All people must have information about
contraceptive measures and their use and
be guaranteed access to sexuality education and family planning services in order
to make informed decisions about safe and
reliable contraceptive measures and thus on
whether to have children or not. The health,
development and well-being of all members
of the family improve where there are freely
available and appropriate measures for the
voluntary regulation of fertility.
In one of its decisions concerning an individual complaint,38 the Committee on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women found that the sterilization
of a woman without full informed consent
had been a violation of Article 16 (the right
to decide the number and spacing of children) by permanently depriving her of her
natural reproductive capacity.
38 CEDAW/C/36/D/4/2004, Ms. A. S. vs. Hungary
RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND FAMILY LIFE
THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY AND FAMILY LIFE IN LAW
The right to privacy and family life can be found in, for example, Article 17 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or
unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks
on his honour and reputation”. Similar provisions are contained in the Convention on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 8 of the ECHR and Article 11 of the ACHR. A
rticle
16 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees the freedom of the child from
“arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence”.
A s imilar provision is contained in Article 10 of the African Charter on the Rights and
Welfare of the Child.
Though interconnected, the right to privacy
and family life differs from the right to found
a family. This right includes access to available reproductive health care technology,
including safe and acceptable contraceptive
methods. It also comprises the right to confidentiality, for example HIV/AIDS-status,
pregnancy, visits to reproductive health care
service providers, etc. Such confidentiality
in treatment and counselling should also be
ensured for adolescents.
106
One area where states may fail to respect
women’s privacy relates to their reproductive functions. It is for example a violation
of a woman’s right to privacy to require the
husband’s authorization for sterilization, or
to impose a legal duty upon doctors and
other health personnel to report cases of
women who have undergone abortion.39 In
39 HRC, General Comment No. 28, para. 20.
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