UN

Among the ‘Millennium Development Goals’: the Universal Legalisation of Abortion

Universal Legalisation of Abortion

By Christophe Foltzenlogel1415600160000

Among the numerous international treaties and agreements adopted within the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals and the Beyond 2015 project merit special attention. This programme of action adopted by the UN in September 2000 by the largest assembly of heads of state at the ‘Millennium Summit’ still suffers from a lack of awareness.

This programme, entitled the ‘Millennium Declaration’, identifies eight priority objectives in matters of development which the States committed to achieve by 2015. The eight objectives are:

1/ to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,
2/ to achieve universal primary education,
3/ to promote gender equality and empower women,
4/ to reduce child mortality,
5/ to improve maternal health,
6/ to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,
7/ to ensure environmental sustainability,
8/ to put in place a global partnership for development.

Public Funding

These objectives, negotiated and adopted by the 189 member States of the United Nations and the main global institutions for development, constitute a major international model for political action by the States and institutions. They also largely determine the allocation of public funding regarding aid for development.

In September 2015 a new summit will take place in New York, at the headquarters of the UN, in order to adopt a new programme of action covering the period after 2015. This programme post-2015 is currently the subject of intense negotiations. At the centre of these debates is the introduction of universal access to abortion.

A summit took place in New York on the 23rd of September 2013 to propose and define the new objectives. Consultations are ongoing and the UN currently proposes a platform, “My World 2015”, inviting all interested persons to vote for the issues they perceive to be most pressing.

The Improvement of Maternal Health

Since 2000, the improvement of maternal health has featured among the “Millennium Development Goals”. The programme of action of 2000 sought to lower the rate of maternal mortality by 75%. Unfortunately, it will not be reached in all countries because, according to the World Health Organisation [1] (WHO), maternal deaths only diminished by 47% between 1990 and 2010, [2] which is still a respectable figure. Consequently, this problem will be re-examined by the UN for the next programme of action post-2015.

Until the present moment, this objective was understood as excluding the question of abortion and the control of births. This emphasises the detailed intentions of this fifth objective where no mention of access to abortion is made, no more than it is mentioned in the reports of the UN proposing the Millennium Goals. Furthermore, this programme might not have received the support of the states because a large proportion of them have a ban on abortion. But, during the process of the negotiation of the post-2015 objectives, western governments and NGOs hope that abortion will be integrated in the future among the post 2015 objectives as a means of improving maternal health.

Issue of Consensus

In a 2011 report, [3] the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations appealed explicitly to the States to legalise abortion; affirming that non-medical abortions are responsible for one in eight maternal deaths. According to this view, the liberalisation of abortion must become part of the Millennium Goals post-2015, even though abortion is a criminal offence in a large number of States, and that no treaty of the UN or obliging text to this day has imposed the legalisation of abortion on States. [4]

These declarations provoked intense reactions, because they disregard international consensus in favour of the protection of life, and the willingness to oppose abortion. International law does not include any right to abortion; on the contrary, it consecrates the right to life. The International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, also known as the Cairo Conference) stated that “Governments should take appropriate steps to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should be promoted as a method of family planning, and in all cases provide for the humane treatment and counselling of women who have had recourse to abortion” [5] as well as the necessity to “reduce the recourse to abortion” (8.25). [6]

Blackmail

However, pressure is placed on certain countries by international organisations trying to influence medical aid towards the legalisation of abortion. Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, archbishop of Lima, recently denounced this “blackmail”, stating that Peruvians don’t want abortion but “better medical treatment”. [7]

Additional proof of this attitude; a delegation of the Irish government had to reply recently to severe criticisms from the Committee of Human Rights of the UN in Geneva. This committee of experts accused Ireland of violating “standards” regarding human rights because it did not authorise abortion in cases of rape and deformity and does not reimburse the travel costs of pregnant women who go abroad to procure an abortion. [8]

Reducing the Population

Debates linked to abortion fall within a larger historical and ideological context. For decades, the United Nations has developed a Malthusian attitude towards economic and social development founded on a global reduction of birth rates, and in particular in developing countries. In 1969 the secretary general of the UN created the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which finances demographic control programmes (contraception and abortion) applied in direct collaboration with NGOs such as the IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation) and MSI (Marie Stopes International).

This desire was reaffirmed in the Resolution of July 27th 2012 of the General Assembly of the UN entitled “The Future We Want” which recommends the application of “universal access to reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes”. [9]
This desire does not take into account the fact that abortion remains fundamentally dangerous to a woman’s health, and that it is also a cause of maternal mortality.

Abortion is a Cause of Maternal Mortality

After many studies, it appears as though abortion, whether it is legal and medical or not, poses a risk to women; and that numerous consequences arise following such action. One in ten women suffers from complications following an abortion and in half of such cases the woman’s life is placed at risk. [10]

These women run the short term risk of haemorrhages, infections and complications [11] but equally in the long term so much on a psychological level [12] as on a physiological level with the rise in risk of triggering breast cancer and/or of not being able to have more children at a later stage, of having premature births as well as ectopic pregnancies. [13]
The rate of maternal mortality is higher in cases of abortion than in cases of birth. [14] This is why it is in fact the developed countries which have banned or strongly regulated abortion who have the lowest rate of maternal mortality.

Medical Progress

Maternal health cannot be improved by favouring the legalisation of abortion. Other effective measures are possible and necessary: to favour adequate nutrition, to assure the presence of qualified midwives, as well as medical check-ups before, during and after childbirth.

One observes, moreover, that developed countries with a ban on abortion, like Ireland and Poland, have a very low maternal mortality rate. [15] The Maldives, as well as Bhutan, which are among the rare countries who succeeded in lowering the rate of maternal mortality by 75% in conformity with the Millennium Goals, managed to do so while banning abortion. There is therefore no link established between the legalisation of abortion and the reduction in number of deaths of pregnant women. There is, on the other hand, a correlation between medical progress (better hygiene, access to medicine, education etc.) and the health of women.

Genuine Objectives

It is important not to misjudge the vague definitions of “health care in sexual and reproductive matters” that family planning associations promote to include abortion because it is certain that the legalisation of abortion in developing countries will not diminish the maternal mortality rates. Instead, the culture of these countries will be profoundly affected by the introduction of abortion.

Under the guise of tackling maternal mortality, the goal of this sexual and reproductive health politics is to dramatically alter the society of developing countries, by reducing their fertility. It is more or less about exporting to impoverished countries a supposed “western social model” which is predominantly contraceptive and abortive.

 

 

[1]WHO is the directing and coordinating authority, in matters of health, whose work has international standing within the system of the United Nations. Official site: http://www.who.int

[2]  United Nations, Statement submitted by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Education Fund, a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, E/CN.9/2014/NGO/3, January 21st 2014, page 3.

[3] United Nations, General Assembly, Practices for the adoption of an approach to the struggle against avoidable maternal mortality and morbidity founded on human rights, report of the High Commissioner of the United Nations on human rights, 18th session, A/HCR/18/27, July 8th 2011, page 10: “the High Commissioner indicated that it falls to the States to combat non medical abortion.”

[4] “Article 5.There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law.  No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.” San Jose Declaration, Costa Rica, March 25th 2011. Official site: http://www.sanjosearticles.com

[5] United Nations, Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, A/CONF.171/13/Rev. 1, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994, para.7.24.

[6]Ibid. para.8.25

[7] El cardenal Cipriani denuncia el chantaje de organismos internacionales a Perú para que legalice el aborto y el gaymonio, InfoCatolica.com, July 15 2014.

[8] Fitzgerald told Ireland’s abortion law breaches human rights law, The Irish Times, July 15 2014.

[9] United Nations, General Assembly, The future we want, A/RES/66/288, July 27 2012, para.145

[10] Frank, P.I. et al. (1985). “Induced abortion operations and their early sequelae.” Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 35(73), 175-180, Grimes, D. A. & Cates, W. “Abortion: Methods and Complications” in Hafez, E.S.E. (ed) Human Reproduction, Conception and Contraception. Hagerstown: Harper & Row

[11] Ring-Cassidy E, Gentles I. Women’s health after abortion: the medical and psychological evidence. Toronto, The deVeber Institute, 2003; Strahan TW, ed. Detrimental effects of abortion: an annotated bibliography with commentary. Springfield, IL, Acorn Books, 2001.

[12] Coleman PK. Abortion and Mental Health: Quantitative Synthesis and Analysis of Research Published 1995-2009. British Journal of Psychiatry, 2011, 199:180-186.

[13] Shah PS and Zao J. BJO: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (2009).

[14] Gissler M et al., Pregnancy-associated mortality after birth, spontaneous abortion, or induced abortion in Finland, 1987-2000. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2004, 190:422-427; Gissler M et al. Pregnancy-associated deaths in Finland 1987-94 – definition problems and benefits of record linkage. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandanavia, 1997, 76:651-657

[15] Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990-2010. Estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank, http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.STA.MMRT (last visited 20th November 2012). – See more at: http://eclj.org/Releases/Read.aspx?GUID=82ef0f1d-4cf7-44d7-a9a7-fd50375fe3bd/sthash.4MN1CLF7.dpuf

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