Health and reproductive rights: reproductive health is where women and men enjoy a satisfying and safe sex life and the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. All people have the right to access safe, effective, affordable family planning of their choice, as well as appropriate maternal care to ensure safe pregnancy and childbirth and a healthy child. Such services will also help to protect women and men from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. Empowering women with knowledge and awareness about health is fundamental to achieving global health.

(There are also other mental, physical and emotional health issues linked to religious attitudes that affect women.)

• Religious attitudes* to women affect women's sexual and reproductive health and is the greatest direct cause of disease and death among women.
• Aids & STDs - as a result of religious pressure against safe sex methods of contraception kill millions of people, orphan children and catastrophically deplete the human resources of many countries.
• Unsafe and late abortions are still killing women and leaving children without mothers due to the actions of the Vatican and other religion's opposition.
• Superstitions kill women and children in many countries where they are used to instil fear, prejudice and discrimination against women.
• Stress and anxiety due to the ill treatment women receive at the hands of men and as a result of religious attitudes, doctrines and practices are a serious cause or contributory factor in many physical and mental health problems.
• Female Genital Mutilation is still practiced in many religious countries as a result of religious 'culture'.
• Religious attitudes to drugs and their place in human life, whether taken as medication or for pleasure make rational drugs policies difficult to implement .
• Poverty associated with over population causes starvation, poor health and immunity, and kills millions of people.

  "... the Vatican, along with delegates from Honduras, Guatemala and several
  Islamic countries, objected to large parts of the section on women's health,
  diplomats said. Those issues will have to be resolved in Beijing.
  
  In dispute were references to unsafe abortions and access to information
  on sexuality and reproduction. The definition of "reproductive health" and a
  call to end female genital mutilation were also left for further debate.
  
  Joan Dunlop, president of the International Women's Health Coalition, said
  the Vatican "lobbed a grenade" into the conference by challenging proposals
  on health that had been agreed to in previous conferences.

  http://www.tibet.ca/wtnarchive/1995/4/8_2.html
  

  Links on this site and elsewhere

  Health statistics and information are widely available on many sites on the Internet by searching 'World Health Organisation', 'Women's Health' 'Women's Health Statistics' and adding country or other specifics.

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IHEU Conference:-

Prenatal Gender Diagnosis, Sex and Gender Discrimination Dr. Indu Grewal see also article by Geeta Nargund on Health Education Women and Superstition in Nepal - Maya Devi Katuwal