Birth Control: A Basic Human Right
The UN recently declared that birth control is a basic human right. Although they have regularly been an outspoken supporter of birth
control as a right, it is an interesting turn of events to have it officially
been declared as a “basic” human right After pondering this for a while, I
started wondering: is birth control really something that is considered
“basic”?
There are two different ways to approach this question. You
can look at birth control as something the prevents pregnancy and therefore
will keep a woman healthier (not that pregnancy is necessary unhealthy, but it
leads to an entirely new set of medical issues) or you can look at birth
control that prevents pregnancy and therefore women take it to prevent
something they don’t want to deal with quite yet. I view birth control as
something someone CHOOSES to take and not something that someone NEEDS to take.
Whether or not voluntary medication can truly be considered
a basic right is the real question here. After all, its not like anyone has
died from not taking a birth control pill. People die from childbirth, which I
suppose can be a “side effect” of not taking birth control. In my opinion, however, basic human rights
are things like access to water and shelter because those are two things that
people will actually die from if they don’t have. People don’t choose to live
on the street or choose to not drink water, but they do choose to take birth
control or not.
I don’t have anything against people having a right to birth
control. I think it is something that every woman should have access to. With
that being said, I still have a problem with it being called a “basic” human
right. Basic human rights should only be reserved for things that are a
necessity for keeping you alive. Plenty of women survive without birth control and
can choose plenty of other ways of controlling pregnancy.
Since women have the option of taking birth control but aren’t
required to use it, birth control should be a right that women have, but not a
basic human right. Everyone should be able to have a right to control their reproductive
health but that basic human rights should be saved for things that are actually
necessary for survival.
I think this was really interesting, and I am surprised by such a strong use of the phrase "basic right" given by the United Nations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that I do not necessarily agree with their use of "basic right" when it comes to birth control, but I am interested to see their arguments.
I do think that a basic right is something reserved for every single human being - such as food, water, not to be killed or raped. Everyone should be guaranteed that. But women also have the right not to be pregnant if they choose not to - this will better empower women who are striving for a career, and we all know that they can't do that if they are constantly pregnant (my grandmother had ten children - that's like two decades of either being pregnant or having just had a baby!)
I think perhaps what the UN is trying is that, but they lack the distinction between that and pregnancy. While I believe women do have the right not to be pregnant if they are sexually active, I also believe that sex is a pleasurable activity, but not one that is essential to human beings. Catholic priests don't have sex. Nuns don't have sex. So it's not really a basic for birth control if you just abstain from sex.
I disagree that sex is not essential to human beings. Sexual reproduction is the essence of life. I would argue that there is nothing more essential to living beings because without it, we would cease to exist as a species. Obviously that definition of sex and sex as a pleasurable activity are very different but I think that it is important to recognize sex as a natural human instinct and behavior.
DeleteThat being said, I think that birth control belongs under the category of the basic right to healthcare. Yes, it is an optional medicine but it is one that everyone should have the right to have access to should they choose to use it. The benefits of birth control are huge. Educating women and providing access to contraception has proven to lower birth rates and decrease poverty. If birth control is a key factor in escaping poverty and calling it a basic human right can ensure more widespread access, what is wrong with it being an essential human right?
The problem with your distinction between choice and need is that the United Nations cannot distinguish between varying circumstances in their deeming of birth control as a basic human right. In some cases, for health reasons, women DO need to take birth control. In other cases, likely the majority, women do choose to take birth control for their own personal reasons. Those reasons are not really up to others to judge or deem worthy or unworthy. It's a private matter, which is likely the reason that it has taken so long for the topic to be completely open in the public forum.
ReplyDeleteYou kind of argue against your own point when you say that birth control is not a basic human right but is something that all women should have access to. The reason that the United Nations, or any other political entity, would call birth control a basic right is because they have come to the same conclusion as you: that it should be available and accessible to all.
In addition, the case of the Irish woman who passed away after a miscarriage recently brings this issue into a different context. Ireland has extremely strict restrictions on contraceptives because of the strong Catholic roots, which play a role in their political structure. There are many other nations in which birth control is illegal or made unavailable to women. Many women have health conditions that cause it to be dangerous for them to become pregnant, both for the fetus and for their own health. In these instances, it is essential that these women take birth control in order to prevent potentially deadly pregnancies. If you would like to then argue that abortion is available in this case, that's not really true. Like contraceptives, abortion is not available in many countries. And even when it is available, the dangers of undergoing this procedure are high, especially in poorer areas of the world. Why undergo all of this trouble and danger when simply taking birth control could have solved the entire issue?
Like I said, the U.N. cannot specify that birth control is a basic human right only when medically needed, as this is a hard line to draw. What's the harm in calling it a basic human right? The more things that are deemed basic human rights, the better off the world is. If governments are held accountable to providing these rights to their citizens, the world as a whole will continue to progress rather than the current trend of globalized nations far surpassing the rest of the world.