US Commits Reproductive Violence Against Its Citizens

By Samantha Ward 28/08/2026 2 min read 11 views

On July 7, the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 62/18, recognizing forced pregnancy as a form of reproductive violence.

This resolution addresses humanitarian situations and does not directly apply to US domestic abortion law. However, the category it recognizes is relevant to the current situation in the US.

Four years after the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and overturned Roe v. Wade, 13 states have total abortion bans. Women have been denied care during miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies while physicians waited for conditions to deteriorate.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a binding treaty that the US ratified in 1992. It protects the right to life, the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and the right to privacy.

The US ratified the ICCPR with a declaration that the Covenant is not self-executing, meaning its provisions cannot be directly enforced in domestic courts. However, this declaration does not eliminate the US’s international obligations.

The Human Rights Committee has been building a case against the US for over twenty years. In KL v. Peru (2005), the committee found that denying a therapeutic abortion constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

In Mellet v. Ireland (2016) and Whelan v. Ireland (2017), the committee found that subjecting women carrying pregnancies with fatal fetal conditions to a restrictive abortion regime violated their rights.

These findings are relevant to the current situation in the US, where women are being denied care and prosecuted for miscarriages and self-managed abortions.

There is no international court that can order the US to repeal its abortion bans.

International human rights compliance runs on reporting cycles, documented findings, and the slow erosion of credibility. The Universal Periodic Review process gives other governments a formal multilateral venue to press the US on its human rights record.

Special rapporteurs can issue reports and request country visits. While these mechanisms may not force the US to repeal its abortion bans, they can create a formal record of the US’s human rights violations and erode its credibility on the international stage.

The non-self-executing declaration forecloses direct ICCPR claims in federal court. However, state courts may consider international human rights law as persuasive authority when interpreting their own constitutions.

In states with constitutional privacy protections, litigants can argue that international human rights norms are persuasive authority for interpreting those rights broadly.

The cumulative political pressure of a government that cannot deploy human rights frameworks abroad without being handed its own record in response may ultimately lead to change. They will have to consider the implications of their actions on the international stage.

The US’s international obligations under the ICCPR do not expire, and the argument that reservations and domestic political choices place it beyond reach of its treaty obligations is increasingly difficult to make. It is becoming clear that the US must re-examine its stance on abortion and consider the safety of women’s health.