Volume 2, Number 22

April 2, 1999

Cairo+5 Prepcom Stalled Over Controversial and EU Initiatives

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM)  The final preparatory committee meeting of the Cairo+5 conference adjourned what was supposed to be its final session Wednesday night at 1:00 am without finishing its mandate to write a document for the UN General Assembly. This after six full days of negotiations, the final two lasting over 15 hours straight.

     This long and tendentious process is the surest measure of the very controversial nature of their topic -  population and development - which to UN radicals means almost exclusively "reproductive and sexual rights."

     Delegations have been working for many days from a document produced by the UN Secretariat and is meant to be a five-year implementational review of the original Cairo Programme of Action. The UN General Assembly charged this committee with developing a report but also ordered that the original Cairo document not be renegotiated.  There was great fear that many of the controversial topics from that conference, like abortion, would be reopened. And that is precisely what has happened and is what leaves this committee both frustrated and angry.

     Most of renegotiating of the Cairo Programme of Action is coming from the combined might of the United States and the European Union. Fighting this move is the Group of 77, which is an organization of 133 nations from the developing world, and the Holy See.

     A major change since the Cairo Programme of Action is the effort of the industrialized west to equate "reproductive rights" with human rights. Although the Cairo Programme of Action explicitly forbids the use of abortion as a means of family planning, radical feminists have long attempted to get it recognized through various back-door maneuvers. Just as the American laws on abortion were changed through the controversial discovery of a constitutional "right to privacy," UN feminists are attempting to insinuate into UN documents the equation of "sexual and reproductive rights" with universal human rights. Abortion would then be claimed as a human right that all women in the world could claim.

     Another major battle during this conference is over adolescent "sexual and reproductive rights." This is constantly insisted upon by the US and the EU without reference to parental rights. Moreover, Wednesday night the Clinton negotiating team tried to get any mention of "responsible sexual behavior" of adolescents removed from the document.

     "Emergency contraception" was also a stumbling block. Recognized by medical authorities as frequently abortifacient, the G - 77 is holding firm against the US efforts to bring "emergency contraception" into the document.

     With this many sticking points, it is unclear how or when this committee will finish its report. At a plenary session Tursday evening, they remained undecided. Some suggested an "inter-sessional" to take place for two days at the end of May. Whatever happens, it is clear to seasoned observers that the US, the EU and UNFPA have overplayed their already aggressive and controversial hand, and in the process have angered the G-77.

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