section_path: Rights and laws/Reproductive rights
section_name: Reproductive rights
paragraph_text: Reproductive rights
  
  Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. These include the right to decide on issues regarding the number of children born, family planning, contraception, and private life, free from coercion and discrimination; as well as the right to access health services and adequate information. According to UNFPA, reproductive rights "include the right to decide the number, timing and spacing of children, the right to voluntarily marry and establish a family, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health, among others". Family planning refers to the factors that may be considered by individuals and couples in order for them to control their fertility, anticipate and attain the desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births.
  
  The state and church have been, and still are in some countries, involved in controlling the size of families, often using coercive methods, such as bans on contraception or abortion (where the policy is a natalist one—for example through tax on childlessness) or conversely, discriminatory policies against large families (e.g., China's one-child policy in place from 1978 to 2015) or even forced abortions. Forced sterilization has often targeted ethnic minority groups, such as Roma women in Eastern Europe, or indigenous women in Peru (during the 1990s).