US starts women’s meeting with anti-abortion stand

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Ten years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the Bush administration kicked off a two-week review session opening on Monday with protests against abortion and “sexual rights.”

The U.N. meeting, with at least 100 government delegations, 80 ministers from Afghanistan to Peru, and some 6,000 activists, was called to review progress since the landmark global conference on women in 1995.

Rather than producing a lengthy document, the organizers decided to keep controversies in check by writing a short declaration that reaffirms and pledges implementation of the 150-page platform of action agreed to in Beijing.

The United States, however, submitted amendments at a negotiating session on Friday, declaring that the Beijing conference did not create “any new international human rights” and did not include the right to abortion.

In Beijing, abortion, after heated debate, was treated as a health issue, with the platform saying it should be safe where it was legal and criminal action should not be taken against women who underwent the procedure.

Compared to the Clinton administration in Beijing, the presidency of George W. Bush has taken a strong stand against abortion and will field a delegation this week composed of conservatives or advocates of faith-based politics.

A fuller explanation was given in December by American delegates at a preparatory conference in Geneva. The United States made clear it was concerned that “sexual rights” were international rights and might be construed as saying the Beijing platform legalized abortion.

The Beijing conference, the fourth international forum on women’s rights, following Nairobi, Mexico City and the first in Copenhagen in 1980, called for governments to end discrimination in education, health care, politics, employment, inheritance rights and many other fields.

But it broke new ground by stating women, and in many cases girls forced to marry young, had the right to decide how often they would have children and other issues relating to their sexuality. It advocated sex education for adolescents, which the Bush administration opposes.

Whether or not a compromise can be found is still unclear. Some participants in the meeting think the U.S. position was unnecessary as the Beijing platform did not create any new international rights and should not be reinterpreted.

“The United States threw down the gauntlet,” said Adrienne Germain, president of the International Women’s Health Coalition and part of the U.S. delegation in Beijing.

“Each one of us would like to insert an amendment on our particular interest. But the United States is putting up red flags by taking a unilateral position during a multilateral consensus,” she said.

Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, told Reuters: “What we have been advocating is not new. We believe wholeheartedly that the Beijing document does not establish or guarantee a right for an abortion.”

“It’s the message that we always send, to state what U.S. policy is,” he said.

Since Beijing, however, other issues have emerged and are expected to be emphasized during the 200 planned events - women are catching up to men in contracting AIDS, domestic violence has been more closely explored and sexual trafficking, whether in Asia or in the Balkans, has exploded. 

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