Cultural benefits and practices such as son preference, pregnancy and childbirth taboos, traditional contraceptive and abortion methods, sati, dowry killings and patriarchy have been identified as problems which hold back the improvement of women’s health, especially their reproductive health.
More traditional religious views and practices of Islam and Christianity regarding sexuality, abortion, contraception and the relationship of women and men in marriage and the family are similarly regarded as retrogressive by women’s health activists.
