| For a long time,due to the influence of China’s history,culture and female physiology,people have regarded childbearing as an inescapable responsibility of women,and even tied it to marriage,believing that women have implicitly agreed to the obligation to bear offspring when they choose to enter into marriage,but this clearly ignores women’s reproductive rights.In recent times,as women have become more aware of their rights,they have gradually gained the right to decide on their own whether or not to have children,rather than being relegated to the role of an instrument of procreation.Spouses are the main subjects in the exercise of their reproductive rights and differences of opinion are bound to arise on reproductive matters,which can lead to conflicts between spouses over their reproductive rights.In judicial practice,it is not uncommon for the maternity interests of both spouses to be difficult to balance,one reason for this is that the exercise of the couple’s reproductive rights is not clearly defined in our legal system.The Law on Population and Family Planning promulgated in 2002 provides for the equal enjoyment of reproductive rights by men and women,but it does not specify how reproductive rights should be exercised.Article 23 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on the Application of the Marriage and Family Part of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China(I)clearly provides for the resolution of conflicts of maternity rights between spouses,but this one article alone is far from sufficient to deal with the complex and changing situations of conflicts of maternity rights between spouses in practice.Another reason is that the physiological differences between men and women dictate that spouses play different roles in the process of realising their reproductive rights,with the wife paying a much higher price for childbirth than the husband.Wives’ lives and health are at risk during childbirth and they are under great psychological pressure.Although most couples are able to agree on the exercise of their respective reproductive rights,conflicts over the reproductive rights of couples inevitably arise when they disagree on the issue of fertility at some point.How women’s reproductive rights are equally guaranteed within the marriage relationship is key to promoting the reproductive intentions of women in the marriage relationship and to promoting family reproductive harmony.How to provide equal protection for women’s reproductive rights in marital relationships is the key to increasing women’s willingness to have children in marital relationships and promoting family reproductive harmony.Strengthening attention to the issue of equal protection of women’s reproductive rights in the event of conflict between the couple’s reproductive rights,so that women who are in a vulnerable position in the reproductive process can receive the protection they deserve,is a top priority in ensuring the equal realisation of the couple’s reproductive rights.This article takes the specific case of women’s right to be informed about reproduction and their right to make reproductive decisions being infringed upon in the conflict of maternity rights between husband and wife as the object of study.It adopts the methods of case analysis and comparative analysis to analyse the common types and characteristics of women’s reproductive rights being infringed upon in the conflict of maternity rights between husband and wife in China’s judicial practice,and puts forward legal suggestions to achieve equal protection of women’s reproductive rights in the conflict of maternity rights between husband and wife in China from the perspective of tilted protection of women’s reproductive rights.The research is based on the following principles: firstly,it starts from the basic theory of the protection of women’s reproductive rights in case of conflict between spouses,and explains the definition,causes and types of conflict between spouses’ reproductive rights,as well as the jurisprudence of the protection of women’s reproductive rights in case of conflict between spouses’ reproductive rights.Secondly,the specific cases in which women’s reproductive rights are infringed in judicial practice are divided into two categories for specific analysis,so as to summarise the current situation of the protection of women’s reproductive rights in China when resolving conflicts between spouses’ reproductive rights and the shortcomings of the existing legal system,and to draw on the experience of foreign countries in the protection of women’s reproductive rights when resolving conflicts between spouses’ reproductive rights.Finally,some legislative and judicial recommendations are made to protect women’s reproductive rights in the event of a conflict between the reproductive rights of spouses in China. |
