Abortion restrictions are incompatible with international human rights law. The U.S. government’s failure to ensure the provision of safe, legal, and accessible health care, including abortion, violates its obligations to protect and fulfill many human rights. In facilitating an increasingly restrictive landscape around abortion access, the U.S. has breached its international human rights obligations. Moreover, by removing constitutional protections for abortion and empowering states to criminalize persons seeking, providing, and supporting abortion, the U.S. has engaged in prohibited retrogressive measures in direct contravention of its treaty obligations and recommendations it accepted during its 3rd Universal Periodic Review (UPR) with the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

In advance of the United States’ 4th UPR, this submission to the UN HRC is authored by Ipas and diverse partners. It provides quantitative research and qualitative data gathered from health-care providers, researchers, doulas, abortion funds, and pregnant and/or previously pregnant individuals directly impacted by restrictive abortion laws in southern states. It also highlights prior UPR cycle and UN treaty body recommendations that the U.S. has received and largely disregarded. Finally, this submission also presents recommendations for member states to submit to the U.S. during its 4th UPR.