Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:
Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence.
Amparo Poch y Gascón (1902–1968) was a Spanish anarchist, pacifist, doctor, and activist in the years leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War. Poch y Gascón was born in Zaragoza.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights in Uruguay are among the most liberal in both South America and the world. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal with an equal age of consent since 1934. Anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people have been in place since 2004. Civil unions for same-sex couples have been allowed since 2008 and same-sex marriages since 2013, in accordance with the nation's same-sex marriage law passed in early 2013. Additionally, same-sex couples have been allowed to jointly adopt since 2009 and gays, lesbians and bisexuals are allowed to serve openly in the military.
Prostitution in Uruguay was legislated in 2002 through the sex work law (17.515). Before that, prostitution was unlegislated but it was not illegal, since the constitution allows any activity that is not forbidden by law. Prostitution is currently not a subject of debate.
The status of women in Argentina has changed significantly following the return of democracy in 1983; and they have attained a relatively high level of equality. In the Global Gender Gap Report prepared by the World Economic Forum in 2009, Argentine women ranked 24th among 134 countries studied in terms of their access to resources and opportunities relative to men. They enjoy comparable levels of education, and somewhat higher school enrollment ratios than their male counterparts. They are well integrated in the nation's cultural and intellectual life, though less so in the nation's economy. Their economic clout in relation to men is higher than in most Latin American countries, however, and numerous Argentine women hold top posts in the Argentine corporate world; among the best known are Cris Morena, owner of the television production company by the same name, María Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, former CEO and majority stakeholder of Loma Negra, the nation's largest cement manufacturer, and Ernestina Herrera de Noble, director of Grupo Clarín, the premier media group in Argentina.
Matilde Rodríguez Cabo Guzmán was Mexico's first female psychiatrist. Also a surgeon, writer, feminist, and suffragist, Rodríguez was an activist for the right of Mexican women, and affiliated with the Mexican Communist Party. She was married to General Francisco J. Múgica; they had a son, Janitzio Múgica Rodríguez Cabo.
Rutgers WPF Indonesia is the Indonesian branch of Rutgers WPF, an international centre of expertise on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) founded and based in the Netherlands. The Indonesian branch was established in 2007, founded under the name "WPF". Rutgers WPF is the result of the merger between the World Population Foundation (WPF) and Rutgers Nisso Groep, a Dutch Expert Centre on Sexuality in 2010. Rutgers WPF focuses on improving sexual and reproductive health and the acceptance of sexual rights and gender equality in developing countries across Europe, Africa and Asia. Since 2009, the organization had been headed internationally by executive director Dianda Veldman and by Monique Soesman in Jakarta, Indonesia since 2014.
Marta Lamas Encabo is a Mexican anthropologist and political science professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and lecturer at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). She is one of Mexico's leading feminists and has written many books aimed at reducing discrimination by opening public discourse on feminism, gender, prostitution and abortion. Since 1990, Lamas has edited one of Latin America's most important feminist journals, Debate Feminista. In 2005, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Julieta Montaño is a Bolivian attorney, human rights defender, woman's rights activist, feminist writer and a 2015 winner of the US State Department's International Women of Courage Award.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics, such as chromosomes, gonads, or genitals, that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies."
Between December 2015 and August 2016, the Chilean Ministry of Health issued a regulatory suspension of non-necessary cosmetic medical interventions on intersex children. The guidelines were replaced by guidance permitting intersex medical interventions.
Fany Puyesky Mitnik was a lawyer, writer, and dramatist known as "the first feminist" of Uruguay.
Milikini Failautusi is an activist from Tuvalu in the areas of youth, climate change, gender, human rights, indigenous rights, and sexual reproductive health and rights.
Elena Eva Reynaga is an Argentinian former sex worker and women human rights defender who campaigns for the rights of sex workers. She is a founding member of Association of Women Sex Workers in Argentina and Executive Secretary of the Network of Women Sex workers of Latina America and the Caribbean.
Sex education in Francoist Spain (1939–1975) and the democratic transition (1975–1982) was prohibited by law to be taught in schools. When it was addressed, it was originally done so from a moralistic point of view, highlighting concepts like the need for chastity. During the mid-1950s, this practice began to change, and after formal government approval sex education incorporated more elements of psychology and biology. Despite a lack of government-sanctioned sex education, people were taught informally. Middle-class women could learn from marriage guides. More generally, as women approached the age to marry, they received more sexual education from friends, mothers, sisters, and future in-laws. Upper-class men learned by having sex with prostitutes and maids employed by their households.
Women's sexuality in Francoist Spain was defined by the Church and by the State. The purpose in doing so was to have women serve the state exclusively through reproduction and guarding the morality of the state. Women's sexuality could only be understood through the prism of reproduction and motherhood. Defying this could have tremendous negative consequences for women, including being labeled a prostitute, being removed from her family home, being sent to a concentration camp, a Catholic run institution or to a prison. It was only after the death of Franco in 1975 that women in Spain were finally allowed to define their own sexuality. Understanding Francoist imposed definitions of female sexuality is critical to understanding modern Spanish female sexuality, especially as it relates to macho behavior and women's expected responses to it.
Alejandra Mora Mora is a Costa Rican jurist, lawyer, professor, and politician. She has been a human rights activist, especially in the area of women's rights. She served as her country's Minister of Women's Affairs from 2014 to 2018, was president of the National Institute for Woman (INAMU), and director of the women's section of the Ombudsman's Office of Costa Rica.
The Estrela report was a non-binding resolution on women's health and reproductive rights in the European Union advanced by the Portuguese MEP Edite Estrela of the Socialist Party in 2013. It was narrowly defeated in a vote in the European Parliament on 10 December 2013. A counter-resolution proposed by conservative and Eurosceptic MEPs was passed asserting that such issues should be dealt with on the national level.
Lilián Celiberti is a Uruguayan feminist activist. She became a political prisoner under the military dictatorship and lived in exile in Italy. She is a founding member and coordinator of the feminist collective Cotidiano Mujer, and she is also a leader in Articulación Feminista Marcosur, which promotes the development of a feminist political platform at the regional and global level.
