UN Commission on Women Passes Economic Measure With Reproductive Rights Amendment

The 45-member... U.N. Commission on the Status of Women on Friday, which was the final day of a two-week U.N. meeting in New York, adopted a resolution -- originally proposed by the United States -- that calls for economic equality for women and includes an amendment mentioning "reproductive rights," Reuters reports. The commission adopted the resolution despite opposition to the amendment from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Ellen Sauerbrey. South African delegates proposed the reproductive rights-related amendment, which states that the "neglect of women's reproductive rights severely limits their opportunities in public and private life" (Leopold, Reuters, 3/12). Sauerbrey said that the United States intended the resolution to focus on entrepreneurship and expressed "disma[y]" that the resolution "was getting away from its original intent," the AP/San Francisco Chronicle reports (Wadhams, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 3/11). She said that the amendment "is not acceptable to the United States," adding, "We worked very hard during the course of negotiations to arrive at language that was broad and was acceptable to most delegations" (Reuters, 3/12).

Earlier U.S. Objections
Earlier in the meeting, the commission unanimously approved a one-page declaration supporting the Platform for Action adopted at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing after U.S. delegates agreed to drop an amendment that would have clarified that the platform does not include a right to abortion. The declaration asked the participating countries to reaffirm progress toward the Beijing platform, which stated that abortion should be safe in places where it is legal and that criminal charges should not be filed against any woman who undergoes an illegal abortion. The platform also stated that women have the right to "decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality ... free of coercion, discrimination and violence." Bush administration representatives at first said the United States would not sign the declaration because of concerns that the platform classified legal abortion as a human right and proposed an amendment that would reaffirm U.S. commitment to the platform and declaration "while reaffirming that they do not create any new international human rights and that they do not include the right to abortion." However, most member nations rejected even a "watered down" version of the U.S. amendment, and the declaration passed in its original form (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 3/7).


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