Front Page Features Archive

On 'Friday Night Lights', Abortion Stigma Goes Primetime

08.27.10 - It's evident just how much of a taboo abortion has become when a television show gets lauded as bold for having a character go through with the procedure. Friday Night Lights, NBC's gripping portrayal of life in small-town Texas, is being deservedly praised for the emotional realism with which it recently depicted a teenager's decision to have an abortion…

U.S. Submits Historic Human Rights Report to U.N., but Seriously Disappoints

08.24.10 - This week, for the first time, the United States submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, a rotating body of countries that peer-review U.N. member countries' human rights records. This submission is historic…

Forsaken Lives:The Harmful Impact of the Philippine Criminal Abortion Ban

The Philippines is one of the few countries in the world to criminalize abortion in all circumstances with no clear exceptions.

As a consequence, women in the Philippines continue to die or suffer grave complications from unsafe abortion procedures, producing a massive and unnecessary public health crisis and violating the fundamental human rights of Filipino women.

Despite the criminal ban, in 2008 alone, an estimated 560,000 induced abortions took place in the Philippines; 90,000 women sought treatment for complications and 1,000 women died. …

Judge Blocks Enforcement of OK Abortion Ultrasound Law

07.19.10 - (PRESS RELEASE) This morning a state judge ruled to block enforcement of Oklahoma's recently enacted abortion ultrasound requirement. The injunction will be in place until the case is resolved. The judge also set a pre-trial hearing date for January 21, 2011. …

U.N. Calls on Nigeria to Tackle Teens Reproductive Health CRR and WARDC Urge Immediate Action

07.14.10 - (PRESS RELEASE) The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and its partners in Nigeria Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) strongly urged the government of Nigeria to take immediate steps to follow recommendations from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC Committee) and more aggressively address the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents in the country…

Nebraska Takes Aim at Roe

Pregnant with their third child, Timothy and Dawn Mosher never thought they would seek an abortion. But five months into Dawn's pregnancy, doctors diagnosed the fetus with an extreme and irreparable spinal cord defect called spina bifida. This devastating condition would have subjected the Moshers' child to a brief life filled with incredible pain and, ultimately, a premature death…

CRR and EIPR Applaud 108 Countries' Call for U.N. to Address Maternal Deaths and

CRR, ACPD, and EIPR Applaud 108 Countries' Call for U.N. to Address Maternal Deaths and Disabilities as Human Rights Issue

06.21.10 - The Center for Reproductive Rights, Action Canada Population and Development (ACPD), and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) praised a group of United Nations Human Rights Council member states and observer states for calling on the U.N. to address pregnancy-related deaths and injuries around the world as a human rights issue…

Center Demands Truth in Advertising from CPCs

06.08.10 - The Center for Reproductive Rights has joined the City of Baltimore to defend a first-in-the-nation ordinance that demands truth in advertising from limited-service pregnancy centers. Those centers, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, are non-medical facilities that counsel pregnant women against using abortion and birth control services. Often, they advertise themselves as abortion or family planning clinics to lure women seeking those services to their facilities…

Decline in Maternal Mortality Welcome, but Suffering Persists

An article in the recent Lancet, a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, announced a global decrease in maternal deaths from 526,300 in 1980 to 342,900 in 2008. The Center welcomes this research and other academic studies that seek to measure progress in the reduction of maternal mortality, but it's important to remember the magnitude of suffering that is too common and also tragically unique to each death…

Women Deliver Conference: Moving Reproductive Health Forward

From June 7-9, the Center for Reproductive Rights joined more than 2,000 women, advocates, donors, government representatives and experts from 115 countries in Washington, D.C. at the Women Deliver Conference to urge global leaders to take action to improve women's and girls' health. …