University of Botswana Law Journal - PULP

46 UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA LAW JOURNAL DECEMBER 2010
education and the means to do so – in other words, the right to family planning
services. 31 The rights to decide how many children to have/when to have them
and to receive family planning services, while important, did little to ensure
that women were receiving health care services during pregnancy and birth.
With the focus on the world’s need for fewer births, the early enunciations of
reproductive rights gave women little autonomy. Thus starting in the 1970s, the
international women’s rights movement worked to clarify the right to
reproductive health, de-linking reproductive rights from population control “to
promote the perspective that women have an unencumbered right to
reproductive health and choice.” 32
In 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women (“CEDAW”) stated: “states parties shall
ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy,
confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary,
as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.” 33 In 1994, the
UN ICPD Programme of Action explicitly recognized the right of women to
go through pregnancy and childbirth safely for the first time in the
international community. 34 The following year at the UN Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing (the “Beijing Women’s Conference”), the
1995 Beijing Platform for Action again recognized this right of women,
stating that implicit to the right of reproductive health is: “the right of access
to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely
through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of
having a healthy infant.” 35 In 2000, Goal 5 of the Millennium Development
Goals 36 was to “Improve Maternal Health” and listed two targets: reducing by
three quarters the maternal mortality ratio and achieving universal access to
reproductive health. 37
In 2009, reaffirming the ICPD Programme of Action, the Beijing
Platform for Action, the 2000 Millennium Declaration, the 2005 World
31 Id. p. 318.
32 Id. p. 320. Sadasivam elaborates, writing that feminist scholars “emphasize that this right should be
protected from manipulation by individuals, states or collectives. Women’s rights advocates have also
called for the recognition of women’s right to health, including reproductive health, because it is socially
and politically dependent upon the environments women inhabit.” Id.
33 CEDAW, supra note 21, at Art. 12(2).
34 S. Gruskin et al, Using human rights to improve maternal and neonatal health: history, connections and a
proposed practical approach, 86(8) Bull. World Health Org. 2 (2008), available at http://
www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?pid=S0042-96862008000800010&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en.
35 Beijing Platform for Action, supra note 29, at 94.
36 The Millennium Development Goals (“MDGs”) are eight goals drawn from the actions and targets
contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations-and signed by 147 heads of
state and governments during the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. The MDGs
respond to the world's main development challenges. United Nations Development Programme, About
the MDGs: Basics, http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml (last visited 15 April, 2010).
37 United Nations, Millennium Development Goals, available at http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ (last
visited 4 March, 2010). Goal 5 is closely linked to Goal 4, which is to “Reduce Child Mortality” and has
as its target reducing by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate. Id.