Under our current law, college students deemed not mature enough to handle alcohol responsibly elect legislators who decide whether they are mature enough to handle alcohol responsibly.
In 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, the world recognized "the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so".
An all-night session Friday into yesterday, capping a week of heated arguments, preserved a range of women's rights including the most contentious, that "women have the right to decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality" and can do so without "coercion, discrimination and violence".
That mandate held that "the aim of family planning programmes must be to enable couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to do so".
Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.
International organizations recommend that the written permission for obtaining cord blood should be obtained long before onset of active labor, so that parents will be able to decide freely and responsibly [ 24, 25].
These rights were then defined by the Platform for Action of the World Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995, as follows: "The human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality" [ 4].
World Health Organization (8) defines reproductive rights as a basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing, and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health.
Rather, health care providers reported recognizing and supporting the reproductive rights of all couples and individuals "to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so," as is articulated in the South African Constitution.
9 Since 2014 is the 20th anniversary of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, and 2015 is the end of the MDGs, the question: what progress has been made in ensuring that all couples and individuals, decide freely and responsibly, the number and spacing of their children, and have the means to do so, is imperative.
Reproductive rights rest on "the right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children, to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health; including the right to make decisions concerning sex and reproduction free of discrimination, coercion and violence".
