POPULATION: UN Meeting Marked by Debates on Abortion, Youth

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 29 1999 (IPS) - As dozens of government officials gather for a special three-day session of the UN General Assembly this week, some Catholic and Muslim countries have dominated the agenda by objecting to language on abortion and sex education.

Delegates tried to wrap up the debate on shaping a population agenda five years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) was held in Cairo, but were still debating changes on language late into Tuesday night.

At issue were three major flashpoints that have divided the conservative Catholic and Muslim states on one side and Western Europe and the United States on the other: whether the ICPD review should approve of “safe abortions,” sex education and adolescent sexuality.

Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, who has chaired the preparatory meetings that preceded the opening of the special session on Wednesday, argued that the lack of agreement on those three topics should not hold up consensus on the ICPD review as a whole.

“We should not lose the whole body for the sake of one finger,” Chowdhury said as he led a series of discussions on Tuesday evening to forge a compromise on the outstanding issues.

Yet recent days have shown few signs of room for compromise on topics like abortion and youth sexuality.

On the abortion issue, for example, Western states have pushed for language to encourage “safe abortions” – including safe procedures even in countries where abortion is illegal – while the Vatican has led efforts to ensure that the ICPD review comes out firmly against abortion.

Similarly, the terms of the youth debate have been so polarised that last week, a Pakistani delegate warned that his country could not even accept the term “sex education,” which could be deemed culturally offensive.

The debate on values – which had tied up several previous preparatory sessions held in New York and The Hague, and may continue during the Jun. 30-Jul. 2 General Assembly debate – has shown the strength of the Vatican to influence population issues.

Although the Vatican is not even one of the 185 UN member states, it has been able to use its status as a UN observer, and its influence over such Catholic states as Argentina and Nicaragua, to push ahead with its battle against abortion.

The Holy See delegation, for example, has repeatedly tried to include language in the ICPD review that would assert – as did the Cairo Programme of Action itself – that “in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.”

Meanwhile, an alliance – linking some of the conservative Latin American states to such North African countries as Morocco, Egypt and Libya – has in recent months raised objections to numerous passages in the ICPD review document, on subjects ranging from sexual and reproductive health to gender equality.

The result of such objections has been the slow progress of delegations trying to forge a consensus on the ICPD review. “It’s ridiculous – we spend hours just arguing over where to put commas,” one Caribbean delegate complained.

In recent days, all but a few contentious passages have been replaced by ones which largely repeat the language of the Cairo meetings five years ago – a sign of how difficult it is to alter the 1994 consensus.

As one senior diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told IPS Tuesday, “delegations like the Vatican who had tried to go beyond the Cairo language have become the ones most committed to sticking with the Cairo text.”

The Vatican’s desire to back the Cairo text is a relief for many officials who want this week’s special session to avoid contentious debates and to focus on how to advance the population goals set out at the ICPD summit.

“We have to accept that we cannot re-argue the Cairo debate here,” Chowdhury said. “Let’s go for the Cairo language and have agreement.”

For the most part, the ICPD review has resulted in agreement on a wide range of issues, including the need to reduce maternal mortality, support for AIDS programmes, and a heightened attention to the needs of youth in general.

Meanwhile, both developed and developing nations have renewed their calls to increase funding for the population goals of the ICPD Programme of Action.

That effort gained impetus this spring when the US government, which cut off funding to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) last year, started a new drive to resume funding of 25 million dollars for the next fiscal year.

As officials like Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori and Colombian Vice President Gustavo Bell lead the debate on the post- Cairo agenda at this week’s Assembly session, progress on funding is likely to help maintain an upbeat spirit. But the difficulty of finding agreement on the religious disputes still looms as a major challenge, officials warn.