Euros Bring Abortion to Security Council

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UNITED NATIONS, October 10 (C-Fam) Liberal Western governments pledged to make abortion and feminism a central component of global security policy at the UN Security Council on Monday.

A representative of the European Union said the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda is “central” to the EU Gender Action Plan, which includes the promotion of “sexual and reproductive health and rights.”

Nordic Countries praised the UN system for promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in humanitarian programming.

Denmark emphasized that sexual and reproductive health and rights were “non-negotiable.” Ireland called for transgender-specific programming in peace operations through “intersectional” approaches and recognition of women “in all their diversity.”

The U.S. delegation gave its support to the Women, Peace, and Security agenda in broad terms, without addressing its controversial aspects, despite parts of the Trump administration being known to oppose it.

Earlier this year, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Secretary of War, pared down all U.S. Women, Peace and Security programming in the U.S. War Department to a minimum, calling it a “woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops.” When he announced the decision, he said it was a UN program “pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops hate it.”

Hegseth’s concerns seem to be validated by how UN officials define the UN programs. This week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Sima Bahous, the head of UN Women, called for “gender parity” in all UN peace and security processes, including through “binding targets and quotas” and funding for feminist groups worldwide.

The Trump administration is expected to oppose this kind of UN programming backed by the Europeans and Nordics. This would be consistent with how the first Trump administration took a strong position against abortion in UN peace initiatives in 2019.

In Trump 1.0, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft threatened to veto any Security Council resolution with language on “sexual and reproductive health.” She told the UN Security Council that “The U.N. should not put itself in a position of promoting or suggesting a right to abortion, whether it is humanitarian or development work.”

Susan Yoshihara, president of the American Council on Women Peace and Security (ACWPS), told the Friday Fax, “We can only hope that the second Trump administration will take a firm stand as it did in its first administration. We must not let the WPS agenda get hijacked by special interests.”

Yoshihara edited a recently published book on Women, Peace, and Security to outline how the U.S. should uphold a positive vision for women in security policy while opposing ideological capture by feminists.

Yoshihara said, “The WPS agenda has always been a tug of war between contending worldviews. One is the national security approach wanting to bring peace and stability to their countries by including everyone, including women and girls. The other is informed by an ideology of sweeping gender equality broadly defined. Only if we return to a laser focus on peace and security will WPS succeed and be a uniting force, and not a divisive one.”

This tug of war is expected to continue in the coming months and years as opposition to gender ideology grows within the UN. During the debate this week, the Russian Ambassador to the UN complained of the direction Western countries were giving the Women, Peace, and Security agenda. He said it had become a political vehicle for the “imposition of neo-liberal notions” and that it was “no longer about sex but gender.”

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