University of Botswana Law Journal - PULP

THE RIGHT TO MATERNAL HEALTH CARE 55
events scheduled for 2010 alone that will bring maternal health care into the
spotlight, at least in some capacity, including the UN Human Rights Council’s
14 th session, in which the Human Rights Council plans to follow up on the
Maternal Mortality Resolution. 63 During the CSW session reviewing the
Beijing Platform for Action, at least one panel discussion will focus on
maternal health care: “Maternal Mortality – rights of ‘critical concern’ within
and beyond Beijing” is a panel discussion co-sponsored by the Center for
Economic and Social Rights, Amnesty International, Action Canada for
Population and Development, Center for Reproductive Rights, Human Rights
Watch, International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights,
International Planned Parenthood Federation, Ipas, and the Women's Global
Network for Reproductive Rights. 64 These agencies recognize maternal
mortality as “an issue of gender justice, as well as social and economic
justice,” and advocate for the right to maternal health (including the right to
maternal health care) as a human right that is “about the human rights of
women, not only the rights to life and to health, but about failures to meet the
full range of economic and social rights that contribute to the underlying
poverty and deprivation that results in maternal mortality.” 65 Amnesty
International, for example, has articulated the right to maternal healthcare in
stating: “Women have the right to not be denied maternal health care, which
should be accessible, affordable, adequate and of sufficiently high quality,
taking into account their cultural needs. They have the right to access health
care without discrimination.” 66 As the right to maternal health care continues
to develop in the future, new approaches are needed, both to further develop
international law recognizing maternal health care as a human right, and to
work to ensure the right to maternal health care globally.
Part 3: A Multifaceted Human Rights Approach to Prevent
Maternal Mortality
The DFID Health Resource Centre, which provides technical assistance and
information to the British Government’s Department for International
Development, has noted that: “carefully contextualized rights-based
63 Center for Economic and Social Rights, Dying While Giving Life? Maternal Mortality is a Human Rights
Issue: International Events, http://www.cesr.org/article.php?id=772 (last visited 4 March, 2010)
[hereinafter 2010 International Events].
64 Id. These panel discussions sponsored by NGOs also produce important documents that contribute to
informing the development of maternal health care as a right within the human rights framework. For
example, in 2009, at the 11 th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, NGOs brought together a panel
of international and national experts as a side-event to discuss the need for a human rights perspective in
combating maternal mortality. See Center for Reproductive Rights et al., Combating Maternal Mortality:
Why Bring Human Rights into the Picture? (5 June, 2009).
65 2010 International Events, supra note 70.
66 Amnesty International USA, Right to Maternal Health Care, http://www.amnestyusa.org/violenceagainst-women/stop-violence-against-women-svaw/right-to-maternal-health-care/page.do?id=1351018
(last visited 4 March, 2010).