Reproductive rights. 91.1. A pregnant bargaining unit employee may request to transfer to a limited duty assignment within the department that does not pose a danger to her or the unborn child by submitting the request with a certification signed by the bargaining unit employee’s health care provider.
Reproductive rights. Although the Bangkok Rules contain provisions on pregnancy and children, rules on reproduction (e.g. conception, contraception, abortion) are absent. Reproductive rights are guaranteed through various instruments, such as Article 16(e) CEDAW, Article 12 ECHR, and Article 14 of the Maputo Protocol.127 In principle, women in prison should be able to enjoy reproductive rights, unless restrictions are unavoidable due to the closed environment.128 Certain topics relating to reproductive rights may be sensitive, or sometimes even illegal, in specific States. Still, the Bangkok Rules could be extended, with a provision supporting women in exercising their reproductive rights within the legal limits of the State at issue. The necessity of such a provision may be even more apparent in the light of the reported violations of reproductive rights129 and the limited possibility of conjugal visits in the reporting States.130 126 Compare the current Rule 7 of the Xxxxxxx Rules, with a focus on visible injuries and ill-treatment in general. 127 The CPT also stresses that the equivalence of care requires that the so-called “morning after” pill and/or other forms of abortion at later stages of a pregnancy, which are available to women in the community, should also be available under the same conditions to women deprived of their liberty: see Doc. CPT/Inf (2000) 13, para. 32. 128 See section 2.2.2 on general human rights treaties. This line of reasoning has also been employed in relation to reproductive rights in cases where detained women desired IVF treatment. See, e.g., ECtHR, Xxxxxxx v. United Kingdom, Grand Chamber, Judgment, 4 December 2006, Appl. no. 44362/04, para 67; and the Australian case of Castles v. Secretary to the Department of Justice [2010] VSC 310 (9 July 2010), para. 108 (the focus in this latter case was on the right to health). 129 See the national chapter on the USA in Part III of this volume. The chapter discusses the reproductive injustice done to many young women in US prisons, convicted to long prison sentences for drug-related offences. The USA chapter also sheds light on the ineffectiveness of the 14th Amendment (the right to terminate a pregnancy). Women in prison can rarely enjoy this right, because they have to pay for their own abortions and cannot bear the costs. The USA national chapter also reports that women prisoners were compelled to have an abortion. 130 Female prisoners are not entitled to conjugal visits in England and Wales, Greece,...
