US rescinds demand for abortion clause in declaration

Under intense global pressure, the US dropped its demand that a new UN declaration on women's equality make clear that there is no international right to abortion.

But Washington is still insisting that the document must not "create any new international human rights" -- which opponents say could also mean abortion. At a closed-door meeting on Thursday, US Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey announced that the US was dropping part of its proposed amendment relating to abortion and leaving the part on international human rights on the table.

But delegates from the EU, the African Union, the Mercosur trading bloc in South America and other countries strongly opposed any amendment to the one-page declaration which reaffirms the landmark platform adopted at the 1995 UN women's conference in Beijing to achieve equality of the sexes.

Nilcea Freire, Brazil's minister of state for women's affairs, said not a single country supported the revised US amendment, and every speaker insisted that the declaration be left untouched and simply reaffirm the language of Beijing, "nothing more."

The wording of the declaration has taken the spotlight at the two-week high-level review of the Beijing platform, angering many of the 130 governments and 6,000 representatives of women's and human rights organizations. They had been hoping to focus on the obstacles to women's equality in the economy, the family, education and political life -- not on the abortion issue.

Hoping to avoid controversy, the Commission on the Status of Women, which organized the meeting, had drafted a one-page declaration that would have nations reaffirm the Beijing platform and pledge to accelerate its implementation.

But Sauerbrey said the major US concern has been to establish a principle that the Beijing platform "is not a legally binding document, that issues such as abortion are issues of national consensus, national policy."

After Thursday's debate, she said she was going to report the reaction of delegates to Washington and await instructions.

"Whatever happens in the next day or two, I think one of the things that has been very clearly established that should give a lot of comfort to concerned Americans is that virtually every country said we interpret it the same as you -- we interpret that these are issues of national sovereignty," Sauerbrey said.

Asked about the US failure to get support from a single country, Sauerbrey said, "there's just an awful lot of peer pressure and when you have groups taking group positions" countries that indicated they would support the US position were too "intimidated" to stand up.

June Zeitlin, executive director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, said dropping the reference to abortion was "a good first step" and the US should now withdraw the entire amendment. "and join the women of the world and the global consensus to unequivocally reaffirm the Beijing platform."