Significantly, the consensus documents signed at the 1994 United Nations International Conference on Population and Development and the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing) explicitly affirm the integral nature of these specific rights to international human rights. In June 2000, delegates from more than 180 countries gathered to review progress on the implementation of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Moreover, the final document agreed to at the "Beijing + 5" conference renewed the commitment, upheld reproductive rights provisions from the Beijing Platform and included key gains in the area. It has been recognized that government interference with the individual's exercise of the right or freedom is an intrusion into the individual's human right.

Reproductive health is a fundamental aspect of women's well being. Without access to safe, high quality reproductive health services, women are left vulnerable to death or injury during childbirth, unwanted pregnancy, and sexually transmissible infections. The right to reproductive health care puts the onus on governments both to ensure the availability of reproductive health services and to remove existing legal barriers to such care. Reproductive health care should be comprehensive. Importantly, women must have access to information about their reproductive health opportunities as well as to resources necessary to act on that information.

Along with the right to reproductive health, reproductive rights are composed of the right to reproductive self-determination. The right to reproductive self-determination is based upon three interrelated rights, including the right to plan one's family, the right to freedom from interference in reproductive decision-making and the right to be free from all forms of violence, discrimination and coercion that affect a women's reproductive life.

International treaties define the right to plan one's family as the right to determine "freely and responsibly" the number and spacing of one's children, and to have the information and means necessary to do so. The right to plan one's family gives rise to a governmental duty to ensure that men and women have equal access to a full range of contraceptive choices and reproductive health services, and that they have information about sexual and reproductive health. The right to freedom from interference in reproductive decision-making relates to broader principles of bodily autonomy. This principle has roots in the right to respect for human dignity, the rights to liberty and security of the person, and the right to privacy. Reproductive self-determination also implies the right to be free from all forms of violence and coercion that affect a woman's sexual or reproductive life.

Analysis provided by: Maggie Smieszek, Legal Expert.