Volume 7, Number 11

March 5, 2004

Kofi Annan Calls Abortion Group "Shining Example" for World

By Douglas A. Sylva, Ph.D.

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) At a gala event held in January, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan received an award from the International Women's Health Coalition (IWHC), a group working for worldwide abortion on demand for women and girls. Annan's enthusiastic acceptance of the award raises renewed questions about the objectivity of Annan, and the UN secretariat in general, which is responsible for organizing major conferences on international social policy.

     In his acceptance speech, the Secretary General lauded IWHC, saying that "I am moved that you have chosen to honour me this evening. Above all, I want to pay tribute to the International Women's Health Coalition for the work it is doing around the globe. The IWHC and its partners provide indispensable leadership for the health and rights of girls and women worldwide. If there were more pioneers like you, the world would be a better place. You are a shining example."

     This leadership includes teaching abortion advocates how to skirt "restrictive" abortion laws. For instance, where legal abortion is restricted to those abortions considered necessary to save the life of the mother, IWHC recommends that abortion providers simply "adopt a broader definition of what constitutes a threat to a woman's life by considering the risk of death if she seeks a clandestine procedure."

     IWHC also works for the radical reinterpretation of UN human rights documents. IWHC admits that no UN document "explicitly asserts a woman's right to abortion." But, "Despite these qualifications.the conference documents and human rights instruments - if broadly interpreted and skillfully argued - can be very useful tools in efforts to expand access to safe abortion." For instance, according to IWHC, the right to life, the first right enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, should include a right to abortion, since women who seek illegal abortions risk their lives.

     IWHC has also praised the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) for providing chemical abortifacients and early abortion devices in refugee settings while avoiding international scrutiny. IWHC claims that UNFPA's "preassembled reproductive health kits have helped speed up response to emergencies and to halt case-by-case controversies about what supplies should be included. Thus, subkit three includes emergency contraception, and subkit eight includes manual vacuum aspiration equipment."

     Manual vacuum aspiration appears to be central to IWHC strategy to expand access to abortion, since the early abortion for which it is used, a procedure IWHC labels "menstrual regulation," constitutes, according to IWHC, one of the "loopholes under which safe abortion can be provided even in settings where laws are restrictive."

     In his speech, Annan stressed the need for "achieving a deep social revolution that will give more power to women, and transform relations between women and men at all levels of society." He concluded by calling the staff of IWHC "wonderful partners of the United Nations family."

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