Reproductive health

“ The annual report shall evaluate the content, implementation, and impact of all policies related to reproductive health and family planning to ensure that such policies promote, protect and fulfill women’s reproductive health and rights. ”

“ It also includes sexual health, the purpose of which is the enhancement of life and personal relations. The elements of reproductive health care include the following:
(1) Family planning information and services which shall include as a first priority making women of reproductive age fully aware of their respective cycles to make them aware of when fertilization is highly probable, as well as highly improbable;
(2) Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition, including breastfeeding;
(3) Proscription of abortion and management of abortion complications ”

“ Reproductive health rights refers to the rights of individuals and couples, to decide freely and responsibly whether or not to have children; the number, spacing and timing of their children; to make other decisions concerning reproduction, free of discrimination, coercion and violence ”

“ At the same time, the viability standard takes account of the undeniable fact that, as the fetus evolves into its postnatal form, and as it loses its dependence on the uterine environment, the State's interest in the fetus' potential human life, and in fostering a regard for human life in general, becomes compelling. ”

“ By physiological means for the prevention of conception, we understand measures which aim at producing sterility by reducing the number of acts of intercourse and by restricting these acts to certain defined periods of time. The physiological preventive measures, apart from the higher ethical value they possess in comparison with artificial measures, have the advantage that they may be regarded as harmless to the general health of the woman and to the integrity of her reproductive organs in particular ”

“ As a secular matter, there is an obvious difference between the state interest in protecting the freshly fertilized egg and the state interest in protecting a 9-month-gestated, fully sentient fetus on the eve of birth. There can be no interest in protecting the newly fertilized egg from physical pain or mental anguish, because the capacity for such suffering does not yet exist; respecting a developed fetus, however, that interest is valid. ”

“ As a practical matter, because viability follows "quickening" — the point at which a woman feels movement in her womb — and because viability occurs no earlier than 23 weeks gestational age, it establishes an easily applicable standard for regulating abortion while [p554] providing a pregnant woman ample time to exercise her fundamental right with her responsible physician to terminate her pregnancy. ”

“ ARHP Brief 34-35. Other contraceptive methods that may prevent implantation include "morning-after pills," high-dose estrogen pills taken after intercourse, particularly in cases of rape, ARHP Brief 33, and the French RU 486, a pill that works "during the indeterminate period between contraception and abortion," id. at 37. Low-1evel estrogen "combined" pills -- a version of the ordinary, daily ingested birth control pill -- also may prevent the fertilized egg from reaching the uterine wall and implanting. ”

“ II For today, at least, the law of abortion stands undisturbed. For today, the women of this Nation still retain the liberty to control their destinies. But the signs are evident and very ominous, and a chill wind blows. ”

“ In isolated cases, which deserve always very serious consideration, some pathological condition in the wife may justify the prevention of pregnancy. In certain very serious general disorders, in diseases of the heart or of the lungs, in pelvic deformity, and in pathological changes of the female reproductive organs, it may be right to employ means for the prevention of pregnancy—not merely sexual abstinence, but actual measures to prevent fertilization. ”

“ For these reasons a physician should be chosen only after mature deliberation, and his services should be esteemed much more highly than is usually the case.
In order that the principles of prevention may receive their fullest application during pregnancy, labor, and the lying-in period, it is also advisable that intelligent women should possess some knowledge of the Reproductive Process in human beings. ”

“ As we have already pointed out, a restriction of the fertility of women occurs in the majority of marriages, to this extent, that the potential reproductive powers of the wife are not fully utilized. In recent times, however, the restriction of fertility, by the deliberate use of measures for the prevention of pregnancy, has become so widely diffused, that it appears unwise from the scientific standpoint 389simply to ignore the question, and it has become indispensable to study how the practice developed, and to consider what are its actual results. ”

“ Thus, according to this observer, disease of the reproductive organs in women led in more than 50% of the cases to disturbance of the reproductive capacity; about one in every three women, previously competent to bear children, became barren when affected with disease of the reproductive organs; and among every five gynecological patients of the condition already specified as regards age and sexual intercourse, one proves congenitally sterile. ”

“ Without the Ovaries there would be no ova or eggs, and without the ova there would be possible no reproductive purposes, and therefore no office for the sex organs at all, for reproduction is the fundamental office, function, and purpose of the entire sexual organism. ”

“ Does nature use any safeguards to the wife’s health and the right of children?—She does. The woman is sterile before puberty, after the change of life, in most cases during the period while nursing a child, and a few days between the menses. ”

“ And some physicians, even, have remained many hours with these patients, when at last it has been discovered, to the great mortification of all concerned, that one important feature was yet wanting, in order for labor to take place, namely, the presence in the mother’s womb of an actual child.
This change of life, I remarked, is a natural occurrence to every woman. It is as natural for menstruation to cease as it is for it to begin. Were the habits of society such as they should be, health, and health only, would be the natural result in all these changes ”

“ If we assume that the duration of pregnancy is nine months, and that of lactation nine to twelve months (or in cases in which the mother does not nurse her own infant, that a like period must be devoted to the careful supervision of the wet-nurse or of the methods of artificial feeding) , we cannot consider it unreasonable to devote a further period of from six to nine months to the complete reestablishment of the woman’s health. “Moreover, woman does not exist solely for the purpose of subserving during two decades of her life the processes of reproduction. ”

“ That the systematic prevention of pregnancy, by whatever means, is also followed by prejudicial effects, affecting the nervous and the uterine systems, not unfrequently producing sterility from an organic cause, and laying the foundation of serious or incurable disease.
“8. That when such prevention is occasioned [Pg 106] by incompleted intercourse, by whatever means effected, the effect is equally bad for the husband’s health as for that of the wife—there resulting dyspepsia, functional or organic nervous disease, and at times impotence, temporary or persistent.” ”

“ Put yourself at once under the care of a physician.
Insistence on the importance of medical advice should not be taken to imply that pregnancy is to be regarded as other than a normal process. Its dangers are comparatively slight, as we should expect, since the property of all living matter to reproduce its kind is both fundamental and essential; the continuance of living creatures in this world, plants as well as animals, depends upon the Reproductive Process. ”

“ It is the experience of modern women that sex is an instinctive need to them as it is to men, and further that the prevention of conception brings to them no loss of poise, health, or happiness. On the contrary, when once they embark on the task of maternity, contraception is a blessed safeguard to health and recovery in the periods of rest between pregnancies. ”

“ When we call to mind also the close sympathy between the uterine organs and every other part of the system, it shows us how important a proper menstruation is to the general health, because without it those organs must be diseased, and consequently every other part of the system liable to suffer with them. ”

“ Great attention and skillful management is required to ward off many formidable diseases, which at the close of menstruation—at "the change of life"—are more likely than at any time to be developed. If she marry when very young, marriage weakens her system, and prevents a full development of her body. ”

“ When a woman attains the age of 20 years without having ever menstruated, or even having experienced menstrual molimina, we may in the great majority of such cases infer with justice that there is complete or partial failure of development of the ovaries and the reproductive apparatus generally. In some of these cases, examination discloses the fact that the uterus is in an infantile condition. When we are able to bring about the regular establishment of menstruation, we may hope also to remove the sterility dependent upon the defective ovarian functional capacity. ”

“ Six, twelve, forty-eight hours is the outside limit. If extended beyond this, or even if very severe during this time, there is always reason to suspect actual disease of the uterus or ovaries, and the cases must be excluded from considerations only applicable to persons in average health. ”

“ But then, again, there are some rare cases who have menstruated throughout their pregnancy, and also cases where menstruation was never established and pregnancy occurred. Nevertheless, the non-appearance of the period, with other signs, may be taken as presumptive evidence.
5. "ARTIFICIAL IMPREGNATION".—It may not be generally known that union is not essential to impregnation; it is possible for conception to occur without congress. All that is necessary is that seminal animalcules enter the womb and unite there with the egg or ovum. ”

“ Credible observations even exist, indicating that among many primitive peoples, in whom at the time of puberty no social laws hinder the limitless exercise of the reproductive functions, this capacity on the part of woman to conceive at any time has no existence, and that the reproductive capacity of such human beings is, like that of the lower animals, confined to a certain season of the year. ”

“ An eminent lady teacher, in talking to her pupils once said, 'The greatest calamity that can befall a woman is never to have a child. The next greatest calamity is to have one only.' From my professional experience I am happy to testify that more women seek to overcome causes of sterility than to obtain knowledge of limiting the size of the family or means to destroy the embryo. ”

“ In sterile women, if on gynecological examination we find certain characteristic changes in the reproductive organs, a strong suspicion will be aroused that the sterility is due to abnormal modes of sexual gratification. The changes in question are: hypertrophy of the clitoris, enlargement and a bluish colouration of the labia minora, retroversion of the uterus, neuralgia and displacement of the ovaries, leucorrhoea, and menorrhagia. ”

“ MENSTRUATION, which appears about the age of thirteen years, is the flow from the uterus that occurs every month as the seed-germ ripens in the ovaries. God made the sexual organs so that the race should not die out. He gave them to us so that we may reproduce life, and thus fill the highest position in the created universe. The purpose for which they are made is high and holy and honorable, and if they are used only for this purpose and they must not be used at all until they are fully matured they will be a source of greatest blessing to us all. ”

“ It is sometimes, however, possible, even where there is sterility in the male, providing the secretion is not entirely devoid of life properties on part of the husband, to have children, but these are exceptions. ”

“ Nature’s lavish provision of something more than 100,000 ova 50for each woman, who uses only about 500 in the course of her life, excites no little wonder. But whatever the purpose of this enormous supply, its existence makes possible the removal of all but a small fragment of ovarian tissue in cases of disease, without interference with the process of ovulation, which in turn permits reproduction. ”

“ We have seen that the "crude" birth-rate is not an altogether reliable index of the reproductive energy of a nation. Various circumstances may cause an excess or a defect of persons of reproductive age in a community, and unless we allow for these variations, we cannot estimate whether that community is exercising its reproductive powers in a fairly normal manner. ”

“ Herbert Spencer says, "that absolute or relative infertility is generally produced in women by mental labor carried to excess, is more clearly shown.... This diminution of reproductive power is not shown only by the greater frequency of absolute sterility, nor is it shown only in the earlier cessation of childbearing, but it is also shown in the very frequent inability of such women to suckle their infants. In its full sense, the reproductive power means the power to bear a well-developed infant, and to supply that infant with the natural food for the natural period." ”

“ No woman should run any chance of conception unless she is certain of her own health and the health of her partner—the man who is to be the father of the child she is to bring into the world. If her husband's health is unsound, and she cannot avoid intercourse, she can certainly take precautions against conception and against infection. The control of fecundity and the control of infection are parallel problems, and generally speaking, the measures a woman takes to prevent conception will also prevent infection. ”