With the release of its Federal Policy Agenda, the Center for Reproductive Rights calls on policy-makers to demonstrate their commitment to women’s health and self-determination, and to acknowledge this nation’s obligation to respect reproductive rights as human rights. The Agenda, which the Center will distribute widely to officeholders, political candidates, the media, think tanks, and other organizations, calls on policymakers to take bold action in support of women’s reproductive health and autonomy, and sets forth concrete and attainable goals:
- Support of comprehensive sex education
- Expansion of access to contraception
- Protection of a woman’s right to choose and obtain an abortion
- Access to high quality health care for all pregnant women
- Promotion of reproductive rights and health in foreign assistance programs
- U.S. ratification of human rights treaties on women’s rights and children’s rights
The need for action is clear: Almost half of all pregnancies among women in the United States are unintended, four out of ten girls will become pregnant at least once before age twenty, and African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women.
