Open Letter to US Ambassador

We, the undersigned individuals and civil society organisations, oppose the threat to United States citizens’ fundamental civil and human rights posed by politically motivated justices of the United States Supreme Court supporting the severe and unreasonable curtailment of access to abortion services. 

 

That this could occur in the world’s first constitutional democracy, to which many fair-minded nations have looked long for inspiration is staggering. We ask the United States, which has long held itself as a beacon of democracy, to reverse this alarming course of action.

We are fully aware of the stakes, having recently completed a successful abortion legislation reform process in Aotearoa New Zealand. We are extremely concerned about the potential adverse consequences for individuals and society that would ensue as a result of limiting access to abortion, including poor health, educational, psychological, social, and financial outcomes. Curtailing access to safe, legal abortion makes no legal or public health sense, as a massive and growing body of evidence has shown. 

In pursuing this line of action, the United States Supreme Court shows little regard for the lives and well-being of pregnant individuals and wider society. Moreover, the damage and disadvantage occasioned by the illegitimate ruling we anticipate will fall harder on black, brown, and indigenous people, and those from socially marginalised groups who already struggle to access reproductive healthcare, including abortion. We anticipate with dismay that this assault on reproductive rights also signals revived attacks on the reproductive and civil rights of LGBTQI+ people.

We call upon the United States government to protect the fundamental right to bodily autonomy by allowing people to end a pregnancy if they so wish. In addition, we call upon the United States government to take any or all of the following actions:

  • Reintroduce and pass the Women’s Health Protection Bill.
  • Pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
  • Establish and equip clinics to provide abortion services in government facilities in states where abortion is difficult to access.
  • Make medical abortions available nationwide through the US mail.
  • Sue states attempting to implement laws preventing people from leaving the state for abortion care, including those that establish enforcement mechanisms via civil suits brought by private citizens.

We urge the United States government to draw a line in the sand and to speak out loudly in defense of the rights of all communities now under threat.

We call upon the government of Aotearoa New Zealand, to join us in condemning this attack on fundamental human rights.


See the signatories here.