Engaging Policymakers
In Washington D.C.
The Center's Federal Advocacy Program works within Congress and the executive branch, including with the President and federal agencies, to protect and promote reproductive rights and health. We advocate for domestic and foreign policy that is based on science, not ideology, and that reflects human rights principles.
Working with a new administration and a new Congress, the Center hopes to see dramatic improvements in U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In anticipation of the new administration in Washington, the Center has developed a comprehensive "Reproductive Rights Federal Policy Agenda," which sets forth concrete proposals to:
- promote unbiased information about reproductive and sexual health;
- improve access to contraception;
- secure women’s right to choose and obtain abortion;
- improve healthcare for pregnant women;
- support reproductive rights in foreign assistance programs;
- promote recognition of and protection for reproductive rights as human rights at the United Nations.
To assist policymakers addressing these issues, we have supplied critical facts and legal analyses that support our policy recommendations.
In addition, on the day after the elections, the Center called on President-elect Obama to take several immediate steps to undo the harmful polices of the Bush Administration, and to put the United States on track to resume its position as a world leader in championing equality and human rights, and in supporting access to essential reproductive healthcare. We have asked the President to promote reproductive health policies guided by science and not ideology by striking funding for abstinence-only programs from his proposed budget, and by appointing agency heads, including the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the Food and Drug Administration, who will not allow politics to trump science.
We have also stressed the critical importance of appointing judges to the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) that are committed to supporting established constitutional rights, including women's right to choose abortion. We have also asked that the President support reproductive rights and health at the United Nations and within foreign assistance programs by repealing the Global Gag Rule, restoring funding to the United Nations Population Fund, and nominating representatives to the United Nations who are committed to living up to the U.S.'s prior commitments to promote and protect reproductive rights.
The Center’s federal advocacy program also works to stop harmful federal regulations and policies, such as the "Teen Endangerment Act," and the Federal Abortion Ban. Recently we opposed a Department of Health and Human Services "conscientious refusal" regulation, which, if adopted, would permit a broad array of health care providers and institutions to deny access to critical reproductive healthcare.
