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From Risk to Rights: Realizing States’ Obligations to Prevent and Address Maternal Mortality
During the past several decades, sexual and reproductive rights advocates have transformed the global community’s understanding of maternal mortality and morbidity, framing it as a clear violation of women’s fundamental human rights. This change has [...]
Shadow Letter to the CEDAW Committee on Sierra Leone
The Center and L.A.W.Y.E.R.S. submitted this shadow letter to the CEDAW Committee during its 57th session in connection with its review of Sierra Leone. This letter highlights Sierra Leone’s obligation to guarantee all women reproductive [...]
UN Committee Calls on United States to Immediately Address Racial Discrimination in Health Care
UN Committee Calls on United States to Immediately Address Racial Discrimination in Health Care Recommendations from Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) call for immediate action to address inequity in health care coverage, [...]
Spotlighting Racial Bias
In LaKeisha’s hometown of Atlanta, African American women die in childbirth at a rate more than three times the national average. Following an emergency c-section, LaKeisha experienced a brush with this unsettling statistic when she [...]
Reproductive Injustice: Racial and Gender Discrimination in U.S. Health Care
When it ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the United States committed to ensure the right to health care free from all forms of racial discrimination to [...]
The Human Rights Committee Urges Malawi to Safeguard Sexual and Reproductive Rights
In July 2014, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (the Committee), which monitors states’ implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, released its concluding observations on Malawi, urging the government to take [...]
Whose Right to Life? Women’s Rights and Prenatal Protections under Human Rights and Comparative Law
The right to life is a fundamental human right, central to the enjoyment of all other human rights. International human rights law recognizes this basic right begins at birth, and international and regional human rights [...]
Reproductive rights are human rights.
Help us ensure that every government around the world guarantees them.
United Nations Calls on Perú to Expand Access to Legal Abortion
United Nations Calls on Perú to Expand Access to Legal Abortion Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) Cites Denial of Legal Abortion Services As Human Rights Violations (PRESS RELEASE) The United [...]
Combatting Child Marriage
Combatting Child Marriage The numbers are disturbing. According to a recent UNICEF study, one in nine girls in the developing world will marry before age 15, one in three will marry before 18. Some are [...]
United Nations: Ireland Must Expand Access To Safe And Legal Abortion Services
United Nations: Ireland Must Expand Access To Safe And Legal Abortion Services (PRESS RELEASE) A United Nations (U.N.) Committee has ordered Ireland to amend its law and constitution to legalize abortion services for pregnant women [...]
PassBlue: Will Women’s Reproductive Rights Be Dropped in the Post-2015 Agenda?
PassBlue: Will Women’s Reproductive Rights Be Dropped in the Post-2015 Agenda? Rebecca Brown The United Nations’ post-2015 development agenda is the next phase of the Millennium Development Goals, which provided a 15-year road map to [...]
U.N. Committee Questions Ireland on its Track Record of Denying Women Access to Safe Abortion Services
U.N. Committee Questions Ireland on its Track Record of Denying Women Access to Safe Abortion Services (PRESS RELEASE) Ireland’s minister of justice, Frances Fitzgerald and other representatives of the Irish government were questioned this week [...]
Reproductive rights are human rights.
Help us ensure that every government around the world guarantees them.