When we talk about 'reproductive rights' this is what we mean. It's the difference between people as objects, and people as agents: between regarding people as pawns on the policy chessboard and recognizing them as the players, the decision-makers, the drivers of policy; autonomous individuals intimately concerned with the direction of their own lives. Under these conditions women, especially, enjoy better health and live fuller lives.
Interpretation
Reproductive rights emphasize the autonomy and agency of individuals, particularly women, in making decisions about their lives and health.
This quote by Nafis Sadik highlights the fundamental distinction between viewing individuals as mere tools in a policy game versus recognizing them as active participants who shape their own destinies. It underscores the importance of reproductive rights in empowering people, particularly women, to make choices that affect their health and quality of life, ultimately leading to a more equitable society where individuals can thrive.
In practice
In a discussion about gender equality at a conference, you might emphasize this quote to highlight the importance of autonomy in women's health decisions.
Unfortunately for ethical egoism, the claim that we will all be better off if every one of us does what is in his or her own interest is incorrect. This is shown by what are known as "prisoner's dilemma" situations, which are playing an increasingly important role in discussions of ethical theory... At least on the collective level, therefore, egoism is self-defeating - a conclusion well brought out by Parfit in his aforementioned Reasons and Persons.
You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.
Occasionally the conflict between 'what we stand for' and 'what we do' has been forthrightly addressed.
Rediscovering the controversies that occupied early Christianity sharpens our awareness of the major issue in the whole debate, then and now: What is the source of religious authority? For the Christian the question takes more specific form: What is the relation between the authority of ones own experience and that claimed for the scriptures, the ritual and the clergy?
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
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