UNFPA Promotes Pro-Abortion “Reproductive Justice” framework

By | November 17, 2022

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 18 (C-Fam) For decades, controversial issues like abortion have complicated, stalled, and stymied UN negotiations.  The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) is betting on a new strategy to push past the opposition to abortion: a framework with origins in U.S. racial politics called “reproductive justice.”

Two years ago, UNFPA hosted the Nairobi Summit, at which governments were not allowed to negotiate.  Instead, the meeting was largely stage-managed by UNFPA, and produced a statement containing ambiguous language that was never agreed by UN member governments.

To mark the second anniversary of the summit, UNFPA issued a report declaring “sexual and reproductive justice as the vehicle to deliver the Nairobi Summit commitments.”

The Nairobi Summit was held to commemorate the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), which introduced phrases like “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” into UN discourse.  While the conference brought abortion into UN policy for the first time, it also established important safeguards.  Abortion was not an international human right and should never be promoted as a family planning method.

Decades later, and after repeated failures to obtain a negotiated outcome including a human right to abortion, UN agencies have increasingly opted for ways to bypass governmental negotiations altogether.

The non-negotiated Nairobi Summit commitments were framed as a way to deliver the negotiated outcomes of ICPD.  Now, the framing of “reproductive justice” is presented as a non-negotiated way to deliver the Nairobi agenda.

What is “reproductive justice”?  Unlike “reproductive health” or “reproductive rights,” it has never been formally defined by the UN General Assembly.  However, it did emerge in 1994 during the ICPD, where those terms were defined.  At that time, a coalition of black feminists in the U.S. published a full-page ad in the Washington Post and other newspapers calling for “reproductive justice.”  In all-capital-letters, it states that its signatories will not endorse any health care reforms that exclude the provision of abortion.  It also demands that abortion be fully covered regardless of the woman’s ability to pay, “with no interference from the government.”

The “reproductive justice” movement in the U.S. arose in contrast to the “pro-choice” framework championed by mainly white feminists.  In recent years, it has been taken up by international pro-abortion groups, and by UNFPA as issues of racial inequality have dominated global headlines, sparked by the George Floyd riots in the U.S. and the rise of the “Black Lives Matter” movement.

During this period, several international abortion advocacy groups saw their leaders ousted amid allegations of racial bias.

Framing abortion—not only legal, but subsidized by the government—as a racial justice issue has been taken up by the UN human rights system as well.  Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, the current special rapporteur on the right to health and an outspoken abortion activist, made this argument in a recent thematic report.

Recently, the treaty body monitoring compliance with the UN’s convention against racial discrimination took the U.S. to task for its Supreme Court ruling overruling abortion as a national right.  The committee argued that restrictions on abortion would disproportionately affect racial minorities.  While this particular treaty body has largely avoided this issue in the past, pro-abortion groups are increasingly pressuring the committee to issue a general comment denouncing national abortion restrictions in the name of racial justice.

For governments defending pro-life positions at the UN General Assembly, one thing is clear: “reproductive justice” means abortion as a human right, funded by the government by way of taxpayers.

It should be noted that abortion in the United States takes upwards of 40% of black babies in utero.

 

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