Sneak attacks in war against women
November 08, 2002
WHILE George W. Bush's war on terror commands worldwide attention, his war
of stealth against women has attracted far less comment.
Yet when it comes to family planning and abortion in the developing world,
the Bush regime is adopting the fundamentalism of the Islamic terrorists it
is pursuing.
At a conference in Bangkok last weekend, the US threatened to withdraw its
support for a crucial UN family planning agreement. In a spectacularly
delayed dummy spit, the US delegation objected to the final declaration of
the 1994 UN population conference, which was held in Cairo.
After eight years, the Americans suddenly can't abide certain phrases
("reproductive rights" and "reproductive health services") in the
declaration on the grounds they can be interpreted as supporting abortion.
The Cairo meeting was a milestone. For the first time, it forged a global
consensus that the best way to combat overpopulation and poverty is to give
women more control over their fertility.
This is only common sense, but getting nearly 180 countries to endorse the
declaration was no mean feat. The US helped draft it, but now says it will
reaffirm it only if the phrases it dislikes are modified or deleted,
reports The New York Times.
Asian delegates – including Indonesia – are, understandably, dismayed. So
at a time when it is fighting fundamentalism, the US's social agenda has
moved to the Right of that of the biggest Muslim nation.
Washington's hypocrisy is breathtaking. Despite frequent, niggling attempts
to curb abortion rights in the US, it has been legal there since 1973. The
abortion pill RU-486 was introduced in 2000.
Family planning experts and polls indicate that (based on 1992 figures) 43
per cent of US women will have had a termination by the age of 45.
Now that Republicans are poised to dominate both houses of Congress, it's
likely US abortion services will come under fresh assault. But it's
improbable that a procedure millions of American women have had during the
past 30 years will be outlawed.
Yet since he assumed office, the world's most powerful man has set out to
deny the world's least powerful women a right his own constituents exercise
freely.
This is a sickening double standard and Bush's approach has far more to do
with political self-interest than deeply held principle.
In restricting abortions for poverty-stricken women living thousands of
kilometres away, the former good-time boy can score brownie points with
moral conservatives at home who have backed him politically and
financially. In this light, he looks more like a cowardly than a
compassionate conservative.
Nor is this his first strike against poor women. In July he blocked the
release of about $60 million the US had already promised the UN Population
Fund, the world's largest family planning provider, whose services include
teen pregnancy and HIV-AIDS prevention.
Bush accused the fund of supporting providers involved in forced abortions
and sterilisations in China, but State Department investigators found no
evidence of this. Neither did a team of British MPs.
Even so, Bush refused to release the promised money – leaving the European
Union to make up the difference. The US is the only country to have starved
this UN agency of funds for ideological reasons.
This gratuitous attack on the UN followed Bush's reinstatement of the
global gag rule in 2001.
That rule, lifted by Bill Clinton, requires non-government organisations
receiving US aid to deny women any information about abortion, even in
countries where it is legal.
Neither can these NGOs lobby governments for abortion law reform, nor use
non-American funds to offer advice about or carry out abortions. Family
planning experts have rightly argued that this not only stifles freedom of
speech, it also prevents doctors from briefing patients with unwanted
pregnancies on the full range of options available to them.
As one activist put it, it amounts to "exporting malpractice" – it would be
unconstitutional if imposed in the US.
But Bush pressed ahead and his timing was heavily symbolic: reinstating the
gag was his first act on his first business day in office.
The Australian Reproductive Health Alliance says some similar restrictions
pertaining to abortion – which appeased devout Catholic Brian Harradine
when he held the balance of power in the Senate – remain in our foreign aid
guidelines.
This is immoral. For there is no doubt that denying women in developing
countries access to safe abortions has dire consequences.
A new World Health Organisation study has found that more women die in
Ethiopian hospitals from complications arising from illegal abortions than
from any other cause except tuberculosis.
The US-based Centre for Reproductive Law and Policy estimates that 78,000
women around the world die each year from unsafe abortions.
Campaigning for the mid-term elections, the Republicans presented
themselves as cold-eyed realists, best equipped to deal with the likes of
Saddam Hussein.
On the question of reproductive rights they are blind ideologues who would
rather see a penniless, illiterate girl die from a botched, backyard
abortion than give an inch.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,5444076%255E17061,00.html
