259 / 464
245
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND HUMAN DIGNITY
3. Interconnection between reproductive rights and human dignity
As previously stated, human dignity is a central part of human rights adjudication.
For this reason, we will examine reproductive rights from the perspective of their
placement in the system of human rights protection, which will prepare us for their
positioning in the concept of human dignity.
From the enumeration of reproductive rights (or reproductive health care broadly)
we could see it is a set of rights of different quality and character which can be
attached to different basic civil or economic rights (from the right to life, through
the prohibition of torture, the right to family life and private life, to the right
to the highest standard of health). In this regard Dillard speaks about “the narrow
procreative right, which is negative or “first generation” right”.
44
These rights (such
as the prohibition of forced sterilization, forced abortion or forced pregnancy) are
attached to the most core civil human rights. Those rights, as they are directly linked
to core human rights, make up part of customary international law as well.
45
On
the other hand, there are rights of a social and economic character
46
(the right to
information about family planning, the right to reproductive education etc.) where
the standard of protection may vary according to State economic, social and political
development. In the protection of both categories of reproductive rights classical
theory on negative and positive obligations of State may be applied.
In order to analyse in depth the relation between reproductive rights and human
dignity, one precise point should be made. The concept of human dignity is applicable
and is revived with regard to reproductive rights especially in the case of procreation.
There is a quintessential element to which human dignity is attached in this matter.
However, even, for example, in the case of reproductive health education, one can
discern a “right” to be educated in a “human” way in matters of human sexuality and
reproduction.
47
For the purposes of this article, attention will be focused especially
on the procreative aspect of reproductive rights.
44
DILLARD, J.Carter. Rethinking the Procreative Right. Yale Human Rights and Development Law
Journal, Vol. 10, 2007
10 Yale Hum. Rts. & Dev. L.J. 1
, 2007, p. 14.
45
These rights, as previously stated, are protected as a by-pass through norms of international criminal
law as well.
46
Rights of the second generation.
47
There might be, of course, a big debate on who is responsible for this education in the first place –
members of the family, or the State. And if the latter, what should be the content of the education?
When, at first sight, this relates a little to the human dignity concept, the content of reproductive
education relates very much to human dignity, so even the right to reproductive health education is
directly concerned with human dignity.