On March 10 and 11, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights heard oral arguments in the case of Manuela et al. v. El Salvador. El Salvador has an absolute abortion ban. Under that law, women who have abortions go to jail along with women like Manuela who, in 2008, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after suffering a miscarriage.

Today, Pregnancy Justice along with numerous allies provided a joint submission to the United Nations, titled Criminalization and Civil Punishment of Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes and joined another joint submission, titled Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice, to inform the U.N. Human Rights Council's upcoming review of the United States on the status of human rights in our country.

Manuela and her family

Pregnancy Justice, working with the Reproductive Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law, submitted an amicus curiae brief in the case of Manuela and her family to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In February 2008, a woman identified as Manuela went to a hospital in El Salvador after experiencing an obstetric emergency at home.

In February 2018, timed to build upon the December 2017 fact-finding mission to the United States by Professor Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Pregnancy Justice co-hosted a discussion of the unique ways in which poverty affects women across the United States.

Last month, Pregnancy Justice co-hosted a public panel discussion entitled "American Poverty and Gender: Government Control and Neglect of Women Living in Poverty" at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. The event followed the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights’ December 2017 visit to the United States, and explored “the intersections of gender, poverty, and race, with a particular focus on how state surveillance, punishment, and limited access to health care impact the human rights of women.

Pregnancy Justice and NYU Law School's Reproductive Justice Clinic, along with more than twenty leading international human rights and public health experts, submitted an amicus (friend of the court) brief to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the "Commission") in support of Manuela, a woman who died in prison after being convicted under El Salvador's total abortion ban.

In July 2017, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report criticizing the detention of pregnant women in the United States and highlighting the harsh Wisconsin law Pregnancy Justice and our allies have been working to defeat.

This April, the United Nations is holding a General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on global drug policies, and Pregnancy Justice is leading an international effort to address how those policies are hurting women and families.

Pregnancy Justice was the first national organization to offer support to Jennie McCormack, an Idaho woman who was arrested for having an abortion. We are thrilled to report an important victory in Ms. McCormack's case. Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its second opinion in McCormack v. Herzog, holding that it is unconstitutional to prosecute women for having abortions, and striking down several parts of Idaho's laws that limit women's rights and access to abortion.

Pregnancy Justice Participates in United Nations' Second Review of the USA Under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process
September 26, 2014

Pregnancy Justice was approached by INPUD/INWUD (International Network of People/Women Who Use Drugs), who were hoping to cite our research on arrests and detentions of pregnant women in a shadow report for the United Nations' second review of the United States under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process.