina |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6409699.stm |title=Europe &#124; Sterilised Roma accuse Czechs |work=BBC News |date=12 March 2007 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/kocab-draws-attention-to-the-forced-sterilization-of-romani-women-most-recent-incident-allegedly-took-place-in-2007 |title=Kocáb draws attention to the forced sterilization of Romani women; most recent incident allegedly took place in 2007 |publisher=Romea.cz |date=21 July 2009 |access-date=17 February 2015}}</ref> In ''[[V. C. vs. Slovakia]]'', the [[European Court for Human Rights]] ruled in favor of a Roma woman who was the victim of forced sterilization in a state hospital in [[Slovakia]] in 2000.<ref>[http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-107364#{%22itemid%22:%22001-107364%22]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140301223751/http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-107364|date=1 March 2014}}</ref>

====United States====
{{Further|Eugenics in the United States|Sterilization law in the United States}}
Forced sterilization in the United States was practiced starting with the 19th century. The United States during the [[Progressive era]], ca. 1890 to 1920, was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of [[eugenics]].<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Iredale | first1 = Rachel | year = 2000 | title = Eugenics And Its Relevance To Contemporary Health Care | journal = Nursing Ethics | volume = 7 | issue = 3| pages = 205–14| doi = 10.1177/096973300000700303 | pmid = 10986944 | s2cid = 37888613 }}</ref> [[Thomas C. Leonard]], professor at Princeton University, describes American eugenics and sterilization as ultimately rooted in economic arguments and further as a central element of Progressivism alongside wage controls, restricted immigration, and the introduction of [[pension]] programs.<ref name="Leonard2005">{{cite journal | last1 = Leonard | first1 = Thomas C. | year = 2005 | title = Retrospectives: Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era | url = https://www.princeton.edu/%7Etleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf | journal = [[Journal of Economic Perspectives]] | volume = 19 | issue = 4 | pages = 207–224 | doi = 10.1257/089533005775196642 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161218214328/http://www.princeton.edu/~tleonard/papers/retrospectives.pdf | archive-date = 18 December 2016 | doi-access = free }}</ref> The heads of the programs were avid proponents of eugenics and frequently argued for their programs, which achieved some success nationwide, mainly in the first half of the 20th century.

====Canada====
{{Main|Compulsory sterilization in Canada}}
Compulsory sterilization has been practiced historically in parts of Canada. Two Canadian provinces ([[Alberta]] and [[British Columbia]]) performed compulsory sterilization programs in the 20th century with eugenic aims. Canadian compulsory sterilization operated via the same overall mechanisms of [[institutionalization]], [[judgment]], and [[surgery]] as the American system.  However, one notable difference is in the treatment of non-insane criminals. Canadian legislation never allowed for punitive sterilization of inmates.

The ''[[Sexual Sterilization Act]]'' of Alberta was enacted in 1928 and repealed in 1972. In 1995, [[Leilani Muir]] sued the Province of Alberta for forcing her to be sterilized against her will and without her permission in 1959. Since Muir's case, the Alberta government has apologized for the forced sterilization of over 2,800 people. Nearly 850 Albertans who were sterilized under the ''Sexual Sterilization Act'' were awarded {{CAD|142}} million in damages.<ref>{{cite news|last=Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)|title=Alberta Apologizes for Forced Sterilization|url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/alberta-apologizes-for-forced-sterilization-1.169579|access-date=19 June 2013|date=9 November 1999|work=[[CBC News]]|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121123020740/http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/1999/11/02/sterilize991102.html|archive-date=23 November 2012}}</ref><ref>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=1VoyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kecFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5397%2C1039102 Victims of sterilization finally get day in court. Lawrence Journal-World. 23 December 1996.]</ref>

===Roman Catholic Church===
{{Further|Roman Catholicism in Latin America}}
[[File:CIA_map_of_Central_America.png|thumb|[[Central America]] has very strict anti-abortion laws, and [[El Salvador]] has come to international attention due to its forceful enforcement.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite web | url=http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=58299 | title=UN rights office urges el Salvador to reform 'draconian' abortion laws| date=15 December 2017}}</ref><ref name="reuters.com">{{Cite news | url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-el-salvador-abortion/u-n-calls-on-el-salvador-to-stop-jailing-women-for-abortion-idUSKBN1DI001 | title=U.N. Calls on el Salvador to stop jailing women for abortion| journal=Reuters| date=18 November 2017}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32480443 | title=The mothers being criminalised in el Salvador| journal=BBC News| date=28 April 2015| last1=Watson| first1=Katy}}</ref>]]
The [[Catholic Church]] is opposed to artificial contraception, abortion, and [[Premarital sex|sexual intercourse outside marriage]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%2038:8-10&version=NIV|title=Gen 38:8–10 NIV – Then Judah said to Onan, "Sleep with – Bible Gateway|work=Bible Gateway|access-date=14 February 2016}}</ref> This belief dates back to the first centuries of Christianity.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholic.com/tracts/contraception-and-sterilization|title=Contraception and Sterilization|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131124143807/http://www.catholic.com/tracts/contraception-and-sterilization|archive-date=24 November 2013}}</ref><ref name="therealpresence1">{{cite web|url=http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Abortion_Euthanasia/Abortion_Euthanasia_004.htm|title=Fr. Hardon Archives – The Catholic Tradition on the Morality of Contraception}}</ref> While Roman Catholicism is not the only religion with such views, its religious doctrine is very powerful in influencing countries where most of the population is Catholic, and the few countries of the world with complete bans on abortion are mostly Catholic-majority countries,<ref name="ChileCourt" /> and in Europe strict restrictions on abortion exist in the Catholic majority countries of [[Abortion in Malta|Malta]] (complete ban), [[Abortion in Andorra|Andorra]], [[Abortion in San Marino|San Marino]], [[Abortion in Liechtenstein|Liechtenstein]] and to a lesser extent [[Abortion in Poland|Poland]] and [[Abortion in Monaco|Monaco]].

In France, a country with a Roman Catholic tradition, abortionist [[Marie-Louise Giraud]] was [[guillotined]] on 30 July 1943 under the authoritarian [[Vichy France|Vichy regime]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 30, 2016 |title=1943: Marie-Louise Giraud, Vichy abortionist |url=https://www.executedtoday.com/2016/07/30/1943-marie-louise-giraud-vichy-abortionist/ |access-date=June 13, 2023 |website=ExecutedToday.com}}</ref>

Some of the countries of [[Central America]], notably [[Abortion in El Salvador|El Salvador]], have also come to international attention due to very forceful enforcement of the anti-abortion laws.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/07/el-salvador-rape-survivor-sentenced-to-30-years-in-jail-under-extreme-anti-abortion-law/|title=El Salvador: Rape survivor sentenced to 30 years in jail under extreme anti-abortion law|website=www.amnesty.org|date=6 July 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-32491838/el-salvador-women-jailed-for-miscarriages|title=Jailed for a miscarriage|work=BBC News}}</ref> El Salvador has received repeated criticism from the UN. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) named the law "one of the most draconian abortion laws in the world", and urged liberalization,<ref name="ReferenceB"/> and [[Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad|Zeid bin Ra'ad]], the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated that he was "appalled that as a result of El Salvador's absolute prohibition on abortion, women are being punished for apparent miscarriages and other obstetric emergencies, accused and convicted of having induced termination of pregnancy".<ref name="reuters.com"/>

===Anti-abortion violence===
Criticism surrounds certain forms of anti-abortion activism. [[Anti-abortion violence]] is a serious issue in some parts of the world, especially in North America.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/30/us/anti-abortion-violence/index.html|title=A brief history of anti-abortion violence|first=Kimberly|last=Hutcherson|website=CNN|date=30 November 2015|access-date=10 July 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Jelen |first= Ted G |year=1998 |url=http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/abortion.htm |title=Abortion |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Religion and Society |location=Walnut Creek, California |publisher=AltaMira Press}}</ref> It is recognized as [[single-issue terrorism]].<ref name="csis">{{cite web |author=Smith, G. Davidson (Tim) |publisher=Canadian Security Intelligence Service |year=1998 |url=http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/en/publications/commentary/com74.asp |title=Single Issue Terrorism Commentary |access-date=9 June 2006| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060714173515/http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/en/publications/commentary/com74.asp| archive-date= 14 July 2006}}</ref> Numerous organizations have also recognized anti-abortion extremism as a form of [[Christian terrorism]].<ref name="interfaith">*{{Cite book |title=Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective |first=Aref M. |last=Al-Khattar |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V1xukwRq2cUC&pg=PA58 |pages=58–59 |year=2003 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=9780275969233 }}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RSzyEx4do48C&pg=PA116 |title=Inside terrorism |first=Bruce |last=Hoffman |year=2006 |publisher=Columbia University Press |page=116 |author-link=Bruce Hoffman|isbn=9780231510462 }}
* {{Cite book |first=Christopher C. |last=Harmon |title=Terrorism today |year=2000 |publisher=Psychology Press |page=42 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4AYGALitgsC&pg=PA42|isbn=9780714649986 }}
* {{Cite book |title=Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence |first=Mark |last=Juergensmeyer |author-link=Mark Juergensmeyer |page=4,19 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lpb1mbaHjGQC&pg=PA19 |year=2003 |publisher=University of California Press|isbn=9780520240117 }}
* {{Cite book |title=Handbook of death & dying, Volume 1 |first=Clifton D. |last=Bryant | author-link= Clifton D. Bryant | page=243 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3z9EpgisKOgC&pg=PA243 |publisher=SAGE |year=2003|isbn=9780761925149 }}
* {{Cite book |title=The Dialogue Comes of Age: Christian Encounters with Other Traditions |publisher=Fortress Press |page=90 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mbqpcg29LYsC&pg=PA90 |year=2010 |first=Ward M. |last=McAfee|isbn=9781451411157 }}
* {{Cite book |title=Introduction to geopolitics |year=2006 |publisher=Psychology Press |first=Colin Robert |last=Flint |page=172 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4G4lsXFE9bUC&pg=PA172|isbn=9780203503768 }}
* {{Cite book |title=Humanity: an introduction to cultural anthropology |last1=Peoples |first1=James |first2=Garrick |last2=Bailey |publisher=Cengage |year=2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JBPZ3wfYEF0C&pg=PA371 |page=371|isbn=978-0495508748 }}
* {{Cite book |last1=Dolnik |first1=Adam |first2=Rohan |last2=Gunaratna |author-link2=Rohan Gunaratna |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZIXOlW7pgwC&pg=PA82 |title=The politics of terrorism: a survey |year=2006 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |chapter=On the Nature of Religious Terrorism|isbn=9780203832011 }}
* ''The terrorism ahead: confronting transnational violence in the twenty-first century'',  Paul J. Smith, p 94
* ''Religion and Politics in America: The Rise of Christian Evangelists'',  Muhammad Arif Zakaullah, p 109
* ''Terrorism: An Investigator's Handbook'',  William E. Dyson, p 43
* ''Encyclopedia of terrorism'',  Cindy C. Combs, Martin W. Slann, p 13
* ''Armed for Life: The Army of God and Anti-Abortion Terror in the United States'',  Jennifer Jefferis, p 40</ref>

Incidents include vandalism, arson, and bombings of [[abortion clinic]]s, such as those committed by [[Eric Rudolph]] (1996{{ndash}}98), and murders or attempted murders of physicians and clinic staff, as committed by [[James Charles Kopp|James Kopp]] (1998), [[Paul Jennings Hill]] (1994), [[Scott Roeder]] (2009), [[Michael F. Griffin]] (1993), and [[Peter James Knight]] (2001).
Since 1978, in the US, anti-abortion violence includes at least 11 [[murder]]s of medical staff, 26 [[attempted murder]]s, 42 [[bombing]]s, and 187 [[arson]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/abortion-clinic-violence-trespassing-death-threats-national-abortion-federation-a8340471.html|title=Threats of violence against US abortion clinics almost doubled in 2017, industry group says|date=7 May 2018|website=The Independent|language=en|access-date=19 June 2019}}</ref>

==Criticisms==
Some [[Opposition to the legalization of abortion|opponents of legalized abortion]] view the term "reproductive rights" as a [[euphemism]] to sway emotions in favor of abortion.{{Citation needed|date=December 2023}}

==See also==
{{Div col}}
* [[Abortion]]
* [[African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom]]
* [[Antinatalism]]
* [[Asexual reproduction]]
* [[Birth control]]
* [[Birth control movement in the United States]]
* [[Center for Reproductive Rights]]
* [[Decreţei]]
* [[Eugenics]]
* [[Feminism]]
* [[Human overpopulation]]
* [[Human sexuality]]
* [[Ipas (organization)]]
* [[Men's movement]]
* [[Morning-after pill]]
* [[NARAL Pro-Choice America]]
* [[National Organization for Women]]
* [[One-child policy]]
* [[Paper Abortion]]
* [[Parental leave]]
* [[Planned Parenthood]]
* [[Population Matters#Pledge two or fewer|Pledge two or fewer]] (campaign for smaller families)
* [[Reproductive coercion]]
* [[Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition]]
* ''[[Roe v. Wade]]''
* [[Sara Dubow]]
* [[Sex and the law]]
* [[Sperm theft]]
* [[Tax on childlessness]]
* [[Timeline of reproductive rights legislation]]
* [[Women's movement]]
* [[The Yogyakarta Principles]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
;Organizations
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060217123302/http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Reproductive_Choice&Template=%2FTaggedPage%2FTaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=23&ContentID=991 The League of Women Voters on Reproductive Choice]
* [https://www.unfpa.org/sexual-reproductive-health UNFPA Population Issues: Reproductive Rights]
* [https://www.aclu.org/reproductiverights American Civil Liberties Union]
* [http://www.wgnrr.org/ Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights] Network that links grassroots organizations that are active within this topic

;Further reading
* Gebhard, Julia, Trimiño, Diana. [https://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e2070 Reproductive Rights, International Regulation], Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law
* [https://www.academia.edu/879574/The_Environmental_Politics_of_Population_and_Overpopulation The Environmental Politics of Population and Overpopulation] A University of California, Berkeley summary about the role of reproductive rights in the current political and ecological context
* [http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/fatchr/fatchr.html Introductory note] by [[Djamchid Momtaz]], [http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/fatchr/fatchr.html procedural history note and audiovisual material] on the ''Proclamation of Teheran'' in the [http://legal.un.org/avl/historicarchives.html Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law]
* Kitch, Sally L. Reproductive Rights and Ecofeminism. https://doi.org/10.3390/h10020066.
* Murray, Melissa and Kristin Luker. ''Cases on Reproductive Rights and Justice.'' United States: Foundation Press, 2015. {{ISBN|978-1609304348}}.

{{Family rights}}
{{Human rights}}
{{Particular human rights}}
{{Reproductive health}}
{{Population}}
{{Population country lists}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Reproductive rights| ]]
[[Category:Abortion-rights movement]]
[[Category:Sexual health]]
[[Category:Population ecology]]
[[Category:Midwifery]]
[[Category:Masculism]]
[[Category:Women's rights]]
[[Category:Men's rights]]