ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the propensities in current research on women's reproductive health. It focuses on the discussions of the three major perspectives that have evolved during the last few decades with regard to women's reproductive health: the neo-Malthusian thought and the demographic perspective; the public health perspectives; and the gender equality approach. Women's reproductive health is a very sensitive issue and it tends to be tangled up with the wide spectrum of social justice, such as women's social, economic, and political status; human rights; population policies; and cultural integrity. The World Health Organization declared in its 2008 report that social justice is a matter of life and death and that inequality in the social, political, and economic conditions determines the risk of illnesses and women's health including their reproductive health. The gender equality approach offers a direct critique of the structural functionalist perspective that society is composed of interrelated parts that work harmoniously for the maintenance of the whole.
