RIGHTING WRONGS

Blinken Reverses Trump Call to Ignore Global Reproductive Rights Abuses

The Trump administration began to overlook discrimination of women seeking sexual health services across the world in 2016.

Every year, the U.S. State Department releases a survey of global human rights, but, since 2016, something has been missing from the report. That year, the Trump administration stopped reporting on the discrimination of women seeking sexual health services across the world. But Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared Tuesday that women’s access to contraceptives and reproductive care will be monitored by the United States government once again. The 2020 report, which was released Tuesday, was completed during the Trump administration, but Blinken added a foreword to say that an addendum will be published later this year to include issues related to reproductive rights. According to The New York Times, Blinken also announced that he had disbanded an advisory committee, set up by predecessor Mike Pompeo, to prioritize religious liberties over other freedoms. Blinken commented: “There is no hierarchy that makes some rights more important than others.”