The Human Rights and Gender Justice (HRGJ) Clinic at CUNY Law focuses on reproductive rights issues in the United States, South Asia, and Latin America, partnering with if/when/how, Pregnancy Justice (formerly National Advocates for Pregnant Women), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), and UN Human Rights Experts. Below is a selection of some of HRGJ’s work.
Report to the UN Human Rights Committee: U.S. Criminalization of Abortion and Pregnancy Outcomes
In September 2023, the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, If/When/How, and Pregnancy Justice have authored a new report on Criminalization and Punishment for Abortion, Stillbirth, Miscarriage, and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. The report highlights human rights violations that occur when states pass laws that criminalize performing abortions and when state officials misuse other laws to surveil, investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute pregnant individuals based on the perceived impact of their actions on their pregnancy.
Reproductive Rights and Defense of Pregnant People in the U.S., Asia, and Latin America
Working with key partners, HRGJ Clinic students and faculty document state laws that can be used to criminalize self-managed abortion and pregnancy loss, research the impact of conscientious objection by health care providers on the provision of sexual and reproductive health services, and report to UN human rights bodies documenting criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, obstetric violence, maternal mortality, separation of families and racial disparities in sexual and reproductive health and child removal policies in the United States.
The Clinic also files human rights amicus briefs to federal and state courts in cases challenging abortion restrictions, criminal prosecution of pregnant people following miscarriages, discrimination against parents with disabilities by ACS and detention of pregnant people for forced drug treatment.
The Clinic partners to support local human rights hearings and reports. In 2023-24, the Clinic supported a People’s Tribunal to End Obstetric Violence and Racism in New York City. From 2012-14, students worked to address the “perfect storm” of restrictive state and federal laws that have led to profound barriers for women seeking reproductive health care in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas including work on a Human Rights Hearing in September 2015.
Internationally, the Clinic is involved in research and advocacy to stop forced marriage in South Asia and litigation pending before the Inter-American Commission brought on behalf of a woman in Chile who was forcibly sterilized because she is HIV positive. In 2013, students drafted a brief for the Commission on international standards prohibiting forced sterilization. In past years, we have worked to reform laws criminalizing abortion and access to contraceptives in the Philippines.
Defending Pregnant People
HRGJ authored two human rights briefs to challenge the prosecution of pregnant women for the death of a fetus following a miscarriage. In each case, the women were either prosecuted for murder (Gibbs v. Mississippi) or manslaughter (Mississippi v. Buckhalter) of their fetus following a miscarriage. HRGJ worked with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to recognize the forcing pregnant people into inpatient drug rehabilitation violates the human right to be free from arbitrary detention and discriminates against women. HRGJ works closely with if/when/how and Pregnancy Justice to document laws and prosecution policies that lead to criminalization of pregnant people for self-managed abortion and pregnancy outcomes.
Challenges to Criminal Abortion Restrictions
HRGJ has worked to challenge criminal abortion laws and restrictions in UN forums. In addition to its work on the U.S. the Clinic has exposed the practice of coercing confession from women suffering complications from clandestine abortions by withholding treatment in public hospitals in Chile, the complete abortion ban in Nicaragua, the compete abortion ban, lack of post-abortion care and ban on contraceptives in the Philippines. In Colombia, the Clinic authored an amicus brief to the Colombian Constitutional Court in a case that resulted in the decriminalization of abortion up to 24 weeks, and advocated for women’s right to have a legal abortion against illegal obstructions and the government’s failure to ensure this right.