Global Abortion Lobby Ropes in Small Island Developing States

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. | 2014

NEW YORK, August 15 (C-Fam) Small island nations with mostly traditional societies are an important but missing part of the global plan to promote abortion worldwide. A UN Conference in September wants to change that.

The groups of Small Island Developing States, known as SIDS at the United Nations, are persistent objectors to radical new social policies like abortion and special rights for individuals who identify as homosexual or transgender. But that may soon change if the UN bureaucracy has its way at the SIDS conference in Samoa this September.

These developing islands in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific have been able to resist pressure from the UN apparatus and wealthy western countries seeking to make them embrace homosexuality and abortion and change their traditional sexual mores.

Yet the outcome of the SIDS conference may commit countries, politically at least, to condoning abortion, dangerous contraceptives, loose sexual mores, and perhaps even homosexuality.

At the last preparatory meeting for the SIDS conference at UN headquarters in New York in July the islands succumbed to pressure to include controversial UN terminology that is associated with abortion rights as well as the prevalent understanding of sexuality in the West that sees it as a harmless or uncontrollable activity.

In the final hours of the preparatory meeting at UN headquarters in July paragraph 77(g) of the draft SIDS outcome was added with the terms “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights.” While the latter is especially offensive to pro-life countries because it could imply that abortion should be a right, also the former is problematic.

The only time the two terms have ever been defined in the UN context was the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development at Cairo, where UN member states committed to including abortion as part of sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.

While the current formulation recognizes that abortion is a matter subject to national legislation, the inclusion of abortion under those terms implicitly condones abortion in countries where it is legal. That is why so many countries made reservations about this terminology at Cairo, and every time those terms are introduced in the UN context.

At the same time, however, these small countries depend for their survival on the largesse of those very countries and international organizations. That is why delegates from wealthier donor nations can be seen cornering delegates from recipient countries, pressuring them to accept their preferred terminology.

While it is unlikely that the draft will be re-opened for further negotiations at the conference, it is possible that a small but determined group of countries can remove the controversial language.

If the language is not removed, countries with laws that protect unborn children, resist early sexualization, and protect traditional values, will find themselves obliged to make reservations to the document, in order to avoid complicity in abortion. Reservations are generally frowned upon in the U.N. context, so excluding those terms altogether behind closed doors is preferable.

More than 50 countries are part of the SIDS group at the United Nations, comprising a formidable negotiating bloc in the General Assembly made up of 193 countries. If SIDS countries continue to valiantly resist pressure on abortion, they will achieve a significant victory with repercussions for human dignity around the world, especially for unborn children. 

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter