What are Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights?

About the need to protect our bodies and our sexual identity.

Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights are a set of rights that relate to your sexuality and reproduction and therefore include your right to privacy, health, freedom of thought and expression, freedom from violence, education and information.

Sexual and reproductive rights: why and for what purpose?

This set of rights is also part of Human Rights and is closely related to health. According to the WHO, sexual and reproductive rights imply that everyone (without discrimination of any kind) should be able to achieve the highest standard of health in relation to sexuality..

Exercising these rights helps you to take responsibility for your life and your actions, as long as you recognize that just as you have the right to live your sexuality in a healthy and responsible way, you also have duties and responsibilities towards others.

What is sexuality?

When we talk about sexuality we refer to the capacity that every person possesses to feel pleasure (with both body and mind) and to involve the physical, emotional and sentimental spheres.. This means that sexuality is closely linked to your personality, your way of being, thinking, feeling, understanding life, acting and relating to other people and yourself.

Sexual rights

These are some of the sexual rights:

• To decide whether or not to be sexually active or sexually active.To decide how, when and with whom to have affective and sexual relations within the framework of mutual respect and consent.
• To decide whether or not to have a partner; whether or not to consent to marriage..
• To be able to express our emotions and sexuality.
• To seek a pleasurable, safe and satisfying sex lifesafe and satisfying sex life.
• To enjoy our bodiesTo receive respect for its integrity and not to be subjected to any kind of physical, psychological or sexual violence.
• The right to sexual privacy and to decide what we want to do with our body, without harming ourselves or affecting the sexual rights of others.
• Not to be discriminated against because of our sex, gendergender, sexual orientation or any other cause.
• To be able to access quality health services in which privacy and confidentiality are guaranteed. These services should include counseling on biological, psychological and social aspects of sexuality.
• To be able to seek, receive and impart information in relation to sexuality.
• Receive sex education..

Reproductive rights

Understand your freedom and autonomy to decide responsibly whether or not to have children, how many, when and with whom.

These are some of the main reproductive rights:

• To decide whether or not we wish to have sons and daughters.To decide whether or not to have children, when, their number and the time between them.
• Not to be discriminated against or receive unequal treatment on the grounds of pregnancy or motherhood (at school, at work, within the family, etc.). Pregnant adolescents have the right to continue attending the school where they studied before pregnancy.
• Access to health services and medical care that guarantee safe motherhood, free of risk during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, and that ensure mother-child wellbeing. Receive timely and quality care when the woman's life is in danger due to pregnancy.
• Receive information and education to ensure reproductive autonomy. and family planning, guaranteeing confidentiality and privacy, especially for adolescents.
• Access to safe, acceptable and effective contraceptive methods.acceptable and effective methods of contraception.
• To enjoy the highest attainable standard of reproductive healthfree from disease and disability due to such causes as: poor care, malnutrition, exposure to chemicals or forms of violence.
• To have access to fertilization methods or procedures in case they require assistance to achieve the desired pregnancy.
• To be protected from forced pregnancyTo be protected from forced pregnancy, sterilization or abortion by imposition, compulsion, pressure or coercion; or against any degrading treatment and violence in relation to reproduction.

In conclusion

Sexual and reproductive rights are part of human rights, which means that everyone, regardless of age, sex, origin or social status, has the right to attain a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and to maintain it throughout his or her life.