Thread by @HillaryClinton

Important legislation introduced yesterday: The Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights Act would correct the Trump administration's dangerous decision to remove reporting on reproductive rights from the State Department's annual reports on human rights practices around the world.

Some background:

All branches of the U.S. government use the State Department's human rights reports to shape policy and inform decision-making around diplomacy and allocations of aid and security.

Human rights advocates, lawmakers, academics, businesses, NGOs, and other institutions all over the world use the reports to inform their work as well.

Of particular note: U.S. immigration judges and asylum officers use the human rights reports to evaluate the credibility of an applicant's fear of persecution. Human rights reports that contradict an asylum seeker in virtually any way can be fatal to an asylum application.

Imagine how this can play out. A woman living in El Salvador, where abortion is banned, is raped and becomes pregnant. She suffers a miscarriage and decides to flee the country knowing that 17 of her countrywomen were sentenced to up to 40 years in prison after miscarrying.

Her U.S. asylum officer opens up the State Department's human rights reports and finds no information about those 17 women imprisoned for miscarrying or El Salvador's abortion ban. He deems she has no credible fear of persecution if she returns home. He denies her application.

I introduced reproductive rights sections to the reports while I was secretary of state because access to reproductive health care is a protected human right affecting women's right to life, equality, and freedom from inhumane treatment.

Women's reproductive rights are human rights that are universal and indivisible.

Governments do not get to pick and choose whose rights and which rights will be respected.

By requiring annual reporting on women's access to basic health care like contraception, safe abortion, and maternal health care around the world, Congress can make sure the rights of women and girls will no longer be up for grabs in each election.

In other words: Women's rights are human rights and human rights are women's rights. Period.

Call your members of Congress today and ask them to support the Reproductive Rights Are Human Rights Act: [phone] #ReproRightsAreHumanRights