WOMEN’S HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

AUTHOR – MOHIT KUMAR & SATYA VRAT PANDEY, STUDENT AT INTEGRAL UNIVERSITY, LUCKNOW

BEST CITATION – MOHIT KUMAR & SATYA VRAT PANDEY, WOMEN’S HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 4 (1) OF 2024, PG. 988-993, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344.

ABSTRACT

Women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health are essential to women’s overall health, according to the ICPD. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women contains several articles that serve as the foundation for these rights. The textual underpinning for women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health as stated in this and other international human rights instruments is examined in this article. The rights to health care and information, life, liberty, and personal security, as well as the freedom from discrimination in the distribution of resources for health services and their accessibility, comprise the rights to reproductive and sexual health. The rights to informed consent and confidentiality with regard to health care, as well as autonomy and privacy when making sexual and reproductive decisions, are crucial. The issues that are used to illustrate the article’s points about systemic violations of the aforementioned rights come in a variety of forms, such as maternal mortality, the absence of legal abortion procedures, the underfunding of family planning, coercive population programs, coerced sterilization consent from spouses, and discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace. Reproductive health, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is the entire condition of physical, mental, and social well-being in all aspects pertaining to the reproductive system and all of its functions and processes—rather than just the absence of illness or infirmity. The full physical, mental, spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of women and girls, predicated on the full realization and defence of women’s human rights, is known as reproductive justice. This article presents a non-polarized, more inclusive ethical course of action that uses an optimal health approach with new alliances for the reproductive justice movement today while acknowledging the history and limitations of reproductive health and rights.

Keywords: reproductive justice, reproductive health, reproductive rights, human rights; gender discrimination; equality; autonomy.