“It is egregious to suggest to mothers that the only way to save their lives is to kill their babies,” said Dr. Robert Walley, head of MaterCare International. “They have the right to health care. They have no voice when they are dead.”

Controversy has dogged the maternal health goal since heads of state established it at the Millennium Summit in 2000. The heads of state explicitly rejected language used by many Western countries to mean abortion, despite intense lobbying for its inclusion at that time and at the subsequent 2005 follow up summit. Even so, subsequent UN-sponsored meetings like the Women Deliver conference in May focused almost exclusively on access to abortion as the way to improve maternal health.

Panelists last week criticized the World Health Organization (WHO) for insisting that as long as an abortion is legal, it would always be considered “safe”. The WHO definition of abortion as unsafe or safe is not a medical but legal definition, said Dr. Donna Harrison, an OB/GYN. By contrast, if a country prohibits abortion, any abortions or related complications are automatically categorized as “unsafe,” Harrison said.

Harrison, president of the American Association for Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said WHO and other UN bodies are being dishonest in campaigning for legalized abortion worldwide by hiding behind the pretext of “safe” abortion.

In another blow to the argument that abortions help reduce pregnancy-related deaths , Dr. Elard Koch concluded from government data going back 100 years that Chile’s maternal-death rate continued to fall even after the government banned abortion.

Increasing education levels, maternal literacy rate and maternal health services appear to be the most important factors in lowering maternal deaths, said Koch, an epidemiologist at the University of Chile. Legal access to abortion is not important, as advocates have claimed.

Health systems in developing countries are failing because the focus has been shifted to “reproductive health,” according to Dr. Obi Ideh, an OB/GYN practicing in Nigeria.  The failures can be linked to corruption, lack of community-based healthcare, and incomplete medical data that prevent women from getting the care that they require.

Ideh emphasized the need to strengthen family, community and cultural factors as the first-line support for poor mothers and to increase training and staffing of health facilities to combat maternal deaths.

In a passionate account of his work with MaterCare, Dr. Walley described  a post-earthquake Haiti where mothers were forced to give birth to their babies “in a toxic soup of rainwater and sewage.” Walley called for the international community to meet its responsibilities to poor mothers in emergency situations in the developing world.

The panel was organized by a coalition of pro-life advocacy groups and hosted by the governments of the Philippines and Malawi.

Obaid said she was “proud of the progress that we have made to secure a solid policy and legal foundation for sexual and reproductive health.”  According to Obaid, “Today the concept of reproductive health is widely accepted and reflected in international, regional and national policies and plans.”

While perhaps not as well known as her predecessor Nafis Sadik, Thoraya Obaid’s tenure at UNFPA has arguably made a bigger impact on the UN system, bringing more money and increased global and regional activity.   Early in her tenure, Obaid raised eyebrows when she praised China for its “remarkable achievements in population control,” made possible by the country’s one-child policy, although such missteps were rare.

Obaid claimed agency neutrality on the abortion issue, stating that UNFPA only tries to prevent “unsafe abortion.”  However, UNFPA staffers under Obaid intervened on the question in at least one instance.  Prior to a vote to ban abortion in Nicaragua in 2006, UNFPA ignored broad-based support for the abortion ban and attempted to stop the Nicaraguan Parliament from changing the law.  And in 2007, UNFPA was one of the largest donors of the abortion advocacy law firm, the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Obaid pushed hard for “universal access to reproductive health” to be recognized as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), despite its repeated and explicit rejection as a goal by heads of state in both 2000 and 2005.  While initial efforts failed, starting in 2007, Obaid was at the forefront of promoting this concept as a new MDG target, which was referenced in an annex of a Secretary-General’s report. At a UNFPA board meeting, several board members countered Obaid’s claim, interjecting that member states had not agreed to a new target and the only thing that could generate one was a resolution of the General Assembly.

Apart from nearly doubling the agency’s funding from $400 million to $700 million, Obaid also increased the scope of UNFPA’s activities, delving into regional activities such as in the African Union (AU) where UNFPA was instrumental in drafting and pressuring countries to adopt the Maputo Protocol and the Maputo Plan of Action, which activists have used to claim for expanded abortion rights.

Obaid’s UNFPA has also begun targeting youth and adolescents, most recently taking a leading role at the World Youth Conference in Mexico where UNFPA-selected and funded youth representatives pushed governments for “sexual rights” including abortion and contraceptives.

Obaid closed her speech with a final plea to UNFPA board members “to keep standing up for this vision of universal reproductive health and rights” and “to take this message forward in the upcoming MDG Summit” which will take place from September 20-22.

UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon will announce the new UNFPA Executive Director later this year.

Link to speech: http://unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/6551

Delegates became increasingly frustrated as they were shut out of the negotiating process. Unlike at the United Nations where meetings are open to any delegation wishing to make amendments, at the WYC delegates were told that meetings were closed and that they should submit written amendments to the “drafting committee,” comprised of a handful of countries.

While some delegations tried to comply with this procedure, tensions built as delegates were unable to locate the drafting committee to submit their proposals and conference volunteers had to scramble to find the room where the drafters were sequestered.

At the final session, several countries complained about the lack of transparency and the chaotic process. When the chairman attempted to force immediate adoption of the declaration, Chile, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia and the United States pushed back pointing out that many delegations had not even been able to review the document because of translation delays.

Though still with troubling language, the f inal version of the Declaration of Guanajuato was markedly improved from the previous drafts. Pro-lifer lobbyists and delegations, however, expressed deep concern about a document that was released by the official coalition of youth. The recommendations were submitted to governments for consideration earlier in the week with youth participants pushing for the document to be appended to the official governmental declaration.

Drafted by an elite group of youth delegates, many of whom were handpicked and funded by the pro-abortion UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the recommendations included demands for: a redefinition of gender to include the “spectrum of gender identities” – including “intersex” and “queer,” “comprehensive sexuality education” and “safe abortion.”

One youth delegate from Africa told the Friday Fax, “It seems like some agencies, like UNFPA, are in control of the whole process.” He complained that UNFPA was offering financial backing for youth participants and government delegates alike and using that position to “promote their agenda.”  Moreover, he said that during the drafting sessions of the youth document, UNFPA’s presence ”hindered youth delegates from speaking their mind” as the agency brought many of their staff and that he felt “really outnumbered by UNFPA.”

By the close of the conference, confusion over the status of the youth recommendations remained.  Some delegations expressed support for attaching the youth recommendations to the governmental declaration, while other countries expressly objected.

The conference chairman tried to ease tensions by telling delegations that they would have until the end of September to register any written reservations to the declaration through their foreign ministries.

One of the organizers of the conference told the Friday Fax that the youth recommendations would not be appended to the governmental declaration when it is presented to the UN later this month. After witnessing the absence of clear procedures for drafting, negotiating or passing documents, many critics are dubious.

The Declaration of Guanajuato will be presented at the United Nations during a high level review of the Millennium Development Goals from September 22 – 25.

Early reports from participants at the World Youth Conference that commenced this week in León, Mexico are that the conference is the scene of ideological rigidity and yet almost total chaos. There seem to be four conferences going on at once, one for youth, one for governments, one for parliamentarians, and one called the Global Interactive Forum.

A measure of the chaos at the governmental forum is that early yesterday it was announced the president of Mexico would appear and speak. The room gathered, quieted, music played, and then nothing happened and no one explained anything. The president never appeared, at least as of this writing.

The governmental meeting is supposed to produce an outcome document. [Wednesday], a document was distributed that, according to pro-life sources in the room, was quite good but that turned out was quite unofficial. According to C-FAM’s UN Blog, “The unofficial document included a call for the promotion of sexual abstinence” and “the promotion of values in the family.” This so enraged organizers that one of them grabbed the microphone and made an urgent denunciation of the “phony” declaration. A representative from International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) then took the microphone and demanded that organizers take control of the conference and prevent “infiltration.”

According to organizers, the unauthorized document does not reflect the views or the discussions being held at the conference. Organizers urged participants who had received the document to throw them out to prevent confusion before the governments begin negotiating today.

It is reported today that governmental negotiators are becoming increasingly frustrated with what are supposed to be actual negotiations. At afternoon breakout sessions yesterday afternoon, delegates came prepared with suggested amendments for the draft document, entitled the Declaration of Guanajuato, that is supposed to be finalized on Friday. At the working group on “gender equality,” the moderator explained that discussions were not intended for amending the document, but for broad discussion on the theme.

One delegate pushed back and asked for clarification as to where and when governments would be able to give their input.  The moderator did not know and said that a separate drafting committee would be handling that. Another government delegate fired back asking, “Then who is allowed to participate and who is not?” The delegate pointed out the disorganization and complained that delegations were not even sure which draft of the document they were supposed to be working on. When the moderator again said that this was a broad discussion and not for specific language suggestions, an African delegate retorted, “Then what are we supposed to do? Why are we even here?”

Things were a little better at the conference attended by young people. According to several participants and organizers, there are only 300 youth designated as “delegates” with voting privileges in the Non-governmental Organization (NGO) Meeting.  Nearly all of these delegates have had their travel and expenses paid for by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which is further skewing the discussions and proposed recommendations that will be presented to the Government Forum toward a pro-sexual rights, pro-abortion agenda.

The three hundred youth delegates met Tuesday night under the auspices of various adult groups including the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) to hammer out a statement for youth that would be sent to the governmental delegations. One observer of the youth track said the document “is just about the most radical thing anyone ever saw.” Participants say the document may now be appended to the actual governmental document soon to be under negotiation.  This will cause grave concern to the more conservative governments attending the conference.

Pressure was placed on the AU from UN agencies and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGO). While United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director Thoraya Obaid, called on delegates to focus on non-controversial interventions to reduce maternal deaths – such as skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care – the very next day in a speech at Makerere University in Kampala Obaid focused instead on “unsafe abortion,” “reproductive rights,” “reproductive health services” and “sexuality education.”

The pro-abortion NGO coalition told the AU assembly they were “ashamed” of Africa’s high maternal and child mortality.  The NGOs called on governments for “guaranteed access to family planning services,” “reproductive health commodity security” and to address “unsafe abortion.” The NGO statement did not mention skilled birth attendants or emergency obstetric care, what are traditionally understood as the cures for high maternal mortality.

Abortion advocates have heralded the Maputo PoA as a victory for their cause since the document calls for “policies and legal frameworks to reduce incidence of unsafe abortion” and to “prepare and implement national plans of action to reduce incidence of unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortion.” While the focus on maternal health is generally viewed as a positive development, critics warn that the warm feelings about reducing maternal mortality are being used also to promote a right to abortion.

Critics point to the sneaky way the Maputo document came into being. Prior to the 2006 passage of the PoA, several AU delegations objected to the abortion provisions and only agreed to the document on the understanding that the abortion clauses would be removed. The changes were never made and several African nations charged the AU secretariat with “manipulation.”

Originally intended to be a short-term three-year plan, the AU decision will extend the Maputo PoA through 2015, to coincide with the planned conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In addition to extending the PoA, AU member states committed to expanding CARMMA, an initiative to promote “intensified action” on MDG 5 maternal health. Since the initial launch in May 2009, CARMMA has since been launched in 20 countries. Last week, AU members committed to ensuring that CARMMA would be launched in all 53 African countries before the next AU summit.

In addition to renewing the Maputo PoA and expanding CARMMA, AU member states also committed to increasing health funding to 15% of national budgets, making health services free for women and children and called on donor nations to fulfill their pledges.

Such funding became a major part of the conference negotiations.  While participants praised the recent $7.3 billion pledged by the G-8 for maternal health, delegates said much more was needed. Some proposed additional money could be siphoned off from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria though this was not acted upon.

The Obama administration has been an active champion of IGLHRC’s application to the UN since the June meeting of the committee on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) when US representatives insisted on an immediate vote on IGLHRC even though other committee members still had unanswered questions. In response to the US attempt to force a decision, Egypt called for a procedural “no action” motion.

Opposition to IGLHRC’s application centers around the group’s endorsement of a document called the Yogyakarta Principles, a document which calls for “sexual orientation and gender identity” to be new categories of nondiscrimination in UN human rights treaties. Among other things the Yogyakarta Principles calls for criminal penalties against those who criticize homosexuality.

Prior to the vote, US ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo argued that the group should be given status because the organization fulfills all the criteria for ECOSOC status and had answered all the questions posed to it by the NGO committee and blasting member states that supported the June no-action motion. The Egyptian representative said all his government’s questions were not answered and charged the group with being evasive on questions of religious freedom and freedom of expression, fundamental tenets of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Charter.

A number of UN member states have expressed growing concern about clergy members being charged with “hate speech” for preaching traditional religious teachings on sexual morality.  In June, one member of the NGO committee asked IGLHRC “if a religion teaches that sexual relations other than between a man and a woman within wedlock is wrong, would IGLHRC support the prosecution of a religious preacher for what he or she preaches against homosexuality?”  IGLHRC has refused to answer the question.

The resolution to grant IGLHRC accreditation passed with 23 in favor, 13 against, 13 abstentions, with 5 absences.

The ECOSOC Council has overturned seven other NGO Committee decisions to reject the applications of homosexual rights groups in the last decade. This week’s vote, however, marks the first time that the ECOSOC council has granted accreditation without a prior NGO Committee decision on the application.

In the weeks prior to the ECOSOC vote, UN member states were bombarded by lobbying campaigns organized by homosexual rights groups. One delegate said their mission received several phone calls from one of the US ambassadors prior to the vote.

The IGLHRC application has been a priority action for the Obama administration with four official statements on IGLHRC’s application on the US mission website, including a statement from President Obama who said that he “welcomed” the approval of IGLHRC and saw it as an “important step forward for human rights, as [IGLHRC] will take its rightful seat at the table of the United Nations.”

Last Friday the General Assembly voted to consolidate four separate United Nations (UN) bodies dedicated to women’s issues into one new gender equality entity called “UN Women.” The resolution capped a victory for radical feminists who lobbied for years for the new entity and is the latest in an overall push to bring women’s issues even more onto the UN agenda.

After four years of sometimes harsh negotiations, member states agreed on simplifying the disjointed efforts of four UN offices dedicated to women’s issues; the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI).

The framework for UN Women is the Beijing Platform for Action, which calls for an end to discrimination against women especially highlighting education, employment, political participation and human rights. An Under-Secretary-General appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will head the new body and member states are calling for a prompt appointment before the General Assembly meets in September. Many are speculating that former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet will be chosen. Bachelet is a socialist who promoted reproductive health and women’s rights during her political career. The Under-Secretary-General will hold a 4-year term with a possibility of one renewable term.

The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign, a coalition of radical feminist groups and abortion advocates, has relentlessly lobbied to create a UN super-agency to deal with women’s issues. Charlotte Bunch, executive director of the Centre for Women’s Global Leadership and the leading advocate of the GEAR campaign, said, “We have high expectations for this new agency [...] The coalition of women’s groups and other social justice, human rights and development organizations that played a pivotal role in this effort will now turn its efforts toward ensuring that the new body has the human and financial resources necessary to succeed.”

The new body will be governed by an executive board consisting of 41 members: 10 African, 10 Asian, 4 Eastern European, 5 Western European/Other States, 6 Latin American/Caribbean, and 6 from contributing countries, of which 4 seats are allocated to the largest donor countries and 2 seats to donors from developing countries.

Some member states have expressed concern that the cultures and objectives of recipient countries would not be respected. The resolution reaffirms that there is no “one size fits all” approach to development assistance, reflecting what is generally a split between rich industrial states where radical feminism holds sway and poorer countries where basic necessities must be met.

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women of America, told the Friday Fax, “Women need respect and opportunity, not a global agency demanding money and power for its well-heeled elitist leaders. The money would be better spent going directly to the areas and people in need with programs that have proven to work, not to another agency to empower the people who run it.”

Twenty-one candidates from across the globe vied for the open positions, but in the end, the majority of the slots went to previous members of the committee including three former committee chairmen.

According to the CEDAW treaty, committee members are elected by States Parties from among their nationals, but members serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of any particular State Party. Members of the committee should be “independent” and “of high moral standing and competence.” The newly-elected members will serve four-year terms starting in January 2011.

Despite the requirement that CEDAW committee members remain “independent,” many past and current members of the committee are direct employees or hold advisory positions at such pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as the Latin America and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights, the International Women’s Rights Action Watch and the Global Fund for Women.

Critics have been concerned over the committee’s long-time abortion activism, pushing countries to strike down punitive measures, calling for liberalized access and decriminalization despite the fact that the CEDAW treaty makes no mention of abortion. Over 80 countries have been questioned on their abortion laws to date.  At least one country, Colombia, actually used committee comments as justification to change their laws on abortion.

The CEDAW committee’s next session will take place in New York later this month and already the committee has sent written question on abortion to more than half of the countries scheduled to be reviewed.

The influence of the CEDAW committee within the treaty monitoring system is expected to expand in the coming months with increased harmonization amongst the various treaty monitoring bodies.  Before the CEDAW committee election, Jessica Neuwirth, New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), highlighted a new joint working group between the OHCHR and the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Neuwirth reported that the group met for the first time in January 2010 “to consider common areas of concern,” including the drafting of a new joint general recommendation.

Apart from expanding work with other treaty monitoring committees, Neuwirth also reported on a new accountability mechanism. In an effort “to enhance its working methods,” the CEDAW Committee appointed former CEDAW chair Dubravka Simonivic as rapporteur to follow-up on the non-binding concluding observations issued to countries after their reviews. With the follow-up procedure, the CEDAW committee would include a request to individual States Parties for information on steps taken to implement specific recommendations contained in those concluding observations. The request would call on States Parties to provide such information within two years.  However, States Parties are completely free to ignore any request made by the committee.

The CEDAW Committee will next meet from July 12 – 30.

The pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) heralded the new report and boasted of having a “leading role” in getting maternal mortality put on the human rights agenda. CRR organized three panels on implanting a “human rights-based approach” to reducing maternal mortality at the recent Women Deliver 2 conference.

Because maternal mortality only effects women, the OHCHR report asserts that failures to prevent maternal deaths and injuries constitute violations of “the right to life, the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and the right to non-discrimination.” As evidence of the obligation to promote and protect maternal health, OHCHR cites the non-binding recommendations of human rights treaty monitoring bodies.

At the heart of the report is the argument that “unsafe abortion” is a major component of preventable maternal mortality. The report notes UN treaty bodies have asked countries “to ensure that women are not forced to undergo clandestine abortion that endanger their lives.” As part of their obligation to reduce maternal mortality, OHCHR claims that “ensuring women’s access to maternal health and other sexual and reproductive health services may require addressing discriminatory laws, policies, practices and gender inequalities in health care and in society.”

The OHCHR recommendations emphasize an expanded use of the “rights-based approach” on maternal mortality throughout the entire UN system. OHCHR also demands countries address the “human rights dimension of maternal mortality” in their universal periodic reviews and for special rapporteurs to include maternal mortality in their reports. To “ensure” that countries are fulfilling their obligations to reduce preventable maternal mortality, the OHCHR report also calls for the establishment of monitoring mechanisms.

Eyewitnesses to the presentation of the report in Geneva last week were frustrated at the proceedings where pro-life interventions were shut out. The Holy See, a governmental delegation, was not allowed to address the meeting though time was given to pro-abortion NGOs Amnesty International and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children’s representative Patrick Buckley was present at the Geneva meeting and pointed out the inconsistencies of the OHCHR report. The report lists prenatal care and skilled birth attendants as the most effective means of reducing maternal mortality. However, Buckley said that the report’s emphasis on abortion access shows the “underlying ideological drive to establish abortion as a human right” and represents “a fundamental denial and distortion of the real meaning of genuine human rights.”

The OHCHR report is expected to have a major impact in anticipation of the September 2010 high-level review on the Millennium Development Goals.

According to IPPF, “universal access to reproductive health refers to a full package of services including comprehensive sexuality education, access to contraception, maternity care, emergency obstetric care, and safe abortion services …”  The IPPF event was promoted as an UN-sponsored meeting to get input from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the high level MDG Summit that will take place in the fall.

IPPF Director-General Gill Greer said advocates “must make up for lost opportunity” and that “the universal access to reproductive health target is not optional.”  Greer claimed that though “universal access to reproductive health” was not included in the MDGs in 2000, in 2005 states “recognized the missing link” to reproductive health.

UN member states have pointed out a number of times that no new targets, particularly, no new target on “reproductive health” was ever negotiated or agreed to by the General Assembly, the main decision-making body of the UN.  Prior to both the Millennium Summit in 2000 and the MGD five-year review in 2005, abortion activists pushed hard for a separate goal on reproductive health, but failed.  Since those failed attempts, activists have sought to link reproductive health to existing MDGs. In 2006, in the annex of a report published by then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a “new” target 5b on “universal access to reproductive health by 2015″ appeared though this was never agreed to by the General Assembly.

Greer said IPPF would continue to argue for “safe, legal abortion” and that the organization would work to “ensure that these issues will not be forgotten again” at the MDG review in September.

In keeping with the organization’s renewed focus on youth and adolescents, the IPPF panel featured Neha Sood from the Youth Coalition for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, who argued that “the MDGs cannot be achieved unless it is acknowledged that young people are sexual beings and have sexual and reproductive health need, and sexual and reproductive rights.”

Sood said, “Legal barriers that hinder access to sexual and reproductive health services must be removed,” including spousal or parental consent laws, inequitable age-of-consent laws, and the criminalization of sex work, HIV transmission and same-sex sexual activity.”

IPPF’s “Promise is a Promise” campaign brings together an all-star lineup of abortion advocates, including the Center for Reproductive Rights, Ipas, and the International Women’s Health Coalition, among others, to push countries to commit to greater action and financial commitment for “reproductive health.” Critics expect this and other similar campaigns to ramp up at the UN as UN member states negotiate MDG Summit outcome document over the coming weeks.

The MDG Summit is scheduled to take place at UN headquarters in New York from September 20-22.