Fertility and Cancer
Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health, 2019
The reproductive rights of women are a fundamental issue in human health and society. Embedded in this is the importance of autonomy: Women have the freedom to make their own decisions about childbearing and rearing roles and to live the life they choose. Although some women are childfree by choice, most young women wish to have children (Weston, Qu, & Parker, 2005) and the ability to have a child is considered a core social value that is an important part of adult development and identity (Cousineau & Domar, 2007; Lechner, Bolman, & van Dalen, 2007). Women are more likely than men to experience infertility and unplanned childlessness, and the impact of unwanted infertility can have damaging social and psychological consequences, such as depressive symptoms, risk of abuse, loss of control, ostracism, social stigma, self-blame, and mental distress (Cousineau & Domar, 2007; Dyer, Abrahams, Mokoena, Lombard, & van der Spuy, 2005; Fleetwood & Campo-Engelstein, 2010; Kirkman, 2008; Lechner et al., 2007; McLeod & Ponesse, 2008). This distress is often described as a complicated grief response for the loss of the child who has ceased to be a possible reality (Lechner et al., 2007). Additionally, women who desire a child but do not achieve this goal may reflect on the loss of possible benefits of having children, such as additional social interactions, support, and global well-being, particularly in old age (Grundy & Read, 2012).
Developing the Reasonability View
Robert F. Card in A New Theory of Conscientious Objection in Medicine, 2020
Condition E5 illustrates the progressive element of the Reasonability View. I suspect that some will not like my conclusion that providers may be able to receive a conscientious exemption to perform actions such as the uterine evacuation in Case 3 that are in potential conflict with the law and institutional policies. Such critics fail to see that some practitioners possess core moral values that lead them to want to engage in conscientious provision of uterine evacuations or abortion so that they do not violate their own moral integrity. While I have suggested that uterine evacuation and elective abortion may be distinguishable, the moral values implicated in conscientious commitment to both practices are similar. Hence, I will now ground the idea that abortion provision is conscientiously motivated to show why this sort of progressivism can be an appealing feature of the Reasonability View. The fundamental point is that in some cases laws or social practices are unjust and changing them requires conscientious commitment by medical professionals. A brief look into the history of the evolution of reproductive rights relating to birth control use sets the stage for this discussion.
Forced sterilizations
Irehobhude O. Iyioha in Women’s Health and the Limits of Law, 2019
The contradictory elements that we see in relation to reproductive rights have been present not only in state actions but also in campaigns for women’s access to contraception and reproductive rights from the early 20th century.12 Marie Stopes is noted for her promotion of contraception and reproductive choice for women.13 Yet, in her overall strategy, she openly supported eugenics, the pseudo-science aimed at improving the genetic quality of the population.14 In arguing for married upper- and middle-class women to choose how to space their children and have freedom from the fear of pregnancy, she also argued that other women should have no choice. A clear part of her strategy included compulsory sterilization of those deemed ‘unfit’ to have children.15 Eugenics policies and laws were once common across the world under a variety of democracies and regimes.16 While the movement did not gain traction in the UK, policies were enacted into law in the United States and, very notably, Germany in the 1930s.
The missing link in Kenya’s universal health coverage experiment: a preventive and promotive approach to SRHR
Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 2020
Lisa Owino, Annette Wangong’u, Nerima Were, Allan Maleche
The catalysts for the movement to recognise reproductive rights as human rights were the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, and the Fourth World United Nation Conference on Women held in Beijing the following year.4 ICPD reflected the notion that reproductive rights encompass existing human rights and tendered a definition of reproductive health: “Reproductive health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes … reproductive rights embrace certain human rights that are already recognised in national laws, international human rights documents and other consensus documents. These rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. It also includes their right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents.”5
Universal health coverage: another political space in which to expand the elimination of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights
Published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 2020
Lynda Gilby, Meri Koivusalo
The 2019 UHC declaration seeks to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Beijing Platform for Action” (p. 10).2 However, these original references to SRHR in the ICPD already contained a compromise. The term “sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights” specifically separates reproductive rights from sexual rights. Yet even this compromised language is still unacceptable to some states which oppose SRHR, including, most notably, the Trump administration.8 After the 2019 UHC conference, the United States submitted its country statement stating: “We do not accept the terms ‘sexual and reproductive health’ and ‘sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights’ in this Declaration”.9 The longstanding objections over rights and, in particular, sexual rights11 have broadened into a refusal to accept SRH services, let alone rights.
Women’s rights in Asia and elsewhere – a fact or an illusion?
Published in Climacteric, 2019
D. Shah
Encouraged by progress in Europe and elsewhere, there were many activists in Asia who campaigned for women’s rights throughout the nineteenth century14. The ‘Women’s Rights Movement’ in the nineteenth century demanded human rights, whilst the ‘Feminist movement’ during the twentieth century brought to center stage the reproductive rights of women15. Feminism is the pursuit of women’s rights within society. Wollstonecraft’s advocacy of women’s equality has been cited as one of the most important influences of the ‘Feminist movement’16. Women demanded both human rights and reproductive rights, as presented in Table 217,18. When women demanded the right to vote and to participate in the creation of laws in their governments, their demonstrations and agitation led to the creation of the ‘Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women’. Women first won the right to vote in 1893 in New Zealand and this has gradually extended to many other countries, as presented in Table 319.
Related Knowledge Centers
- Birth Control
- Compulsory Sterilization
- Menstrual Cycle
- Reproduction
- Sexual & Reproductive Health
- Abortion-Rights Movements
- Sex Education
- Sexually Transmitted Infection
- Female Genital Mutilation
- Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights