As you deliberate upon the health care reform bill, we write to urge you to reject provisions that would effectively obstruct access to insurance coverage for abortion and interfere with the ability of women in the United States to make decisions about their own health care.

I gave birth in the developing world, in South Africa, to be precise. South Africa was in the spotlight recently when a government-commissioned report showed a 20 per cent increase in the number of deaths from pregnancy-related causes between 2005 and 2007 over the previous three-year period. The report said that nearly 40 per cent of these deaths were avoidable.

Human Rights Watch welcomes the UPR Working Group report on Yemen, and seeks to further urge the government to implement fully the accepted recommendations.

Statement by Human Rights Watch and the International Harm Reduction Association at the Human Rights Council general debate on the protection of human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS

On June 26th, which marks both the “International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking” and the “International Day in support of the victims of torture," Rebecca Schleifer writes of the many countries that continue to use torture, pure and simple, in their war against drugs.

The US government should reform immigration enforcement policies that inflict needless suffering on immigrant women and their families, rights advocates said today. A former immigration detention center nurse, a former detainee, and a group of leading human rights advocacy and research groups will testify to Congress at a Capitol Hill briefing on June 24, 2009.