International Human Rights and Women’s Reproductive Health

Abstract

Neglect of women's reproductive health, perpetuated by law, is part of a larger, systematic discrimination against women. Laws obstruct women's access to reproductive health services. Laws protective of women's reproductive health are rarely or inadequately implemented. Moreover, few laws or policies facilitate women's reproductive health services. Epidemiological evidence and feminist legal methods provide insight into the law's neglect of women's reproductive health and expose long-held beliefs in the law's neutrality that harm women fundamentally. Empirical evidence can be used to evaluate how effectively laws are implemented and whether alternative legal approaches exist that would provide greater protection of individual rights. International human rights treaties, including those discussed in this article, are being applied increasingly to expose how laws that obstruct women's access to reproductive health services violate their basic rights.