Declaring victory, U.S. drops abortion line at UN

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The United States withdrew an unpopular anti-abortion amendment from a key U.N. document on Friday but insisted it won a victory.

With some 6,000 delegates gathered at the United Nations for a two-week conference on the status of the world’s women, the top U.S. delegate said Washington’s message on abortion had been effectively delivered and so the controversial amendment was no longer needed.

“Reproductive health services has been a concern to the United States because it has been misinterpreted by many actors as giving some sort of a new universal global right to abortion,” said Ellen Sauerbrey, who headed the U.S. delegation.

The United States, which guarantees abortion rights domestically, had proposed amending a U.N. document on women’s progress toward equality since a landmark conference in Beijing in 1995.

The first version of the abandoned amendment said the Beijing meeting’s final document did not recognize abortion as a fundamental right; a later version said the document did not create any new international human rights, code for abortion.

“We think we have really accomplished what we set out to do,” Sauerbrey said. “We have heard from countries...that our interpretation is their interpretation. So the amendment we recognize is really redundant but it has accomplished its goals. We will be withdrawing the amendment.”

CLOSED-DOOR NEGOTIATIONS

During closed-door negotiations that stretched over the first week of the conference, delegates said no other country supported the U.S. amendment, and Sauerbrey has acknowledged the United States stood alone.

The current U.N. session is meant to assess how far women have come toward equality since the 1995 Beijing conference and a follow-up meeting five years ago. Organizers seeking consensus drafted a streamlined document they hoped would be easily approved without controversy.

The U.S. amendment was seen by some as a distraction from the main goals of the conference—economic development and women’s equality—but Sauerbrey said, “I don’t think in any way we have interfered with the flow of work.”

Amnesty International spokesman Alexandra Arriaga praised the U.S. move.

“We welcome the U.S. decision to join the international consensus and affirm that women’s rights are human rights,” Arriaga said. “What was clear was that the United States had a very specific agenda it brought to the U.N. and that the world unanimously rejected an effort to hijack the commission.”

As these diplomatic maneuvers played out, thousands of activists launched an early celebration of International Women’s Day, which takes place on March 8. Many government ministers who will celebrate in their home countries next week took the chance to mark the occasion at the women’s meeting.

Set against the sober-sided backdrop of a U.N. conference room, the celebration included performances by African drummers wearing flowing headdresses and ankle bells, Indian classical dancer Tahreema Mitha and Hungarian-born soprano Andrea Rost in an evening gown who sang two romantic operatic arias. 

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