From the Center for Reproductive Rights:
3.30.21
Statement from Nancy Northup, President and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, on the release of the U.S. State Department’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices:
Today, Secretary of State Blinken affirmed what international human rights bodies have articulated time and again for nearly three decades, that sexual and reproductive rights are human rights. In directing the Department of State to create an addendum to the 2020 Human Rights Reports on the status of reproductive rights, Secretary Blinken has taken an important step towards fulfilling the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to promoting sexual and reproductive rights as human rights.
The Trump administration made no secret that it did not care about the plight of women, girls, transgender, and nonbinary people who need access to vital sexual and reproductive health care and sought to erase sexual and reproductive rights from global human rights discourse. Today, Secretary Blinken denounced those efforts, including the deeply flawed Commission on Unalienable Rights and the so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration, while affirming a stronger commitment to advancing human rights moving forward. He expressly acknowledged the intrinsic legitimacy of all human rights, acknowledging that they are co-equal and interdependent.
We applaud the Biden-Harris administration for its commitment to resume reporting on reproductive rights in future country reports. We encourage the Administration to champion the Reproductive Rights are Human Rights Act, led by Senator Menendez and Representative Katherine Clark.
This legislation would require the State Department to include reporting on the status of reproductive rights in the annual Human Rights Reports, including access to safe abortion services, data on pregnancy-related injuries and deaths, access to contraception and family planning information, and all forms of reproductive coercion.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, along with 92 partner organizations, proudly endorsed and supported this very important bill in the past and we look forward to doing so again in the 117th Congress.
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MEDIA CONTACT: center.press@reprorights.org
