Volume 8, Number 17

April 15, 2005

Pro-Life Forces Claim Victory at UN Population Conference

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM) The UN Commission on Population and Development (CPD) ended its annual session yesterday and prolife groups are claiming victory. As is typical, the UN organizers and allied pro-abortion non-governmental organizations had hoped to use the conference outcome document to advance abortion-on-demand, specifically through adoption of the phrase "reproductive health care services." A coalition of regionally diverse nations including the US, Costa Rica, and Egypt banded together and stopped them.

     In preparation for the 38th session of the CPD the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had issued reports asking for "universal voluntary access to a full range of reproductive health care information and services." The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) joined with pro-abortion lobby groups to call for "universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and programmes." In UN terminology, "reproductive services" includes the availability of abortion.

     The draft resolutions prepared at the start of the conference by Alfredo Chuquihuara of Peru, the outgoing CPD chair, urged governments to provide "sexual and reproductive health care services" and stressed the importance of promoting "reproductive health and rights." The drafts also unequivocally reaffirmed the outcome document of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agreed to at Cairo. The Cairo document refers to "reproductive rights" and "reproductive health" and has been used by UN agencies and lobby groups to promote abortion.

     Intense informal negotiations on the CPD drafts stretched throughout the week, often lasting into the early hours of the morning. Because of the pre-drafted language in the documents, one Holy See official described the negotiations as "starting with the knife in your stomach and seeing how far you can pull it out."

     Sustained opposition by the United States and numerous developing countries at last led to the removal of references to "reproductive rights" and of the word "services" in connection with "sexual and reproductive health." Moreover, the reaffirmation of Cairo was qualified by a reference to a document containing the reservations of many countries stating that the Cairo conference does not create a right to abortion.

     This is the second victory for pro-life forces at the UN in as many months. At the Commission on the Status of Women in March, the United States forced numerous left-wing governments and pro-abortion NGOs to admit that the Beijing Platform for Action also did not create a right to abortion.

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