U.N. Experts Expressed Concerns About the Impact of Abortion Bans on U.S. Minorities
ON TUESDAY, Independent UN human rights experts raised concerns about the negative impact on the rights of racial and ethnic minorities of the US Supreme Court's decision that struck down constitutional protections for abortion in the United States.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has also called on the Biden administration and state governments to do more to strengthen those rights.
The calls came as part of the committee's regular review of UN member states. The United States was one of seven countries to consider this summer. A large delegation of US officials, including Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, traveled to Geneva earlier this month for hearings that fueled the committee's reflection on the rights of racial and ethnic minorities in the United States.
"The committee was deeply concerned about the inequitable impact on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of racial and ethnic minorities, particularly low-income minorities," committee member Pansy Tlakula told reporters.
"It recommended that the State party take further steps to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in sexual and reproductive health and rights."
The committee said it had received hundreds of submissions and comments from advocacy groups across the United States on reproductive rights, police brutality, education, voting rights, and reparations for slavery, an issue the panel addressed for the first time amid the posters that a push for such repairs could gain momentum.
"It would have been impossible to have an honest and interactive dialogue with the United States without including the topic of restorative justice," said committee chair Verene Shepherd, presenting the committee's report. "I strongly believe that with the pressure in the United States now around the issue of restorative justice, the federal government will act."
He also lamented the “backlash” against critical race theory, the idea that racism is systemic in American institutions that serve to perpetuate white dominance in society, and “the problem of refusing to have a conversation about slavery." She said this problem was "impossible to ignore."
South Africa's Tlakula, another of the committee's 18 international members, said the United States had set no timeline for enacting reparations. But he said the committee had asked the United States to report within a year on any steps taken to mitigate the effects of abortion restrictions and gun violence on racial minorities.
In its report, the committee reviewed the full range of concerns and assessments, including praising recent legislation and decrees aimed at improving minority rights and calling for a "national action plan" to tackle systemic racism and discrimination and an effort to limit the impact of armed violence on these minorities.
He called for the review of new laws or a revision of existing laws to help address the excessive use of force by law enforcement, calling on the United States to take "all necessary measures," including at the federal level, to ensure that everyone can vote. . He said he was concerned about the increase in new legislation having a "disproportionate impact" on minorities.
While highlighting some actions taken by the White House to address high rates of maternal mortality, he said: "The committee is concerned that systemic racism, as well as interrelated factors such as gender, race, Ethnicity, and immigration status, have a profound impact on the ability of women and girls to access the full range of sexual and reproductive health services in (the United States) without discrimination.