A Remarkable Moment, A Remarkable Challenge

Of Counsel, Spring 2006
Message from our President Nancy Northup

The Center recently achieved several landmark victories in the global struggle to establish reproductive rights as fundamental human rights, however at this moment of dramatic international advances, the United States is moving backward.

It is a remarkable moment in the global struggle to establish reproductive rights as fundamental human rights. We have achieved landmark victories before regional and international human rights bodies on access to abortion. In March, Mexico settled our case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, on behalf of Paulina, a thirteen-year-old rape victim. The settlement marks the first time that a Latin American government has acknowledged a rights violation in denying a woman an abortion. Just seven months ago, the United Nations Human Rights Committee found Peru guilty of inflicting cruel and degrading treatment by denying an abortion that was recommended by our client’s doctor. Another first.

Yet at this moment of dramatic advances, the United States is moving backward. In Kansas, the attorney general wants a wide range of professionals—doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers—to report to the government any and all sexual activity among teens under 16. Of course professionals must report suspected abuse, but the attorney general wants all sexual activity reported, abusive or not. After a trial in January, we blocked this outrageous policy.In Arizona, a state hospital fired the director of its OB/GYN medical residency program for simply doing his job—supporting abortion training for medical residents. Indeed, it’s training that residency programs are required to make available for accreditation. We’re suing Arizona because women need doctors to be trained in providing full reproductive health care, and because doctors need to be able to advocate for their patients without fear of intimidation or retaliation.

And this fall, we’ll be back in the Supreme Court. If the justices follow their prior decision, including our 2000 victory in Stenberg v. Carhart, we will prevail. But because our opponents want to move us backward, we again have to prove what we have proven so many times and in so many courts before: bans on abortion endanger women’s health and lives.

We will seek to move the United States in the direction that the rest of the world is moving in—towards protecting women’s health and reproductive freedom. As we prepare for this remarkable challenge, we’d like to thank you for your continued support. It is more crucial now than ever before.

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