Posted on 03/12/2005 12:02:33 AM PST by Aussie Dasher
A UN women's conference approved an American-drafted resolution on economic equality that the United States ended up opposing because of an amendment on "reproductive rights".
"This amendment is not acceptable to the United States," said US delegate Ellen Sauerbrey on the final day of the two-week meeting. "We worked very hard during the course of negotiations to arrive at language that was broad and was acceptable to most delegations." After Cuba successfully amended the resolution with a reference to a possible negative impact on women from globalisation, Ms Sauerbrey offered to withdraw the text.
But the 45-member Commission on the Status of Women, which organised the conference, approved the resolution today anyway, including language from South Africa saying that the "neglect of women's reproductive rights severely limits their opportunities in public and private life".
Ms Sauerbrey repeatedly stressed Washington's opposition to abortion and sexual rights. She also said that abstinence was "the healthiest" and "most responsible choice" for adolescents and parents had the primary responsibility for sex education.
The two-week meeting was organised to review advances and setbacks 10 years after a landmark conference on women in Beijing, which broke new ground on women's sexuality and agreed on the need for access to family planning. It did not advocate abortion.
While only 45 nations voted on resolutions, 165 countries sent 1800 delegates to the session, including 80 ministers and 3000 advocates of women, human rights and health groups.
Other resolutions included AIDS prevention, the neglect of indigenous women, victims of Asia's Tsunami and rights for Afghan and Palestinian women.
A measure on trafficking and sex tourism, also sponsored by the United States, had to be modified to accommodate other delegations, who favoured legal prostitution.
The AIDS resolution urged governments to help women fight the pandemic "principally through the provision of health care and health services, including for sexual and reproductive health and through preventive education".
While many resolutions and debates did not involve a conservative US stance, delegates complained that going over old ground, particularly on abortion, hindered the conference.
Kerry Flanagan, head of Australia's Office for Women, said the proliferation of resolutions preventing the meeting from being "relevant, practical and forward looking" and turned it into a "giant drafting committee".
Ms Sauerbrey has generally backed the Beijing platform but used little of its wording in statements and resolutions. While abortion and contraceptives are legal in the United States, government funding has been reduced for family planning for the poor at home and abroad.
"The US government is much more conservative than the US public at large and right now it is more conservative than most governments in the world - not all, but most," said Charlotte Bunch, director of the the Centre for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Moreover, she said the UN Commission on the Status of Women was understaffed and underfunded.
"This is not a high priority in the UN system," Ms Bunch said.
The conservative Heritage Foundation said the United Nations too often bowed to radical feminists by putting more emphasis on "access to sexual and reproductive health" services rather than on a healthy family life, which would help women overcome the ill effects of poverty.
When are these idiots going to go away?
They will be a casualty of the Final Battle. Until then, expect things to get a lot worse and at a faster and faster rate...
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