Studies in family planning
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Sexuality and power relations based on gender are relevant to researchers, policymakers, and service providers in the reproductive health field, because they underlie virtually all of the behaviors and conditions that their programs address. Yet, a review of conventional treatments in the demographic and family planning literature reveals that, when they consider these topics at all, researchers typically adopt narrow definitions of sexual behavior and focus almost exclusively on risks of pregnancy and disease. This article proposes an analytic framework as a guide to researchers and family planning providers. It relates four dimensions of sexuality to reproductive health outcomes and concludes that family planning policies and programs should address a broader spectrum of sexual behaviors and meanings, consider questions of sexual enjoyment as well as risk, and confront ideologies of male entitlement that threaten women's sexual and reproductive rights and health.
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Review Comparative Study
International human rights and women's reproductive health.
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. ⋯ 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.