The Right to Withdraw Consent to Continuing an Unwanted Pregnancy

Reproductive autonomy refers to freely choosing whether or not to have a family, decisions about when to found a family, the spacing of children, and other choices related to reproductive health. The chapter argues that the right of a pregnant person to withdraw consent to continuing an unwanted pregnancy needs to be universally protected for everyone capable of gestation – this is essential for reproductive autonomy and personal autonomy more broadly. Contextualising reproductive autonomy as a right to withdraw consent is a stronger positing than as a privacy right or as a component of the right to health. The research finds that international human rights law focuses on the consequences of the inability to withdraw consent in terms of rights violations, but with respect to extreme cases. This has the consequence of respecting the rule, which is a ban on abortion, subject only to exceptions. To shift to universalising a right to withdraw consent to continuing an unwanted pregnancy requires engaging feminist theory and literature on reproductive justice, reproductive autonomy, and relational autonomy. While cognisant that reproductive choices occur in private, the right to withdraw consent is conceived as a public matter of social justice and equality. To fully protect the right to withdraw consent requires establishing an accessible and resourced health infrastructure through law and policy. True equality is not possible unless this form of consent is protected.