CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ARTIFICIAL HUMAN REPRODUCTION: AN ISLAMIC LAW PERSPECTIVE

Introduction

The coming into being of the United Nations Organization (UNO)1 as ushered in the UN Charter considers men and women to have equal rights.2 It also brought the UN‟s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)3 as the pioneer international instrument to out rightly forbid discrimination against women. However, the concept of reproductive rights was initiated at the international conference on human right in Tehran.4 It was at this very conference that parents were said to have a basic human right to determine freely the number and spacing of their children.

It was in the year 1979 that, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the UN5 and it constituted a committee on CEDAW to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Convention. This committee in its year 2000 reproductive rights report, while making a general recommendation on women and health, declares that state parties should ensure universal access for all women to a high quality and affordable health care including sexual and reproductive health services.

Moreover, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Charter elaborated the above to mean infertility treatment and quality contraceptive among other things. Article I and 16 of CEDAW and the provisions of the IPPF and International Convention on Population and Development (ICPD) provide that, women are to enjoy these rights irrespective of their marital status. Article 2 requires state parties to abolish existing laws, regulations, customs and practices that discriminate against women.

This, by necessary implication, means that even religious injunctions that are considered “discriminating” by the western standard should as well be abolished. Hence, reproductive rights attained its peak at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) with the proclamation that, reproductive rights embraces certain human rights already recognised in both national and international human rights instruments.

The conference further opines that, the concept further includes “the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health and the right to make decisions on reproduction free from discrimination, coercion or violence”.6 Reproductive rights encompass two key ideals – the right to reproductive health care and the right to reproductive self-determination.

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These principles extend far beyond a woman‟s right to choose and obtain an abortion. They cut to the core of a woman‟s fundamental well-being and place in the world. Gender inequality and discrimination harm girls' and women's health directly and indirectly, and neglect of their reproductive health needs prevents them from participating fully and equally in society. Without access to quality reproductive health care – including contraception, pre-natal care, and abortion – women are at needless risk of unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmissible infections (STIs), and even death or injury from pregnancy and childbirth.

TOPIC: CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF ARTIFICIAL HUMAN REPRODUCTION: AN ISLAMIC LAW PERSPECTIVE

Chapters: 1 - 5
Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 73

Price: 3000 NGN

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