Nancy Northup: Center for Reproductive Rights

Nancy Northup is the President of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a global human rights organization that uses constitutional and international law to secure women’s reproductive freedom. The Center has won groundbreaking cases before federal and state courts, U.N. committees, and regional human rights bodies, such as the European Court of Human Rights. Working at the state, national, and international levels, the Center has built the legal capacity of women’s rights advocates around the world, working in over 45 countries.
Nancy is an attorney with extensive experience in constitutional impact litigation, criminal law, and reproductive rights advocacy. Here’s Nancy….

In your opinion and vision, how does the Center for Reproductive Rights differ and/or stand out from other reproductive rights advocacy groups? How do you define reproductive rights?
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a legal advocacy organization which uses the law to advance women’s reproductive freedom not only here in the United States, but in countries around the world. While many of our sister organizations work at the grassroots level, in the political realm, or as providers of reproductive health care, we work in the courts and legislatures to ensure that governments adopt policies that make reproductive health care accessible and available to all.
Reproductive rights encompassing two key ideals – the right to reproductive health care and the right to reproductive self-determination. In other words, women should be free to decide whether and when to have children, exercise their choices without coercion, and be able to obtain the best reproductive health care available, regardless of their personal circumstances. Quality reproductive health care includes not only abortion services, but access to contraception, pre-natal care, and medically accurate and comprehensive information about sexual health.

What do you consider to be common misperceptions of reproductive rights?
People often make the mistake of believing that when people talk about reproductive rights, they are only talking about a woman’s right to have an abortion. As I noted earlier, reproductive rights include a wide range of rights associated with women’s reproductive health, including the right to comprehensive information about reproductive and sexual health, access to contraception, abortion and safe pregnancy care.
How did you get into reproductive rights work?
I began as a volunteer lobbyist for the Rhode Island Women’s Political Caucus when I was in college. After moving to New York City in the early 1980s, I did political work for pro-choice candidates and the National Organization for Women, as well as serve as an escort at Planned Parenthood.
Why do you think reproductive rights is so important?
The underlying principles of reproductive rights I mentioned above—the right to reproductive health care and right to reproductive self-determination—cut to the core of a woman’s fundamental well-being and place in the world. Gender inequality and discrimination harm girls’ and women’s health directly and indirectly, and neglect of their reproductive health needs prevents them from participating fully and equally in society. Full citizenship for women can only be realized when women participate with dignity as equal members of society with the autonomy to determine the course of their own lives. This is a fundamental truth for women in the United States and around the globe.
Looking back at 2007 as we’re about to head into 2008, what are some of the Center’s 2007 highlights and accomplishments?
One key accomplishment in the U.S. for the Center this past year was our work to protect teenagers’ access to reproductive health care. In too many cases, governments and societies have tended either to ignore adolescent reproductive health issues or to consider them indistinguishable from childhood health concerns. Nearly three years ago, we filed a case against the Food and Drug Administration for its failure to make the emergency contraceptive, Plan B available without a prescription to women of all ages. Since that time, the agency has increased women’s access to the contraceptive, but only to those 18 and over. Months of testimony in our case made it clear that when the FDA excluded teenagers from access to this safe and effective contraceptive, it ignored the recommendations of its own scientific review panel and all the compelling research verifying the drug’s safety in order to appease the White House. In fact, the judge in the case has concluded on more than one occasion during litigation that we made a “strong showing of bad faithâ€? by the agency in its decision-making around Plan B. Based on the overwhelming evidence, we’ve now asked the court to order the FDA to make the contraceptive available to women of all ages. We’re awaiting a decision.
On the international front, a fact-finding mission that we conducted in Kenya exposed the widespread abuse perpetrated on pregnant women in maternity wards. For decades, women have suffered serious human rights violations — including verbal attacks, sexual assault, flagrant neglect and filthy conditions — while giving birth. In interviews, women, healthcare providers, leaders of medical associations and officials at licensing and regulatory bodies describe egregious violations of dignity, mutilation, unhygienic conditions, humiliating treatment, lack of medical attention. Our report “Failure to Deliver: Violations of Women’s Human Rights in Kenyan Health Facilities” concludes that women’s negative experiences in Kenya’s health facilities not only have lasting public health implications for the country, but constitute severe violations of human rights that are protected under Kenyan, regional, and international laws.

What role do you think reproductive rights will play in the 2008 presidential election? What candidate do you think has the strongest position on reproductive rights.
As a non-profit organization, we don’t work for the election or defeat of any candidates or political parties. What we will do, however, is continue to encourage the policy discussion about critical issues in reproductive rights and health.
How has President Bush affected the state of reproductive rights in this country during his presidency?
In the last seven years, the Bush Administration has not only violated the constitutional and human rights of countless women at home and abroad, it has also endangered their health and lives. It has deprived women of access to contraception, championed the first-ever federal abortion ban, and appointed judges outspoken in their opposition to women’s right to abortion.
Once a world leader with a long and proud history of championing equality and human rights, the U.S. now faces a tipping point in the struggle to recognize and protect reproductive rights. Decades of hard-won progress that improved women’s reproductive heath care and autonomy have been eroded. These losses are as alarming as they are widespread: state and federal court decisions have undermined the protections established by Roe v. Wade; funding for basic reproductive health care is inadequate to serve those in need; and maternal mortality rates among women of color remain shamefully high. These injustices demand a bold agenda for change from the next administration—an agenda ensuring that women’s reproductive rights are understood and protected by law- and policy-makers.