{"id":225351,"date":"2020-06-10T14:27:06","date_gmt":"2020-06-10T19:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=225351"},"modified":"2020-06-10T01:41:09","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T06:41:09","slug":"us-blocks-pro-life-un-members-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/us-blocks-pro-life-un-members-ignore\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. blocks United Nations agreement over pro-life concerns, but UN member states ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/u-s-blocks-un-agreement-over-pro-life-concerns-un-member-states-ignore\/\">C-FAM &#8211; New York<\/a>)\u00a0The U.S. Mission to the United Nations has rejected a draft agreement on humanitarian assistance for emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, that would have given cover for UN agencies to promote abortion. But it may not be enough to stop the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe United States cannot accept the terms \u2018sexual and reproductive health care services\u2019 and \u2018sexual and reproductive health\u2019,\u201d reads a statement released by U.S. diplomats on the evening of June 2 explaining why the U.S. government could not accept a draft of the annual agreement on the humanitarian work of the UN system.<\/p>\n<p>The statement from the United States mission to the United Nations, led by U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft, laments that U.S. concerns about ambiguous terms used by UN agencies to promote abortion were not taken into account by the diplomat from Morocco who steered the negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the UN and elsewhere, the United States will continue its work to build consensus on clear terminology that would better promote women\u2019s health without also promoting abortion,\u201d the U.S. statement explains, adding that U.S. taxpayers have generously contributed over $11 billion to the global response to COVID-19, more than any other nation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe United States rejects any interpretation of international human rights to require any State Party to provide access to abortion. In short, there is no international right to abortion, nor is there any duty on the part of States to finance or facilitate abortion,\u201d the statement explains.<\/p>\n<p>The diplomatic controversy is challenging the already controversial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/ecosoc\/sites\/www.un.org.ecosoc\/files\/files\/en\/2020doc\/2020-04-07-Procedure_for_ECOSOC_decision_via_silence_procedure(003).pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tentative procedure set in place for adopting resolutions<\/a> on a non-objection basis during the COVID-19 lockdown of UN headquarters. Essentially, according to the rules, if any member state objects to a resolution it cannot be considered adopted.<\/p>\n<p>In email communications to UN member states last night, the Moroccan delegation acknowledged that the U.S. had broken silence on the resolution, but said he forwarded the draft to the UN secretariat for official publication anyway.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/us-united-nations-agreement-abortion\/\">US rejects UN humanitarian assistance agreement due to inclusion of abortion<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration has unsuccessfully tried to delete ambiguous language about \u201creproductive health\u201d in the annual humanitarian agreement of the Economic and Social Council since 2018, including by offering formal amendments, but never putting the resolution to a vote.<\/p>\n<p>Several delegations supported the U.S. attempt to remove or qualify those terms this year. But Morocco\u2019s diplomats chose to prevent a negotiation from taking place on those paragraphs included in past resolutions. They disregarded any proposed changes and only accepted negotiations on seven paragraphs dealing with COVID-19. Delegations complained that this was arbitrary. Morocco had the support of delegations that promote abortion, including Germany and the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>UN agencies are attempting to make abortion a humanitarian right.<\/p>\n<p>The manual UN agencies use to implement language on \u201creproductive health\u201d from the humanitarian resolution includes a chapter on \u201ccomprehensive abortion care\u201d that says abortion should be provided \u201cto the full extent of the law.\u201d Citing UN expert opinions, <a href=\"https:\/\/iawgfieldmanual.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the <em>Inter-Agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Humanitarian Situations<\/em><\/a> also says abortion is a humanitarian right and that medical providers and personnel in humanitarian situations must refer women for abortions against their conscience.<\/p>\n<p>The UN agencies have also openly\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/iawg.net\/resources\/iawg-un-srhr-covid\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">challenged<\/a> U.S. pro-life diplomacy.<\/p>\n<p>A virtual UN summit where the agreement was scheduled to be presented will take place June 9 to June 11. The U.S. may block the resolution if it remains unchanged. If a live meeting takes place in July following the regular rules of procedure and the resolution is proposed again, the U.S. will have the option of putting it to a vote.<\/p>\n<p><em>Editor&#8217;s Note:<\/em>\u00a0<em><a title=\"Posts by Stefano Gennarini, J.D.\" href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/author\/stefano-gennarini-j-d\/\" rel=\"author\">Stefano Gennarini, J.D.<\/a><\/em><i>\u00a0writes for C-Fam. This <a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/friday_fax\/u-s-blocks-un-agreement-over-pro-life-concerns-un-member-states-ignore\/\">article<\/a> first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-Fam (Center for Family &amp; Human Rights), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/c-fam.org\/\"><i>https:\/\/c-fam.org\/<\/i><\/a><i>). This article appears with permission.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveactionnewsonline\/\">\u201cLike\u201d Live Action News on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0for more pro-life news and commentary!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(C-FAM &#8211; New York)\u00a0The U.S. Mission to the United Nations has rejected a draft agreement on humanitarian assistance for emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, that would have given cover for UN agencies to promote abortion. But it may not be enough to stop the agreement. \u201cThe United States cannot accept the terms \u2018sexual and reproductive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":581,"featured_media":211413,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[7077,7,5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>U.S. blocks United Nations agreement over pro-life concerns, but UN member states ignore<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If any member state objects to a resolution it cannot be considered adopted, but the Moroccan delegation forwarded the draft to the UN secretariat anyway.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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