{"id":224630,"date":"2020-06-02T12:35:25","date_gmt":"2020-06-02T17:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=224630"},"modified":"2020-06-03T14:56:58","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T19:56:58","slug":"un-sexual-reproductive-health-includes-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/un-sexual-reproductive-health-includes-abortion\/","title":{"rendered":"UN group: ‘Sexual and reproductive health services’ includes ‘safe, legal abortion’"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – C-FAM<\/a>) A UN human rights group criticized<\/a> several U.S. states for declaring abortion a nonessential service during the COVID-19 shutdown this week, declaring \u201csafe, legal abortion\u201d a key component of \u201csexual and reproductive health services.\u201d The group also denounced a recent letter<\/a> from the head of the U.S. foreign aid agency calling for the removal of \u201csexual and reproductive health\u201d from a World Health Assembly resolution.<\/p>\n

The statement came from the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, part of the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. The United States withdrew<\/a> from the Council in 2018. The statement was then endorsed by UN special rapporteurs whose mandates cover health and violence against women. They are part of the UN Special Procedures.<\/p>\n

The letter from John Barsa, acting director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was addressed to UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, urging him to ensure the UN will \u201cstay focused on life-saving interventions\u201d and not promote abortion.<\/p>\n

In response, Guterres\u2019 spokesman St\u00e9phane Dujarric insisted<\/a> that \u201cany suggestion that we are using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to promote abortion is not correct,\u201d and that while supporting life-saving health care, \u201cwe do not seek to override any national laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The USAID letter provoked a backlash from pro-abortion groups. The Inter-Agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Crises, whose steering committee includes several UN agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO), issued a statement<\/a> saying the group \u201capplauds the UN, governments, donors and all gender and health advocates who have committed to the inclusion of [sexual and reproductive health] services, including contraception and access to safe abortion care to the full extent of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0United Nations gives China seat on Human Rights Council, despite abuses and genocide<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The experts who work under Special Procedures are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work in order to ensure their independence. Nevertheless, the opinions of independent experts working within the UN system are frequently quoted by UN agencies as well as activist groups in countries, who often treat their utterances with the same degree of deference as negotiated documents adopted by consensus.<\/p>\n

As an example, WHO maintains a database<\/a> of national abortion laws which also includes a section listing all recommendations on abortion given to countries by UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies or Special Procedures mandate holders. When this database was launched, its stated purpose<\/a> was to \u201celiminate the barriers that women encounter in accessing safe abortion services,\u201d despite the fact that the WHO has no mandate to weigh in on abortion laws, which are a matter of national sovereignty.<\/p>\n

The phrase \u201csexual and reproductive health,\u201d sometimes followed by \u201cservices,\u201d has been part of UN resolutions since 1994, when it was defined as including abortion only where legal, and with multiple additional caveats, including the warning that it should never be promoted as a method of family planning.<\/p>\n

In the past twenty-five years, pro-abortion governments have tried in negotiations to separate \u201csexual and reproductive health\u201d from the 1994 compromise, remove the caveats, and imply a right to abortion that has never existed in a global agreement. Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has increasingly called for the deletion of the term, recognizing that, while it does not create a right to abortion, it cannot be separated from abortion entirely.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Note:\u00a0<\/em>Rebecca Oas, Ph.D., writes for C-Fam. This article<\/a> first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (<\/i>https:\/\/c-fam.org\/<\/i><\/a>). This article appears with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a> for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – C-FAM) A UN human rights group criticized several U.S. states for declaring abortion a nonessential service during the COVID-19 shutdown this week, declaring \u201csafe, legal abortion\u201d a key component of \u201csexual and reproductive health services.\u201d The group also denounced a recent letter from the head of the U.S. foreign aid agency calling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":221605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUN group: 'Sexual and reproductive health services' includes 'safe, legal abortion'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A UN human rights group criticized several U.S. states for declaring abortion a nonessential service during the COVID-19 shutdown this week.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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