Analysis of Reproductive and Sexual Rights in Australia: A Case Study

This essay explores the sensitive area of reproductive and sexual rights (RSH) in Australia, highlighting the influence of cultural and social standards. It discusses how laws protect individuals' rights to make decisions about family planning, while also acknowledging the impact of socioeconomic factors on access to these rights. The essay provides examples of how RSH are upheld in Australia, such as pregnancy-based discrimination protections and gender equality initiatives. It also addresses restrictions and disparities faced by certain groups, like women with disabilities and indigenous populations, particularly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. The essay emphasizes the health issues, discrimination, and lack of education related to healthy reproduction and sexual health faced by these priority groups, which can lead to various health complications. It references relevant policies and research to support the analysis, underscoring the need for equal protection and improved access to reproductive and sexual health resources.

Running head: REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL RIGHT
REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL RIGHT
Name of Student:
Name of University:
Author’s Note:

1REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL RIGHT
a) Reproductive and sexual right is the most sensitive area of the human right and the reason
is its connection with the sexuality and culture. The law protects and encourages the basic
right of the people and couples to decide about their number and spacing of the children.
The RSH face much issue and is influenced by the contextual cultural and social
standards (Villa-Torres and Svanemyr 2015). It is socioeconomic factors affects the
quality and access to the right. For example, the sensitive area is reproductive rights,
which gives freedom to reproduction and good health. However, this is the most sensitive
to violation and coercion by huge interference of social norms of reproductive health
(Human Rights to Reproductive and Sexual Health 2015). Communities have their own
perceptive related to sexual life, for example people are in opinion to have more children.
The view of culture is against the right due to which it is abolished by many people.
b) The two examples of how RSH are upheld in the community of Australia are:
 Australia has set rights which covers pregnancy based discrimination in work
sector. It is seen from the study of IPPF, it has identified broad range of
reproductive health issue due to pregnancy and government has promoted the
right of human to avoid risk related pregnancy (IPPF declaration of sexual right
2008). The RSH policies are crucial for empowering women by involving them in
active part of development.
 The Australian human right commission have worked to prevent gender based
violence and legalised the homosexuality (Richards 2017). Thus, it has promoted
gender equality.
In Australia, there are some fields where RSH rights are restricted for example in
women with disability, bisexual and indigenous people often subjected to myths

2REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL RIGHT
regarding the sexuality and perpetuating that they are non-sexual. No
consideration is provided to research the health issue per the policy of RSH
(Duley et al. 2017).
c) The priority population group of Australia identified is Aboriginal and Torres Islanders.
The reason is that they face huge discrimination in human rights. They are excluded from
the general population in the term of reproductive health and sexuality as well as the
health equality (Duley et al. 2017). The population undergoes various health issues due to
reproduction because of lack of education. Such population have their own perspective.
There is no equal protection related to discrimination based on sexuality, gender and sex.
There is no proper education to healthy reproduction and sexual health, due to which they
are more prone to violation (Mazel 2016). The impact of it can lead to increased risk of
STDs, pregnancy and birth complications and mental instability. Indiegnous peoples’s
standard of living is low because of low socioeconomic status (Swannell 2019). Looking
into such prevalence of condition in aboriginals makes them priority for reproductive and
sexual health.

3REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL RIGHT
Reference
Duley, P., Botfield, J.R., Ritter, T., Wicks, J. and Brassil, A., 2017. The Strong Family Program:
an innovative model to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth and Elders with
reproductive and sexual health community education. Health Promotion Journal of
Australia, 28(2), pp.132-138.
Human Rights to Reproductive and Sexual Health 2015. [online] Ohchr.org. Available at:
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Reproductiveen.pdf [Accessed 9 Aug. 2019].
IPPF declaration of sexual right, 2008. Available at
https://www.ippf.org/sites/default/files/ippf_sexual_rights_declaration_abridged.pdf
Mazel, O., 2016. Self-determination and the right to health: Australian aboriginal community
controlled health services. Human Rights Law Review, 16(2), pp.323-355.
Richards, D.A.J., 2017. Sexual Autonomy and the Constitutional Right to Privacy: A Case Study
in Human Rights and the Unwritten Constitution. In Sexual Orientation and Rights (pp. 71-132).
Routledge.
Swannell, C., 2019. Sexual, reproductive health and rights: how are we doing?. The Medical
Journal of Australia, p.1.\
Villa-Torres, L. and Svanemyr, J., 2015. Ensuring youth's right to participation and promotion of
youth leadership in the development of sexual and reproductive health policies and
programs. Journal of Adolescent Health, 56(1), pp.S51-S57.