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| - Washington on Thursday decried a group of independent UN rights experts who criticised some US states for allegedly exploiting the coronavirus crisis to restrict abortion access. The US mission to the United Nations in Geneva issued a statement insisting that terminating a pregnancy was not an international right. The mission noted "with great regret" Wednesday's statement from the UN Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls. The group charged that eight US states -- Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas -- had used COVID-19 emergency orders to limit access to pregnancy terminations. "We regret that the above-mentioned states, with a long history of restrictive practices against abortion, appear to be manipulating the crisis to severely restrict women's reproductive rights," said the group's vice-chair Elizabeth Broderick. The US mission in Geneva emphasised that "under international human rights law there is no recognised human right to an abortion." "The US government strongly disagrees with the characterisations and conclusions expressed in this statement and rejects any attempt to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to assert that there is an international right to abortion," it said. "At a time when there are many documented cases of human rights abuses of women and girls during the pandemic, it would behoove the working group's representatives to focus on these real human rights abuses," it said. nl/rjm/wai
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