Friend-of-the Court Brief: James Roger Demers v. Canada
(On October 30, the Center’s U.S. Legal Program submitted its first friend-of-the-court brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).)
The Center for Reproductive Rights (the “Center”) is a non-governmental human rights organization dedicated to the advancement of reproductive rights as fundamental human rights. To carry out its work, the Center promotes the domestic and international application of international human rights instruments and consideration of related precedent in comparative law. As a result, the Center has developed a special degree of knowledge and expertise in the international human rights framework as well as in comparative law standards and U.S. constitutional law. In addition, as a global human rights organization focused on reproductive rights, the Center has special expertise in the experiences of women and girls seeking to exercise their fundamental human rights as well as the experiences of reproductive healthcare providers who provide access to those rights. In 2009, the Center conducted a human rights fact finding investigation in the United States which focused on and documented the widespread harassment, intimidation, and other violations of their rights that reproductive healthcare providers are routinely subjected to by those protesting abortion rights. Hence the legitimate interest of the Center for Reproductive Rights in the present case.
The issues raised in the case James Roger Demers v. Canada are of vital importance to the protection of the reproductive rights of women and girls and the rights of reproductive healthcare providers whose work ensures that women and girls are able to exercise their
fundamental human rights.