The right to health often meets the right to private life in questions relating to an individual’s integrity and autonomy, especially the ability to make decisions concerning their body and health.
Person’s physical and moral integrity implies also self-determination over one’s own body and health, as well as protection against arbitrary interference by public authorities. Personal autonomy, on the other hand, is the ability to make independent decisions, including also those about one’s body and health and act according to them. Both these concepts are particularly relevant in the context of forced and compulsory medical procedures and one’s reproductive rights.
Reproductive rights
Your right to take decisions about your reproductive health matters (such as abortion, medically assisted procreation, contraception, sterilization, prenatal testing, etc.) fall within the scope of the right to private life.
Unlawful and disproportionate restriction of a person’s reproductive rights leads to a violation of the right to health and/or the right to private life.
example If a woman is deprived of the possibility to terminate a pregnancy that poses a risk to her health and/or the health of the fetus, this may lead to a violation of her right to private life.
However, not all restrictions of reproductive rights are automatically a violation.
example If a woman cannot undergo sterilization before she is of a certain age, such restriction is not automatically a violation of her rights. This is not a prohibition of sterilization as such. It imposes a reasonable age limit to ensure that such a non-reversible decision is taken by a sufficiently mature person.
Read more about reproductive rights in this Guide.
Forced & compulsory medical procedures
As a patient, you should receive only medical treatment to which you have consented. Generally, a patient has the right to refuse medical treatment at any stage: before or during the treatment. Forced and compulsory medical procedures may lead to a violation of a person’s right to health and/or the right to private life.
However, compulsory medical procedures will not always automatically breach a person’s right to health and/or private life.
example Compulsory vaccination of children as a requirement of admission to kindergarten is not a violation of their rights, because such measure may be imposed legitimately to protect the health of others.