Sunday, March 21, 2010

Annual Women's Meeting Closes With Delegations Saying No to Abortion

By Samantha Singson

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Last week, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) closed its annual session with delegations defining abortion out of a resolution on maternal mortality.  Over the course of this year's two-week commission, United Nations (UN) member states were embroiled in heated negotiations over "reproductive rights" language which some delegations believe would be used to promote abortion.


     The United States (US) delegation introduced the resolution calling for increased political will to tackle maternal mortality.  The US delegate argued that their resolution underscored the importance of guaranteeing all of women’s human rights, "including sexual and reproductive health rights."


     Based on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony to Congress last year, the current US administration is on record that “reproductive health includes access to abortion.”


     The resolution was adopted by consensus at CSW on Friday, but contrary to an Associated Press article which stated that “abortion was a non-issue during the two-week session,” a number of states including Chile, Saint Lucia and Iran, made explanations of position to ensure that "reproductive rights" and other “health service” terms in the text would not be later misinterpreted to include abortion.

Full story here:

http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1593/pub_detail.asp

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