"Reproductive rights" are the rights of an individual to determine whether to reproduce or not. This includes an individual's right to family planning, abortion, use of contraceptives, study about sex education in schools, and gain access to reproductive health services. India is among the first few countries in the world to develop legal and policy frameworks giving access to abortion and contraception. Still women and girls continue to experience major hindrances in completely enjoying their reproductive rights. This happens because women don't get the knowledge and authority to make such important decisions about their bodies
Historically, laws and policies related to reproductive health in India have fallen short to take care of women's rights-based approach, instead ended up focusing on demographic targets, such as population control, while also somehow undermining women's reproductive choice through discriminatory provisions such as spousal consent requirements for access to reproductive health services. Despite a national law punishing marriages of girls below 18 years of age and policies and schemes promising women maternal healthcare, India continues to make up for the highest number of child marriages and 20% of all maternal deaths globally.
The Indian perspective on reproductive rights has had to furthermore take account of several other inequalities and contradictions in society. Religion, caste, and cultural values have played significant roles in determining and restraining women’s fertility. And, sharp class contradictions have not only created but also heightened inequalities with a direct adverse impact on women’s health. On the other hand, the history of colonialism has worsened the situation further by contributing to the systematic destruction of indigenous methods of healing and health systems and forcing allopathy or ‘modern western medicine’ as acceptable. In the present scenario of economic liberalization, this legacy has received a new lease of life, resulting in the exploitation of Indian markets and people by multinational pharmaceutical companies. Coupled together, these factors are causing rural-urban divides to sharpen further, creating ever-increasing gaps in development and planning, access to resources and opportunities. Overarching this scenario is the population control agenda of the first world that is dictated through international financial institutions and implemented through Indian population programs and policies.
In a society where women have no ‘right’ to clean drinking water, basic facilities, health care, or education; where society decides where and how they will live, believe they have the ‘right’ to decide how many children the women will bear when they will get sterilized and what form of contraception they must ‘opt’ for; it is apparent that the struggle for Indian women’s reproductive rights needs to go further than reproductive freedom and enter the arena of social, economic and political rights.
Although India's National Population Policy assures women discretionary access to all the variety of contraceptive methods, in reality, state governments continue to launch schemes encouraging female sterilization, including through targets, leading to compulsion, risky low standard sterilization methods, and denial to non-permanent methods.
Courts in India have an important role to play in ensuring women's reproductive rights as assured by their constitutional and human rights. Reproductive rights are significant to the realization of all human rights. They incorporate a range of civil, political, economic, and social rights, from the rights to health and life to the rights to equality and non-discrimination, privacy, information, and to be free from torture or ill-treatment. States' obligations to guarantee these rights require that women and girls not only have access to comprehensive reproductive health information and services but also that they experience positive reproductive health outcomes such as lower rates of unsafe abortion and maternal mortality and a chance to make a well-informed decision—without suffering from any violence, discrimination, and coercion—about their sexuality and reproduction.
Men matter in this discussion. It is clear that, in the context of heterosexual relationships, men comprise half of the human reproductive process. However, they constitute only about one-fourth of total contraceptive use, including withdrawal, vasectomy, and male condoms. That proportion has remained virtually unchanged since the 1980s, although vasectomy is cheaper and safer than female sterilization. Although condoms do not offer long-term contraceptive solutions for many couples, they give protection against STDs.
Different male contraceptive methods are available for various stages of development. To bring significant changes in laws and successfully continue the women's reproductive rights movement, it is necessary to get men on board.
Lakhs of women report not using contraceptives because of their husbands. The minimum would be donors, governments, and public health agencies talking to men about supporting women’s reproductive health. Studies from many of the world’s poorest countries reveal that while many men want to have more children than their female partners, in other countries, they support their wives’ choice to have fewer children.
In practice, though, many women confide in male partners on the issue of safe abortions. The majority of women agreed to involve their male counterparts in decisions regarding abortion and contraception. The impact of this involvement can’t be assumed. It can be positive or negative. But we can work towards making men collaborate with women regarding this issue in a more respectful and supportive way. People of all ages should be educated about contraception and abortion, and why both are censorious elements of inclusive and overall health services and rights.
The need of the hour is for men in all influential positions, from the heads of foreign assistance to health policymakers, fathers, and husbands to stand up with women and show in their voting, their voices, and their decisions that they support women’s reproductive rights. Parents need to talk to their children, from the beginning, in an open and feminist way, about topics like sex, sexuality, gender identity and expression, choice, rights, and contraception.
All women must have access to modern contraceptives, safe abortion, and autonomy over their bodies. Awareness needs to be generated about these issues in classrooms and the entire public space.
BY KUMUD AGGARWAL
References
https://www.populationconnection.org/article/what-do-men-have-to-do-with-womens-reproductive-rights/
http://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-3372-reproductive-rights-for-women-in-india.html
https://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/women/wrgs/pages/healthrights.aspx
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