US Stands Firm Against Abortion at UN Population Conference

By C-FAM Staff

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)   A number of pro-life interventions made this week at the 38th Session of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) have been repelling the steady advance of the abortion rights agenda. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and pro-abortion lobby groups have exerted pressure for the Conference to establish universal access to "sexual and reproductive health services," a term these groups often interpret as including abortion. However, the United States has requested a clarification to ensure that such phrases will not be used to promote abortion.

     The Commission is meeting to evaluate progress towards the goals set out in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agreed to at Cairo. The Cairo outcome document states that "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning" but also contains the terms "reproductive rights" and "reproductive health," and these terms have been used by the UN in the past to promote abortion.

     The United States has asked that the Cairo document be reaffirmed only "with the understanding that nothing therein creates an international right to abortion." The US made a similar request last month at the Commission on the Status of Women regarding the outcome documents of the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. The current US proposal has not provoked the same firestorm among the pro-abortion lobby as last month's request. The US language continues to be negotiated and a positive outcome could emerge on Friday.

     On Wednesday, Nicaragua stated that "we recognize that there is no language in the [Cairo] documents that can be interpreted as promoting abortion," and said that it "reiterates on this occasion the reservations that were expressed in relation to the terms 'sexual and reproductive health,' 'sexual rights,' 'sexual and reproductive health services,' and other similar wording and it is intended once more that these do not include abortion."

     The theme of this year's CPD session is HIV/AIDS, development and poverty, and Kofi Annan's office, UNFPA and abortion advocates such as Planned Parenthood International have been arguing for access to abortion as necessary in the fight against AIDS. The European Union on Monday expressed support for this link, stating that "the fight against HIV/AIDS cannot succeed without universal access to quality reproductive health services."

     The session has also exposed a strategy to insert the right to abortion into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Among its proponents, Ghana stated that "We fully support the inclusion of a target on 'universal access to reproductive health by 2015' in MDG five."

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