Women and girls with impairments account for roughly one-fifth of all females on the earth. Women with disabilities face more difficulties acquiring adequate housing, health, education, and training, as well as finding work, and are more likely to be institutionalized. Human rights to procreate are fundamental and necessary. Both international and national law recognize reproductive rights as legal rights. The term “reproductive rights” refers to both women and men’s rights to be informed about and have access to contraception, as well as women’s rights to have a safe and legal aborssstion, regulate their fertility, and avoid being forced to have an unwanted pregnancy. Women with impairments are viewed as asexual, dependent, and in need of care, and hence incapable of fulfilling culturally acceptable “womanly” roles such as sexual partner and nurturing mother.
Discrimination against people with disabilities can take many forms, but it is defined as “any distinction, prohibiting, or restriction based on incapacity that has the purpose or outcome of impeding or invalidating the recognition, satisfaction, or exercise of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with others in the political, financial, social, cultural, public, or any other field.” It covers a wide range of unfairness, including the denial of reasonable accommodations.”
Condemn and take action to prevent sexual harassment, humiliation, and forced medical procedures, such as compulsory hysterectomy, forced caesarean section, forced sterilisation, forced miscarriage, and forced contraception, against disabled women and girls in health-care settings, especially for participants.
The right to reproduce is a vital human right. It includes human rights that have already been identified by international, regional, and nationwide legal frameworks, rules, and settlements. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act of 2016 is a statute that safeguards the rights of disabled individuals. A “person with a disability” is someone who suffers from a long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairment that, when combined with other conditions, prevents him from fully participating in society on an equal footing with others.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which took effect on May 3rd, 2008, is a binding human rights treaty to recognize that all individuals with disabilities have human rights and fundamental freedoms. Its major purpose is to protect, promote, and fulfil all human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the dignity of people with disabilities.
Reproductive Health Rights necessitates the study of a wide range of policies, programmes, and laws, including but not limited to the rights to food and nutrition, sanitation, livelihoods, education, non-discrimination, comprehensive information and informed consent, comprehensive healthcare, freedom from violence, coercion, and so on. Reproductive rights have slowly acquired recognised as human rights since the 1968 International Conference on Human Rights Declaration and the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development.
Human rights are universal, inalienable, indivisible, and interconnected, including the right to reproductive health. The right to life, food, shelter, and education, freedom from violence and discrimination based on gender, caste, religion, sexuality, class, ability, age, ethnicity, and other considerations, and, most significantly, the right to health care and services are part of human rights.
The Indian Constitution guarantees reproductive rights, which are also protected in UN human rights treaties and consensus convention settlements to which India is a signatory. These treaties and documents emphasize the state’s commitment to respect, sustain, support, and fulfil reproductive health rights without discrimination, with a particular focus on vulnerable and marginalized people.
In the case of National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, the Supreme Court of India has ruled that non-recognition of gender-identity qua transgender is a violation of Article 14 and Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. This decision, according to transgender reproductive rights campaigners, will create the groundwork for the realization of transgender reproductive rights.
The rights of people with disabilities must be preserved, and their basic rights must be considered as special rights. The government should provide financial, legal, medical and social assistance to them to protect the lives of women and children. Women’s rights will be preserved if violence against them is stopped, and the cruel treatment of disabled women is taken seriously.
Prof. Mamatha R.
Assistant Professor
Alliance School of Law