In the United States, the Supreme Court’s rollback of the right to abortion in June 2022 has led to widespread violations of human rights.

Torture is the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering, by or with the approval of state agents. Torture breaks people’s bodies and minds, rips apart communities, and destroys democratic institutions and the rule of law. Since our founding in 1986, PHR’s core mission has included investigating, documenting, and reporting the devastating […]

(New York) – The death over the weekend of Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, a 41-year-old from El Salvador, at the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark is the 53rd known death in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since the start of this administration. That represents nearly four times the death rate under the Biden administration, or two and a half times the rate during the first Trump administration. Deaths are increasing faster than the […]

“Of all the years I’ve been here, this has been the most unusual and difficult year we’ve had. The emergency began on January 31 [2025], due to the change in government under the new [US] president. The difference is that now they are being mistreated more in [US] detention centers, especially. […] And there are […]

Our research highlights how abortion bans and restrictions create cascading effects that extend far beyond reproductive health care, compromising the quality and effectiveness of medical care across reproductive and non-reproductive specialties.

The woman seated facing me smiled briefly as she recalled her work in Afghanistan with a nongovernmental organization that supported women’s voting rights. This was before the Taliban takeover in 2021 – before her organization’s offices were ransacked and directors imprisoned, before her town’s mayor warned that she was on a list of women wanted […]

Florida’s extreme abortion ban has created an unworkable legal landscape that endangers both patients and clinicians.

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.  

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.

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 […]

In the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Oklahoma residents are currently living under three overlapping and inconsistent state abortion bans that, if violated, impose severe civil and criminal penalties on health care providers.

To mark Human Rights Day, PHR hosted a conversation about how health professionals can use their skills and platforms to document and call attention to human rights violations.

“Excited delirium” cannot be disentangled from its racist and unscientific origins and is not a valid, independent medical or psychiatric diagnosis.

The U.S. government continues to expel families and adults to countries where they face severe harm and persecution, violating their rights and failing to safeguard public health.

With the indefinite postponement of U.S. immigration hearings due to COVID-19, asylum seekers face ever-lengthening periods of stay in Mexico, where many have experienced violence, trauma, and human rights abuses.

With COVID-19 cases rising across the world, there is a tremendous sense of urgency to develop, test, and approve a variety of therapeutic and preventive interventions for the disease, including safe and effective vaccines. The health and economic costs of the pandemic have been astronomical. There is wide agreement on the pressing need to open […]

A Physicians for Human Rights investigation conducted in Portland, OR in July 2020 examined use of force by police officers and federal agents in July 2020, including against volunteer medics and protestors.

After George Floyd’s killing, captured on video and shown widely across the United States and around the world, millions of people took to the streets nationwide to support the Black Lives Matter movement and demand police accountability. While protests in the United States in June and July of 2020 were overwhelmingly peaceful and without incident, […]

Originally published by Bloomberg Opinion The federal government’s response to Covid-19 has been haphazard, mismanaged and ultimately deadly. Yet the Trump administration is trumpeting the country’s “success” against the pandemic, with the vice president recently declaring that the U.S. response to Covid-19 is “cause for celebration.” As doctors, we are not celebrating. With more than […]

For the past month, although I am a physician, I have been watching from the sidelines as many friends and colleagues have become overwhelmed caring for patients with COVID-19. As the medical director of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), I have been working in other ways to do my part, campaigning to demand more personal […]

In early March, we traveled to the southern border in Texas to document how U.S. policies have trapped asylum seekers and other migrants in unsafe cities in Mexico. As an attorney and a physician who defend the right to asylum with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), we are deeply concerned about how the rapid spread […]

These are uncertain times. As the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, we at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) truly understand the very real ways this has already affected your families and communities. We urge you to take the necessary measures – as instructed by public health experts – to stay healthy and safe at this […]

PHR medical director Dr. Michele Heisler holds a Q&A with science writer and founder of the Council on Foreign Relations’ Global Health Program Laurie Garrett on how governments and health professionals can fight the coronavirus while preserving human rights. Featuring an introduction and closing remarks by PHR Executive Director Donna McKay, who shares insight on […]

This study’s findings indicate that the government of Syria has targeted health workers for arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture for the ostensible “crime” of honoring their professional codes of ethics, which require them to provide care to the sick and wounded without discrimination.

He looked out from the window in the door – the only window in the cold, cement room in which he was being held. Inside was only a bed and a urinal. It’s called a “suicide watch room” and he’s being held there because he suffers from mental illness, the guards explained. Far from a […]