BATTLING PRO-ABORTION ATTEMPTS TO EXPLOIT UN CONFERENCES

By Jeanne E. Head, R.N.

Due to the horrendous September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the United Nations Special Session for Children, scheduled for September 19-21, 2001, in New York, has been postponed until 2002. In the meantime, informal consultations may be held to try to forge agreement on the unresolved issues which have deadlocked the conference since June.

The unresolved issues include disagreement over language that could be interpreted to involve the right to abortion for children as young as 10. It is ironic and sad that a UN conference convened to find ways to make "A World Fit for Children" finds itself deadlocked over inclusion of language that could definitely make the world unfit and unsafe for unborn children.

This is nothing new. Pro-abortionists have attempted to use every UN conference to promote their agenda, no matter how unrelated to reproductive health the focus of the conference might be, even those on the environment, housing, food, and now on children. They have been obsessive in their insistence on repetition after repetition of reproductive-health-related language in all of these conference documents.

The pro-abortion Western countries have exploited the critical health needs of the women of the developing world as an emotional tool to gain support for their ultimate goal - - abortion as a fundamental human right worldwide. They mask their real intentions with deceptive terminology and under layers of definitions.

"Reproductive health" sounds like a good thing, and it should be. For example, reproductive health as the UN defines it includes good and necessary aspects of health care relating to human reproduction that have nothing to do with abortion. These include prenatal care, neonatal care, safe delivery, post-partum care, and the like. Improvements in these areas are essential to decreasing maternal mortality in the developing world.

However, this definition also includes abortion, which has nothing to do with health care and a lot to do with death for unborn children, and which does not in any way contribute to the health of women, particularly adolescents.

The attempt to establish a worldwide "right" to abortion began in earnest with the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development and was led by pro-abortion Western nations (especially the Clinton Administration). Although they did not succeed in achieving their ultimate goal in Cairo, they have not been deterred.

The hallmark of their rhetorical gymnastics is that the countries promoting abortion consistently deny that the terms " reproductive health care or services" include abortion at the same time they just as consistently refuse to explicitly exclude abortion from the definition of these terms.

The double talk changed for a brief but electric moment during the June negotiations on the document for the Special Session of the General Assembly on Children. In a rare moment of candor at these UN negotiations, a Canadian delegate made it crystal clear that "reproductive health services" includes abortion.

A member of the (now pro-life) U.S. delegation asked about what would be included in "services" relating to "reproductive health." A Canadian delegate answered, "Of course it includes, and I hate to say the word, but it includes abortion."

At the end of the negotiations on that particular paragraph there appeared to be agreement (in the context of the document then being negotiated) that "reproductive health services" included abortion while "reproductive health care" did not include abortion. This distinction was new and considered a significant breakthrough for the pro-life side.

Buoyed by this clarity and the new and strong support of the pro- life U.S. Bush Administration delegation, the large coalition of pro-life/pro-family non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had great expectations for this conference.

It was certainly expected that the Latin American countries (whose spokesman clearly stated that they could not agree to " services" if it included abortion) would reject such references in subsequent paragraphs. After all, they have laws protecting unborn children, and many of them expressed strong reservations to similar abortion-related language at other UN conferences. Some of these countries have been very strong supporters of the pro-life cause at previous UN conferences.

Therefore it was a surprise when opposition to excluding abortion-related language came from a strong and immovable coalition of the Latin American countries, including Mexico but excluding Cuba, who are now negotiating as one block called the RIO Group.

Two days after the Canadian delegate's amazing admission, the RIO Group joined the pro-abortion side to block consensus. Since June, it has been standing firm with the European Union (EU) countries against the U.S., other pro-life country delegations, and the Holy See to hold up negotiations on subsequent paragraphs relating to reproductive health.

Inexplicably, since that unexpected moment in June when it seemed everyone acknowledged that "reproductive health services" includes abortion, the RIO Group has been adamant in insisting on using the term "services" in relation to reproductive health and education for adolescents (defined by the World Health Organization as including those aged 10-19). In addition, the RIO Group and the EU are demanding troublesome references to previous conference documents that could reaffirm abortion- related language that, among other things, calls for increased access to abortion.

Members of the RIO Group attempt to justify their position by claiming, since they have laws against abortion in their countries, that "services" in connection with reproductive health and other abortion-related language contained in previous UN conference documents will not mean abortion for their countries.

The RIO Group insists that this abortion-related language must be reaffirmed because it is language which was agreed to at previous UN conferences. It maintains that any retreat from such "agreed language" would be a retreat from the world's commitment to promoting polices that would improve the health and protect the lives of adolescents and women, particularly for their countries.

The RIO Group is misguided and wrong.

First, it is a serious mistake for country delegates to assume that because their country has laws against abortion and because their country does not interpret this language to include abortion, their country is protected. They apparently do not understand that if the language remains, it could be one more step toward establishing abortion as a fundamental right worldwide through customary international law.

Customary international law can be developed by the mere repetition of legal norms over time. It can arise from international conferences to which states give their approval. Unlike treaty law, customary international law is binding on the nations of the world even if those nations do not formally consent to be bound by that law.

The intention of the pro-abortion side to use repetition in these United Nations conference documents to establish customary international law on abortion was recently well documented by the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP). The CRLP is an NGO founded in 1992. [See sidebar, this page.]

Second, it is a mistake to unequivocally reaffirm previous conference documents. At prior conferences which have occurred since Cairo, numerous countries - - including most of the Latin American countries - - made reservations and interpretative statements regarding the so-called "agreed language" in question. They did so precisely because they did not agree with the language, or were concerned about its interpretation.

The document produced in the follow-up conference to Cairo (Cairo +5), for example, is the only UN conference document that calls for increasing access to abortion. It contains language calling for the training and equipping of health service providers and for taking other measures to "ensure that abortion is safe and accessible," without any provision for the rights of conscience.

No UN body should be regulating and/or increasing access to a practice (the killing of innocent human beings by abortion) which a large majority of its members regard as morally wrong and a violation of human rights even though some countries have legalized the violation of these rights in their country. Nor should the United Nations implicitly or explicitly condone such killing even when some countries do allow it.

It is also a false and dangerous implication that legalizing abortion makes it safe. Women still suffer serious physical, emotional, and psychological damage and even death from so- called "safe, legal abortion."

These UN conferences have almost obsessively focused attention and resources on abortion-related "reproductive health" to the detriment of other health care priorities. The Western world and the World Health Organization have known for over 50 years that the key to saving women's lives is improved maternal and general health care, not legalizing abortion. In the developing world - - where basic health care, sterile techniques, antibiotics, emergency care, and clean water are absent or scarce - - promoting abortion would increase, not decrease, maternal mortality.

We should be reaffirming the "agreed language" that protects unborn children. The document being negotiated contains such language from the Declaration on the Rights of the Child. It states that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth." This language is in danger of being deleted.

The large worldwide coalition of pro-life and pro-family NGOs, including NRLC, who represent non-sectarian and sectarian groups from every religious persuasion, plan to further educate the resistant country delegations during this delay in negotiations on the children's document. Hopefully this education and this time for reflection will persuade these countries to change their position so that a document intended to make a "world fit for children" will contribute toward making the world truly safe for all children, born and unborn.

The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy

The newest board member of the staunchly pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) is Nafis Sadik, the former head of the notorious United Nations Fund for Population Affairs (UNFPA). Sadik was in charge of the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and its 1999 five-year review (Cairo +5).

The CRLP was founded for the express purpose of establishing abortion as an enforceable human right worldwide. In a lawsuit filed to block enforcement of the pro-life "Mexico City Policy," which had been restored by President George W. Bush last January, the CRLP reveals its game plan.

For example, the CRLP claims that establishing abortion as an internationally recognized human right, among other things, would provide an alternative basis for the U.S. courts to invalidate state restrictions on abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned.

The CRLP maintains that laws criminalizing and restricting abortion violate internationally recognized human rights. In its suit, the CRLP spells out in detail its strategy for using all UN conferences and treaties (no matter how unrelated the subject matter might be) to establish "a right to abortion in the United States and every other country on earth."

The CRLP is using these and other instruments to attempt to legalize abortion internationally through customary international law, thus bypassing national sovereignty and the democratic process. As explained in the main story on page 16, unlike treaty law, customary international law is binding on the nations of the world even if those nations do not formally consent to be bound by that law. Scholars say that mere repetition of legal norms over time can result in the development of customary international law. Repetition of language from international conferences to which states give their approval is one way this can occur.

The CRLP boasts that several nations legalized abortion in the wake of the Cairo and Beijing conferences. It takes pains to note that this took place during the period (from 1993 to 2000) when the Mexico City Policy was not in effect and "Foreign NGOs receiving USAID funds were free with their private funds, to promote abortion as a human right," and "to urge decriminalization of abortion as a human right at both of these conferences." You can read the lawsuit at http://www.crlp.org/pdf/060601ggr_complaint.pdf.