Vice President Mike Pence listens as Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during the vice presidential debate in Salt Lake City, October 7, 2020. © 2020 Justin Sullivan/Pool via AP

Millions tuned into the US Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday night. The discussion of human rights ranged from reproductive justice to the police killing of Breonna Taylor.

Here are three takeaways from the debate:

The US Government Response to Covid-19 Should Address Racial Disparities

Much of the debate centered around the Trump administration’s response to the Covid-19 crisis and what Joe Biden would do differently. What wasn’t discussed on Wednesday was the disproportionate impact that the pandemic is having on Black and Latinx people, who are three times more likely than their white counterparts to contract the novel coronavirus and nearly twice as likely to die from it.

US policies have directly contributed to racial disparities in health, housing, and criminal law. Candidates should support federal relief packages that focus on helping those hit hardest by Covid-19, such as people of color living in poverty, and do not leave out segments of the population, such as immigrants.

The US Needs a Plan to Reimagine Public Safety

While the candidates sparred about policing, the real focus should be on the structural changes needed to end the police violence and systemic racism that threaten Black and brown communities.

Both VP candidates want to increase funding for policing, but police contribute to widespread harm. What we constitute as real public safety needs to drastically shift. Limit the scope of police immediately & invest in communities. #VPDebate https://t.co/r0ZzelgkXS
— Dreisen Heath (@dreisenheath) October 8, 2020

Human Rights Watch recommends that reform efforts address three critical issues in order to be effective: reducing the role of police in addressing societal problems, redirecting funds to initiatives that support people and empower communities, and strengthening independent police oversight and accountability.

Reproductive Rights at Risk

The candidates were queried on the implications of a potential Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.

Reproductive freedom is one of the rights at stake following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Supreme Court with a new justice could eliminate constitutional protections for women’s right to access abortion by upholding excessive regulation of abortion providers or by abandoning the Roe v. Wade line of precedent, instead leaving it to individual states to determine access to legal abortion. If that happens, many states might criminalize abortion. At least four states already have “trigger laws” on the books that automatically outlaw abortion if Roe is overturned, and dozens of others have laws that put access to abortion at high risk.

Candidates for elected office should back efforts to ensure women get the health care they need and oppose measures to limit treatment and access to contraception and abortion care.

Election officials need to ensure that every method of voting allowed in their state is easy to access and use for all voters, so that there can be a credible US general election on November 3, 2020. #VPDebate https://t.co/LAlSaxBzt6
— Neela Ghoshal (@NeelaGhoshal) October 8, 2020

Other key human rights issues at stake in the 2020 US elections—including LGBT rights, immigration, and foreign policy—received no or insufficient airtime. Read Human Rights Watch’s guide to the 2020 US elections to learn more about the questions you should ask of the candidates for local, state, and federal office who seek your vote in November.

The conduct of the election itself also implicates a fundamental human right: the right to vote. In September, Human Rights Watch released a report on the measures that election officials should take to protect voting rights amid the pandemic—most importantly by ensuring all methods of voting allowable in each jurisdiction are genuinely accessible to all eligible voters. Read it here.