ABSTRACT
Violence, in the form of rape, sexual abuse, or battering affects women's ability to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including AIDS. Gender violence is a major yet often underrecognized obstacle to reproductive choice. The specter of AIDS adds a new critical dimension to gender power relations and reproductive rights. Reproductive health activists, especially women from the South, have also been instrumental in identifying and challenging violence within the reproductive health system itself. Often women who are married have even less to say about their sexual lives than about birth control. Contrary to the organizing ethic of all medical care—first do no harm—there is ample evidence that "health care" as practiced in some parts of the world exposes women to increased risk instead of improving their health and well being. Legal changes related to domestic violence or rape, for example, are centrally important to many women's reproductive freedom.
