Reproductive Rights / reproductive health / reproductive justice
What are reproductive rights?
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Not just abortion/birth control. General term meaning attention to women’s health and fertility control, inclusively.
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Issues differ, range, by race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, status, citizenship
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Fundamentally tied to “human rights” – repro rights are a woman’s human rights
- Right to bear children – or not-- Right to plan family - informed family planning from all available options
- Right to good, regular prenatal care, medical support, decent hospital stay, information about birth options, cntinued well-baby health
- freedom from forced sterilization (coercive or uninformed
- Right to not bear children / control fertility
- Right to healthy sexuality; separation of sex & reproduction – discourse of desire, health info, freedom from double standard, global implications
- Right to healthy relationships, right to define family – Marriage and divorce. Right to choose partner freely, marry freely, divorce freely and equitably.
-- single moms, gay/lesbian families, parents with disabilities, othermothers, alternative families (Boston marriage, nuns)
- Right to basic standards of health (medical provider, insurance, medicine, emotional/psych care), male bias of healthcare/research
- Right to competent, respectful healthcare, regardless of sexuality, with translator if necessary
- Right to be free from violence (home, workplace, streets). Women safer on the streets than in her own home
- Right to be free from discrimination, whether by gender or repro state (maternity as social good, subsidized by state)
- Right to be free from environmental racism
Questions to think about:
What other rights affect your reproductive decisions? wages? lack of subsidized child care? health ins?
All of these rights involve state/government policy. Who decides what family is? Who decides what family planning choices are legitimate, available?