The Supreme Court’s decision to avoid ruling on the conflict between Idaho’s extreme ban on access to abortion and a federal law guaranteeing access to abortions in cases of emergency provides a reprieve to pregnant patients in Idaho but leaves pregnant patients experiencing grave health risks and emergency room clinicians facing a medical ethics crisis […]

A new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, American Oversight, and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) exposes the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) flawed internal oversight mechanisms and failure to provide adequate medical and mental health care, resulting in preventable deaths of immigrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.  “Deadly Failures: […]

The Department of Homeland Security’s internal oversight mechanisms have failed to conduct rigorous investigations, impose meaningful consequences, or improve conditions that cause immigrants to die in ICE detention.

In the two years since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, 14 states have banned abortion in almost all circumstances. As a result, growing numbers of clinicians are facing possible criminal and civil penalties for the provision of basic health care, creating real threats to public health and human rights.  

U.S. President Joe Biden’s new executive order placing arbitrary limits on asylum claims at the U.S. border subjects thousands of people escaping life-threatening violence to further risk and trauma, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today.  The restrictions, announced today, activate when the seven-day average for daily crossings reaches 2,500 people attempting to cross the […]

The Texas Supreme Court’s ruling today rejected the challenge to the state’s abortion restrictions, exposing both pregnant patients and physicians to significant risk, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).   In Zurawski v. State of Texas, the Texas Supreme Court refused to clarify the medical exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. The case was brought on […]

475 doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals have signed a letter demanding that the U.S. government end the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention facilities due to severe health harms caused by the practice, said Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today.   The effort represents the largest mobilization to date of medical professionals calling […]

Dear President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and Acting Director Lechleitner:  The undersigned 475 healthcare professionals – including, but not limited to, physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers – write today in unison. In alignment with our professional and ethical obligations as healthcare professionals, we urge the U.S. government to immediately cease the use of solitary confinement in […]

As the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments tomorrow in Idaho v. United States – the latest abortion case brought before SCOTUS after its overturning of Roe v. Wade – Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) argues that Idaho’s ban directly conflicts with an essential federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor […]

“If any of you worry about the issues that are going on in the world as you listen to the news every day and you feel somewhat powerless because the problems, the fractures, are too large and too many, I think you and I can take comfort that PHR is playing its part everywhere in […]

The U.S. Congress should immediately abolish the use of solitary confinement in U.S. immigration detention facilities, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) urged during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today.  “Solitary confinement unquestionably leads to severely detrimental health effects. What’s more, sensible alternatives exist. I urge you to pass legislation eliminating solitary confinement completely, and […]

Recent state supreme court decisions in Arizona and Florida that uphold dangerous and draconian abortion bans seriously threaten the health of pregnant people and represent the latest attack on reproductive justice in the United States, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today.  “PHR’s research shows that from Louisiana to Oklahoma to Texas to Idaho and […]

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed a bill Thursday that prohibits state law enforcement, first responders, and coroners from using the invalid concept of “excited delirium,” making Colorado the second state after California to ban the term.  The bill follows a landmark research report from PHR that found that “excited delirium” – often used to explain […]

An Idaho state law (“The Idaho Act”) that bans pregnancy termination except to prevent the death of a pregnant patient is “demonstrably in conflict” with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires that health facilities offer stabilizing treatment – including pregnancy termination – when clinically indicated to preserve the health of […]

In amicus curiae brief filed in Idaho v. United States, PHR documents how Idaho’s abortion ban dangerously overrides U.S. government protections in the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA), fueling a health and human rights crisis for patients and physicians.

Today, Lift Louisiana, Physicians for Human Rights, Reproductive Health Impact, and the Center for Reproductive Rights published an extensive fact-finding report titled “Criminalized Care: How Louisiana’s Abortion Bans Endanger Patients and Clinicians.” This is the most rigorous and expansive study to date on the impacts of the Dobbs decision on pregnant people and clinicians in […]

Louisiana’s abortion bans violate federal law meant to protect patients, disregard evidence-based public health guidance, degrade long-standing medical ethical standards, and, worst of all, deny basic human rights to Louisianans seeking reproductive health care in their state.

Fact-Finding Brief: Introduction The Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) was enacted by Congress in 1986 to ensure patients’ access to emergency services regardless of a person’s ability to pay. EMTALA requires hospitals with emergency departments (EDs) to take a range of measures when presented with a person who comes to the department, including […]

The U.S. government should immediately and publicly commit to ending the use of solitary confinement in U.S. immigration detention, demanded a coalition of 194 medical, academic, faith, human rights, civil rights, and immigration groups in a letter to U.S. President Biden, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).   The coalition mobilized […]

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used solitary confinement at least 14,264 times from 2018 to 2023, according to a new report issued by experts at Physicians for Human Rights, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Medical School.  The report, “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention, documents that people […]

El Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de Estados Unidos (ICE) usó el confinamiento solitario por lo menos 14.264 veces desde 2018 a 2023, según un nuevo informe expedido por expertos Médicos por Derechos Humanos (PHR), la Facultad de Derecho de Harvard (HLS), y la Facultad de Medicina de Harvard (HMS). El informe, “Pesadilla […]

Executive Summary The United States maintains the world’s largest immigration detention system, detaining tens of thousands of people in a network of facilities, including those managed by private prison corporations, county jails, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). At the time of […]

Campaign Zero (CZ) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) are partnering to raise awareness about the medically-baseless concept of “excited delirium,” which has been misused to explain deaths in police custody for decades, disproportionately those of Black men in the United States. This jointly-led initiative challenges the baseless concept often cited to justify excessive force […]

January 22 will mark the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which established federal protection of the right to abortion in the United States. Since June 2022, when the Supreme Court reversed Roe, at least 14 states have adopted abortion bans imposing severe civil and criminal penalties on clinicians for providing abortion except in very […]

Introduction In January 2015, Mr. Richard May entered a construction site in Half Moon Bay, California, with his neighbor to help retrieve the neighbor’s cat. An alarm was set off, summoning sheriff’s deputies to the site with a canine. The canine bit Mr. May, who was not resisting, fleeing, or armed, inflicting multiple puncture wounds […]