Posted on 02/27/2005 7:30:02 PM PST by nypokerface
UNITED NATIONS - Ten years after a landmark U.N. conference adopted a platform aimed at global equality for women, the United States is demanding that a declaration issued by a follow-up meeting make clear that women are not guaranteed a right to abortion.
Starting Monday, a high-level U.N. meeting attended by over 100 countries and 6,000 advocates for women's causes will be taking stock of what countries have done to implement the 150-page landmark platform of action adopted at the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing to achieve equality of the sexes.
But even before the two-week meeting began, delegates were wrangling behind closed doors Friday on a draft declaration that the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women put forward — and had hoped to have adopted by consensus before Monday's opening session.
The short declaration would have nations reaffirm the Beijing platform and a declaration adopted with it, welcome progress toward achieving gender equality, stress that challenges remain, and "pledge to undertake further action to ensure their full and accelerated implementation."
But at an informal closed-door meeting on Thursday, the United States said it could not accept the declaration because of its concerns that the Beijing platform legalized the right to abortion as a human right, according to several participants.
On Friday, the United States proposed an amendment to the draft declaration that would reaffirm the Beijing platform and declaration — but only "while reaffirming that they do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion," according to the text obtained by The Associated Press.
The Beijing platform calls for governments to end discrimination against women and close the gender gap in 12 critical areas including health, education, employment, political participation and human rights.
At the 1994 U.N. population conference in Cairo, delegates approved a platform recognizing that abortion is a fact that governments must deal with as a public health issue. At Beijing the following year, delegates reaffirmed this and went further, asking governments to review laws that punish women for having abortions.
But attempts to approve stronger language on access to abortions failed at Beijing, and references to sexual rights and sexual orientation were dropped. Nonetheless, the Beijing platform stated for the first time that women have the right to "decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality ... free of coercion, discrimination and violence."
The Vatican and a handful of Islamic and Catholic countries opposed any reference to abortion at those conferences, while the West and hundreds of women's rights activists supported them — including the U.S. government under former President Bill Clinton.
But his successor, President George W. Bushs, has taken a much tougher stand against abortion, as reflected in the proposed amendment.
"These amendments are consistent with U.S. government views," said Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women's Health Coalition, stressed that the Beijing platform "is a global consensus agreement on policy and actions," not a legally binding treaty which is where human rights are enshrined.
"It goes without saying, therefore, that Beijing does not create any new international human rights," she said. "The United States, it would seem, is simply using this amendment to raise a red flag and frighten other governments."
Germain said that at Friday's informal meeting "it was clear that the entire room was in favor of using the draft declaration prepared by the organizers" except the United States which was "totally isolated by its insistence that its proposed amendment remain on the table."
Expressing concern at the prospect of the United States withdrawing support for women's rights, June Zeitlin, president of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, said: "This is in stark contrast to our government's rhetoric supporting women's rights in Afghanistan and Iraq, and would be a terrible step backward."
Grenell called the claims "an overstatement," saying the United States "had others that were supportive as well" of the amendment.
Kyung-wha Kang, who chairs the Commission on the Status of Women which is organizing the two-week meeting, said members want a "very succinct but powerful" declaration but negotiations were continuing and "there's no guarantee."
She confirmed the U.S. amendment but refused to comment on it, instead urging all delegation "to exercise as much flexibility and cooperation ... so that in the end we can adopt language that all can agree to."
Someone has to explain how a person has "a right to life", but a women has "a right to abort life".
It's an oxymoron.
Piss on the UN and China. I mean it. Get a bucket of deer urine and throw it on them.
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