UN General Assembly adds abortion rights to the list of human rights

Delegates to the United Nations General Assembly are concluding debate on a resolution that would require all UN agencies to declare abortion a "human right”, reports the Center for Family and Human Rights, an advocacy organization in the United States. According to the delegates, the relevant paragraph was included in the text of the document under pressure from representatives of the European Union and the Biden administration.

The UN General Assembly resolution under discussion declares "access to safe abortion" to be a policy that governments must implement "to ensure and protect the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health”.

The resolution with the controversial language will be put to a vote in the last days of August 2022. If passed, it would give UN agencies a mandate to promote abortion, among other human rights.

Earlier, such attempts were rejected at the discussion stage, but now, under pressure from representatives of the European Union and the US, the clause has been included in the text of the resolution. Representatives of 15 countries tried to block the introduction of the resolution but to no avail.

The delegations were also concerned that the language and terms of the resolution could be used to support policies that promote homosexuality and transgenderism under the pretext of combating sexual violence, whose victims are predominantly women.

Furthermore, representatives of UN member states during the negotiations did not endorse the term "safe abortion" and found the wording linking abortion to human rights to be more than controversial. Delegates from Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia proposed removing the term "safe abortion" from the Human Rights Council resolution, with about half of the voting members supporting them. However, contrary to UN General Assembly rules, the wording remained in the final text of the resolution.

The term "safe abortion" was originally proposed by the representatives of France and the Netherlands, whose delegations are ardent supporters of the international right to abortion.

Promoting access to abortion as a human right undermined the 1994 decision of the General Assembly at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo that the right to abortion should be regulated by countries' domestic laws without external interference. At the same time, governments should help women to avoid abortions and ensure the well-being of the mother and child before and after childbirth.

A number of Western countries, using UN agencies, have been trying to overturn this Cairo decision for almost 30 years. UN agencies regularly promote the concept of "safe abortion" as part of "reproductive health" and "human rights", with the World Health Organisation, the UN Population Fund and the UN Women's Agency being the most active. If the resolution on abortion rights is passed, abortion advocates will be given a mandate by the UN General Assembly to promote abortion.

As reported, New Zealand has legalised abortion at any term without a doctor's consultation.

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