ABSTRACT
From conception to conclusion, pregnancy involves a series of choices for a woman that is as old as humanity itself, predating the creation of any laws. A woman’s right to make decisions about what happens to her body stretches across this continuum of reproductive choices, from the right to decide when to get pregnant (at one end) to the right to decide how to give birth (at the other). On this continuum, the restriction of one reproductive right will inevitably have an impact on a woman’s right to bodily autonomy in other parts of the continuum.
As lawyers focused on reproductive rights, we take it as given that every person should have the resources they need for a safe and healthy pregnancy and birth, as well as the freedom to make decisions about their pregnancy and birth free from discrimination, coercion, or violence. It seems to us extraordinary that, in wealthy Western democracies where liberty, equality and individual freedoms underpin our systems of law, societies appear confused about whether pregnant women are afforded the same human and legal rights as everyone else. Even today, we are repeatedly asked the same question, both in Australia and the USA: what are women’s rights in pregnancy and childbirth? Our answer is so simple that it seems to disappoint: the rights of pregnant women are the same as everyone else.
In this chapter, we explore the full spectrum of women’s reproductive rights in pregnancy and childbirth, specifically by looking at the legal challenges individual pregnant women have faced and pursued when asserting choices in pregnancy and childbirth.
