Actions
Maternal mortality claims the life of one woman every minute – more than half a million women every year. This is a human rights scandal. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is a crucial guarantee of the right to maternal health. The United States is one of only eight countries not to have ratified CEDAW. While Secretary Clinton's State Department supports ratification, the Senate needs to act now. Urge the Senate to ratify CEDAW! Download the action Ratify the Treaty for the Rights of Women! in PDF format | Download the action Ratify the Treaty for the Rights of Women! in RTF format
Although Peru is a middle-income country, its maternal mortality rate is the second worst in South America. Low-income, rural, and indigenous women are most at risk. Peru has been a focus of the human-right-to-maternal-health community, and President Alan Garcia has promised better equity in maternal health funding. But he has yet to fulfill that promise.
Urge the Nicaraguan government to repeal the criminalization of access to abortion services, even where continuation of a pregnancy endangers a woman's or girl's life or health, or where the pregnancy is a result of rape.
Real health care reform could help bring the U.S. government closer to fulfilling the human right to health care. Yet Congress, and particularly the Senate, continues to treat health care as a market commodity, rather than a public good. The Senate must stop pandering to the insurance industry and instead provide a Medicare-like public plan that is accessible to everyone.
