Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - Monday December 16, 2002
Nopporn Wong-Anan

Rights groups and ministers attending the conference of more than 30 countries in the Asia-Pacific said Washington's position put the health of millions of women in the region at risk.

"The impact of such an extreme agenda--if approved--would be both brutal and unjust for the women and families of this region," Terri Bartlett, vice president of Population Action International, said in a statement at the conference.

UN members have negotiated for much of the past decade toward an international agreement in support of family planning and the promotion of safe sex to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

Supporters of the agreement say a deal was ready to be signed but the United States said this week it objected to some clauses that implied support for abortion and contraception that the Bush administration opposes.

The Republican US government, backed by evangelical Christian groups in the United States, is strongly opposed to abortion and argues the best form of family planning is abstinence from sex.

Washington wants to delete language calling attention to the impact of unsafe abortions on women's health, and a reference to "consistent condom use" as a means of reducing HIV infection.

But Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, said in a speech Monday that the International Conference for Population Development (ICPD) program did not imply support for abortion.

"The language of the ICPD Program of Action is extremely clear," Obaid said. "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning."

"The phrase 'reproductive health services' is not code for the promotion or support for 'abortion services,"' she said.

Defending Washington's stand, Eugene Dewey, State Department Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration, told a news conference US efforts to amend the pact's language to comply with its own laws had been hit by a "horrendous disinformation campaign.

"It disturbs me, the disinformation campaign which has been perpetrated by some participants of this conference. It spreads the lie that the US is trying to pull back or to overturn the ICPD plan of action. This is absolutely false."

Dewey said that whatever the outcome of the UN meeting ending Tuesday, Washington would continue funding UN agencies for family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention schemes.

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