Posted on 03/04/2005 10:35:00 PM PST by Former Military Chick
At a moment when the United States should be leading the world on advancing women's equality, the Bush administration chose instead to alienate government ministers and 6,000 other delegates at an important United Nations conference on that issue with a burst of anti-abortion zealotry this week.
The two-week session is being held to reinvigorate efforts to improve women's lives a decade after a landmark U.N. conference in Beijing. The organizers had hoped to keep a tight focus on urgent challenges like sexual trafficking, educational inequities and the spread of AIDS.
The first order of business was to be quick approval of a simple statement reaffirming the Beijing meeting's closing declaration. But on Monday, the Americans created turmoil by announcing that the United States would not join the otherwise universal consensus unless the document was amended to say that it did not create "any new international human rights" or "include the right to abortion."
This was shabby and mischievous. For one thing, the Beijing statement was nonbinding. For another, the Beijing negotiators had tried to anticipate controversy by recognizing unsafe abortions as a serious public health issue while leaving the question of legality up to each nation.
Specifically, the Beijing platform says that abortion should be safe where it is legal, and that criminal action should not be taken against any woman who has an abortion. All of this seemed clear enough, but the Bush team apparently could not resist an opportunity to press its anti-abortion agenda.
By Thursday evening, the American delegation had agreed to drop the explicit anti-abortion clause from its proposed amendment, and yesterday it finally withdrew the amendment entirely. But the damage had been done. An apology is due from the United States delegation for the weeklong disruption it caused. So is a fresh spirit of cooperation and a less rigid insistence on dictating global strategy.
The ambassador for the U.S. should have been even more emphatic with the American stance that it was not endorsing a right to have abortions.
HA! I read stuff like this and I can't help but say "hey, thanks for your shrieking harpy insight you alpha bitch, and oh, sorry about that house falling out of the sky onto your sister.
Scalia was scathing in his writing for the dissent in the Simmons death penalty for minor's case this week.....he countered with something along the lines of "only six other countries in the world allow abortion past the 1st tri-mester"......in response to the majorities contention that we should listen to WORLD OPINION! Abortion is not so celebrated around the world as the UN likes to make it seem to be.
<< HA! I read stuff like this and I can't help but say "hey, thanks for your shrieking harpy insight you alpha bitch, and oh, sorry about that house falling out of the sky onto your sister. >>
Not mentioned--that the 6,000 braying U.N. donkeys have vested financial and career and political interests in the continued deaths of millions of infants globally....
Margaret Sanger surely must be smiling up from Hell.
Yes, trying to save unborn women, who should be entitled to the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that adult women have.
The NY Slimes with another burst of anti-Bush zealotry this week.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Interesting. Did they mention that the US delegation to this UN conference is mostly part of the leftist wing of teh state department types?
Did they mention HILARY has a lot to do with this conference?
Methinks I smell a rat.
This was a setup in a lame attempt to TRY and alient Republicans from the pro life voters.
The NYT are just the useful mediots of the left YET AGAIN.
I hate that snobbish NY tone. Rep. Saurebray should have given the finger to the booing crowd, then walked out.
We need to end foreign aid. Screw the Godless world.
My fellow Freeper is too kind. I'm not sorry about the house falling on your sister and I hope your next meeting will be visited by 1000 cute little Kansas girls with brimming buckets of water.
'6000' abortion activists showed up to press home the point that women must be granted the right to kill the alive unborn else they will not be 'equal' in the world. Feminism has poisoned so many women and now the corollary, 'right to kill alive unborn', is responsible for catastrophic death and mayhem ... and the New York Times editorial board considers that enlightenment! Like you, I believe these scum shots are wanton prep for the 'run of their liberal godess', Hatellary Rodhamster Clinton. Watch over the next several months as the NY Slimes redefine Hatellary as a progressive moderate, fashioning the bitch as 'what America needs, a middle of the roader'. It is as predictable as the sun coming up.
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