Mar 3, 2005 / 22:00 pm
Contrary to what many media sources have been reporting, the U.S. has not backed down on what has been called a contentious proposal to the U.N. that a document on women’s equality does not support abortion as a “right.”
A spokesman for the U.S. delegation at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) told CNSNews that media reports were wrong and in truth, the group is still in deliberations and has not decided what to do.
The U.S. delegation had called for the drafting of a brief document to be included in the reiteration of a platform agreed upon at a Beijing women’s conference in 1995.
The addendum was to clarify that the platform did not include any new rights and did not include the “right to abortion."
The proposal was met with a storm of protests from numerous governments and non-governmental organizations at the U.N meeting.
By Wednesday evening, many news outlets, including the New York Times had reported that the U.S. delegation had relented in their proposal.
At a press briefing yesterday, Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, head of the U.S. delegation was asked whether or not the group had in fact dropped the proposal.
She responded, “We are waiting for instructions from Washington, but at the moment, no.”
Many pro-life groups are urging the U.S. delegation not to back down from what they see as an important proposal, saying that abortion can never be a “human right.”