Volume 8, Number 28

July 1, 2005

UNFPA Calls for Abortion to Decrease Child Mortality, Increase Education

    (NEW YORK - C-FAM)  This week, senior governmental ministers and heads of state have convened at the UN in a final preparatory conference before September's Millennium Summit+5. UN agencies and some countries have seized the occasion to exert new pressure for "reproductive health and rights" to be linked to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The outcome of the current Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meetings is significant because this UN body will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the MDGs.

    The annual month-long ECOSOC session stretches from June 29 to July 27. The session started off with a three-day high-level segment where leaders are to discuss strategies for achieving the MDGs and implementing major UN agreements. A Ministerial Declaration will be released at the end of the segment which will be presented to the participants at the +5 Summit where leaders will decide future strategies to achieve the MDGs. The +5 Summit is expected to be the largest gathering of world leaders in history.

    The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has been distributing a new report at this week's ECOSOC meetings entitled "Reducing Poverty and Achieving the [MDGs]: Arguments for Investing in Reproductive Health & Rights," that argues that "reproductive health care" and "sexual and reproductive health services," which in UN speak include abortion, are necessary to eradicate poverty and hunger, to combat AIDS, and even to ensure environmental sustainability by stabilizing population growth.

    The report claims that child mortality will be reduced if there are fewer living children and calls for "reproductive rights" to achieve the goal of having fewer living children who then might get sick and die. The report further argues that the goal of universal primary education will be more easily achieved if families have fewer children. The report cites as a source for its arguments a previous UNFPA document, published jointly with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a leading international abortion lobby group.

    The UNFPA report includes a fold-out copy of the Stockholm Call to Action, a radical manifesto adopted by several pro-abortion countries, UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in April. Swedish Minister Carin Jaemtin stated at the Stockholm conference that "Issues that used to be taboo are today on the international agenda. In particular sexual and reproductive health and rights, adolescent sexuality, [and] abortion...." The conference called for "universal access to reproductive health by 2015, as a target for MDG 5."

    The UN Millennium Project is also circulating a new publication this week that ties reproductive health and the MDGs. The publication calls for "universal access to reproductive health services by 2015 through the primary health care system."

    In yesterday's ECOSOC round table discussion on the topic of health, chaired by Sweden, the Executive Director of the UNFPA, Thoraya Obaid, was among those who called for the integration of "sexual and reproductive health and rights" into the MDGs.

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