Reproductive Rights Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Reproductive rights are a diverse set of political instruments invoked by individuals, governments, nongovernmental organizations, international organizations, and other parties to address the social, political, and legal constraints on people’s ability to exercise control over their sexual and reproductive lives. Reproductive rights are controversial and rigorously contested worldwide for their tight connection with gender and sexual freedoms and rights. They are highly stratified by geography, race, class, and other social categories productive of inequalities and disparities. At the heart of reproductive rights are questions of power concerning individual choice and decision making; individual versus social and cultural equity, norms, needs, and wants; social health and well-being versus disease models; access to knowledge and information; and broader understandings of gender equality, sexual health, and social determinants of health and well-being. In some cases violations of reproductive rights coincide with violations of ethical codes of medical practice or research involving human subjects.

Substantively, reproductive rights include a broad set of policy and legal issues including: the right to legal, safe, and affordable birth control and abortion services; the right to access quality reproductive and maternal health care, including (in)fertility services; the right to education, information, and other conditions that enable maximum self-determination and protection from sexual coercion and violence, sexually transmitted infections, and coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception; as well as protection from gender-based practices such as female, as well as male, genital cutting practices.

In the context of U.S. women’s movements prior to the legalization of abortion in 1973, reproductive rights were largely focused on the rights of women to have ultimate decision-making power over their reproductive capacity through birth control and abortion services and in some cases through the prevention of coercive sterilization policies. After the Supreme Court decision Roe v.Wade (1973) struck down state laws prohibiting abortion, reproductive rights became narrowly associated with the abortion issue that divided many facets of U.S. political life into opposed camps—either in support of or against legalized abortion (prochoice or prolife). Yet, even abortion opponents generally support some rights that fall within the broader umbrella of reproductive rights.

At the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, Egypt, in 1994, a transnational network of feminists questioned the dichotomy between rights and needs, and between the individual and social. Concretely, feminists active in the ICPD proposed policy to foster the “enabling conditions” intrinsic to rights, but refused to rank needs as somehow more fundamental than rights. Owing to an unprecedented level of feminist engagement, the ICPD Programme of Action codified reproductive rights not only as “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,” but also as “the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health,” and, the “right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence, as expressed in human rights documents” (United Nations ICPD 1994, Article 7). Other international feminist alliances questioned this political strategy to reform international population policy instruments by adding a more comprehensive definition of reproductive rights. These groups asserted that any policy ultimately aimed at reducing human numbers might well compromise an agenda to protect and ensure human rights and needs.

Echoing a human rights perspective, recent women of color theorizations have put forth the concept reproductive justice as an alternative to reproductive rights. The concept addresses the limits of an individual choice paradigm that effaces the social context that often constrains the choices of women depending on their race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and immigration status. It further suggests that integrating the idea of social justice in the politics of reproduction is a necessary prerequisite to addressing reproductive oppression defined as “the control and exploitation of women’s bodies, sexuality and reproduction as an effective strategy of controlling women and communities, particularly those of color” (ACRJ 2005; Sister Song 2006). One main impetus behind this approach is to counter a perceived narrowing of reproductive rights from the sole issue of abortion in the agenda of mainstream U.S. reproductive rights organizations.

Bibliography:

Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice (ACRJ). A New Vision for Advancing Our Movement for Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, and Reproductive Justice. Oakland, Calif.: ACRJ, 2005, www. reproductivejustice.org/download/ACRJ_A_New_Vision.pdf.
Sen, Gita, Adrienne Germain, and Lincoln C. Chen, eds. Population Policies Reconsidered: Health, Empowerment, and Rights. Boston: Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 1994.
Silliman, Jael, and Anannya Bhattacharjee. Policing the National Body: Race, Gender, and Criminalization. Boston: South End, 2002.
Silliman, Jael, Marlene Gerber Fried, Loretta Ross, and Elena Gutierrez. Undivided Rights:Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice. Boston: South End, 2004.
SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective (SisterSong). Understanding Reproductive Justice. Atlanta: SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, 2006, www.sistersong.net/ publications_and_articles/Understanding_RJ.pdf.
United Nations, International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). “Report of the International Conference on Population and Development” Cairo, Egypt, September 5–13, 1994. New York: United Nations, 1994.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). “Human Rights: Supporting the Constellation of Reproductive Rights.” N.d., www.unfpa.org/ rights/rights.htm.

This example Reproductive Rights Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.