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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
At a United Nations conference in Bangkok, the U.S. shocks more than 30 Asian countries with a condemnation of premarital sex, contraception and abortion.
Dec 19, 2002 | Delegates to a United Nations population conference in Asia already knew that the U.S. government had turned more conservative since the last time they met to determine international family-planning policy. Even so, when Assistant Secretary of State Arthur E. Dewey delivered his remarks on abortion last week in Bangkok, they were stunned.
Standing before a hall packed with representatives from over 30 Asian countries, Dewey stated unequivocally that the U.S. would seek to block the passage of any international family planning policy that permits abortion or promotes contraception for adolescents. "The United States supports the sanctity of life from conception to natural death," he said. "There has been a concerted effort to create a gulf by pushing the United States to violate its principles and accept language that promotes abortion."
U.S. delegates maintained that phrases present in the conference's proposed policy -- such as "reproductive rights" and "consistent condom use" -- were euphemisms for abortion and the approval of "underage" sex -- policies far out of line with the current Bush administration, which advocates abstinence outside of marriage and opposes abortion.
But when the U.S. demanded that even the phrase "reproductive health" be struck from the proposal in order to protect unborn children, critics -- even those from highly religious countries like the Philippines and Iran -- suggested that U.S. foreign policy had been hijacked by the religious right.
"The current U.S. administration is being held hostage by an extreme conservative minority with little regard for the health, welfare and freedoms of women of Asia and the Pacific," said Ninuk Widyantoro of the Women's Health Foundation in Indonesia. "We hope that in the future, U.S. delegations at such conferences will more accurately represent the humanitarian values of the women and men of their nation."
U.S. delegates argued bitterly against the inclusion of such phrases in the proposal until the last day of the conference, when, faced with an impasse, the conference took a vote -- an unusual tactic for U.N. conferences. The U.S. lost the first vote - to exclude language on "reproductive rights" -- 31-1. They lost the second -- over "adolescent reproductive health" -- 32-1.
Although the adopted plan of action does not have the force of law, its tenets are influential as guidelines for international development policy and can affect program funding throughout the world. With the U.S. making the sole opposition to the adopted standards, many experts say the U.S. vote probably heralds similar conflicts at population conferences covering other parts of the world.
Eight years ago, the U.S. stance on international reproductive rights was entirely different.
When the last U.N. population conference met, in Cairo in 1994, the U.S. delegates were instrumental in producing a landmark agreement on international family planning and health rights -- the first agreement to guarantee universal women's rights regarding healthcare and economic status. The plan was endorsed by 179 countries, and is still hailed by international health personnel as a milestone in reproductive health rights. The 2002 U.N. international family planning proposal is heavily based on the Cairo agreement, and the wording is verbatim in parts. In fact, it was the U.S. that originally wove the words "reproductive health" into the 1994 plan's mission and now, in 2002, it was the U.S that sought to take them out.
The change in policy directly reflects the change from the administration of former President Bill Clinton to the administration of President George Bush. And in a speech delivered to U.N. conference delegates Monday, Dewey made the administration's position clear:
"As President Bush has stated, 'Our society has a responsibility to defend the vulnerable and weak, the imperfect, and even the unwanted,'" Dewey said. "He has said that we 'should set a great goal that unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.'"
Dewey's speech was equally unequivocal on HIV prevention and out-of-wedlock sex: "We support the ABC approach that has proven so effective in Uganda -- Abstinence, Be faithful, Condom use," he said. "The United States distributed over 300 million condoms last year. Because condoms are simply not 100 percent effective, however, it is critical that we also promote abstinence for the unmarried and fidelity for those who are married ... Contrary to the misinformation provided by some, abstinence is not the only choice the U.S. makes available to adolescents. The United States firmly believes, however, that abstinence is the preferred, most responsible, and healthiest choice for adolescents."
