Reproductive Health/Rights

Broadly, women’s reproductive health includes the option and ability to decide whether and when to have children, to have access to reproductive healthcare including birth control and safe abortion, prenatal and obstetric care, and to have access to information. Sexual and reproductive health and rights as a subset of human rights were outlined at the 1968 Cairo UN conference on human rights. The term “reproductive health” in its modern form has been quickly popularized through UN channels and through transnational NGOs. The concept was further developed by family planning institutions, women’s health movements and groups, and the World Health Organization, whose definition includes “the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence”(1). The inclusion of reproductive rights within the frame of women’s right to self-determination(2) was progressive in its categorizing of maternal mortality as a human rights violation, emphasizing the right to family planning, and considering the lack of access to birth control as a form of discrimination.

Local level interactions with the concept and its agenda led to coining the term “reproductive justice”, which was invoked in the 1980s by indigenous women and women of color in the United States(3). The term stresses a will to reveal the limits of the white liberal middle class notion of “choice”, and emphasizes the structural inequalities that prevent some women to even have access to a “choice” to begin with, due to class discrimination or racial inequalities(4) (see Intersectionality, and Social Justice). Invoking the term “justice” also aims to hold various North American and European governments accountable for acts such as forced sterilizations, which has been a dominant practice against minority communities such as indigenous women in the U.S., the Roma in Europe(5), and today Ethiopian women in Israel, as well as against women with disabilities worldwide. Another local intervention in reshaping reproductive health is for example the inclusion of the concept of dignity to the various components of reproductive health, as has been argued by some specialists who studied attitudes toward reproductive care in Beirut, Lebanon(6).

In addition, the applicability of this term and its agenda has been debated among feminists, including the question whether or not to use the conception of reproductive “rights” instead of the more general reproductive “health”(7). The former stresses health issues as a right that must be provided by the state and its institutions, while the latter leaves out accountability and may risk a disregard for the individual rights of women(8). The same debate arises in relation to conceptions of sexual rights and sexual health; sexual rights can be favored by feminists but official institutions rather use the more “neutral” term of sexual health.

In Lebanon, the use of the term “women’s health” الصحة النسائية instead of “reproductive health” الصحة الإنجابية appears to be favored by a number of women. A study(9) found out that women understand reproductive health within the context of a patriarchal society and thus within unequal power relations. This means that often reproduction is seen as a duty and a vehicle of social and economic status, thereby conditioning women’s reproductive choices and sexual behaviors. Moreover, abortion remains illegal and thus is often practiced under unsafe conditions(10). International organizations and local NGOs in Lebanon mainly work on reducing maternal mortality, family planning and STIs(11), focusing on the medical aspects of reproductive and sexual health, with much lesser attention paid to addressing women’s right to choose whether and when to have children free of social or familial pressure, to own her body, desires and sexuality choices.