UN Universal Periodic Review Presents Opportunity for the U.S. to Commit to Reproductive Rights as Human Rights
Biden Administration to Receive UN’s Report in March
Next month, the Biden administration has a unique opportunity on the global stage to commit itself to protecting and promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights when it appears at the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt the report from the U.S.’s Third Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
In a recent article for Just Security, an online forum analyzing U.S. national security law and policy, Risa E. Kaufman, Director of U.S. Human Rights for the Center for Reproductive Rights, urges the administration to use the opportunity to signal its commitment—and then back it up with action.
The UPR is a comprehensive human rights review that takes place for each country before the U.N. Human Rights Council every four years. During the U.S.’s review in November, the United States—represented at the time by the Trump administration—received hundreds of recommendations from U.N. member states on a range of issues, with a significant number focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
While the Biden administration “has taken first steps to undo some of the Trump-era wrongs causing devastating harm to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice, and particularly impacting marginalized communities, there is much more to be done,” says Kaufman. The UPR “is an occasion for the Biden administration to proclaim its commitment to comprehensively address the extraordinary damage the Trump administration did to reproductive health care access globally and within the United States.”
Read Kaufman’s article here: “Now is the Time for the Biden Administration to Commit to Upholding Reproductive Rights as Human Rights”
Related content: UN Member States Make Recommendations to U.S. to Protect Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
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