Yahoo! News - U.S. Pushes U.N. on Abortion Declaration
UNITED NATIONS - Ten years after the world's nations pledged to achieve equality for women, a follow-up meeting has become embroiled in controversy over a U.S. demand that its final declaration state that women are not guaranteed the right to abortion.

In informal consultations ahead of Monday's meeting to take stock of progress in implementing the landmark platform adopted at the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing, the United States raised the abortion issue as a first order of business.

So the very first thing we did at a conference for women's rights is to declare that women don't have the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Nice. Kind of makes all the other rights irrelevant, doesn't it?

The U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which organized the high-level meeting, had hoped the two-week session would focus on overcoming the roadblocks to women's equality in 12 critical areas from health, education and employment to political participation and human rights.

But the dispute over abortion is likely to dominate the headlines and the closed-door debate on the final declaration.

But of course. Instead of addressing the issues that might eliminate the need for abortion, such as reproductive education, access to birth control, poverty, abuse, medical care, etc. etc, we will just ignore the causes and declare that women have no right to their bodies. That will stop it, right?

The Commission on the Status of Women drafted a short declaration which it had hoped to have adopted by consensus before Monday's opening session.

It would have nations reaffirm the Beijing platform and an accompanying declaration, welcome progress toward achieving gender equality, stress that challenges remain, and "pledge to undertake further action to ensure their full and accelerated implementation."

But at an informal closed-door meeting on Thursday, the United States said it could not accept the declaration because of its concerns that the Beijing platform legalized the right to abortion as a human right, according to several participants.

On Friday, the United States proposed an amendment to the draft declaration that would reaffirm the Beijing platform and declaration — but only "while reaffirming that they do not create any new international human rights, and that they do not include the right to abortion," according to the text obtained by The Associated Press.

Once again I find myself rooting for the rest of the world to tell the US to "fuck off".

A majority of Americans support abortion rights, but here we have a delegation stating that the US believes the opposite. How can that be possible? Who appoints these people to speak in our name on the world floor? (Don't tell me, I know the answer to this one.)

The Beijing platform is a policy document with specific recommendations that all nations agreed to, she stressed, not a legally binding treaty which is where human rights are enshrined.

"It's not a human rights convention," Kang said. "It's a policy document. In that sense, I personally as chair do not think it should be seen as creating any new human rights."

But Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said "These amendments are consistent with U.S. government views."

But they are not consistent with the American public's views. They certainly aren't consistent women's rights groups here in the US. I hope the rest of the world realizes that.