APPC senior officials fail to agree on Plan of Action<\/p>\n
============
\nTantri Yuliandini
\nThe Jakarta Post
\nBangkok, Thailand
\n-----------------------<\/p>\n
Senior officials at the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population
\nConference (APPC), hosted by Bangkok this year, have failed to
\nagree on the final draft of the Plan of Action on population and
\npoverty eradication due to reservations from the United States.<\/p>\n
This failure would then shift the burden of finalizing the
\ndraft Plan of Action to ministers of the United Nations Economic
\nand Social Council (UN-ESCAP), who will open their meeting on
\nMonday.<\/p>\n
The chairman of the drafting committee at APPC, Shahab Khawaja
\nfrom Pakistan, said that all member countries had actually agreed
\nto the draft except the United States, which gave its reservation
\nover clauses on people's reproductive rights leading to abortion.<\/p>\n
\"We regret that the draft does not have the consensus of every
\nmember of the committee. There are still a lot of brackets,
\nmeaning there were no agreements,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"We have received a proposal from the United States; we have
\nconsidered it but an agreement could not take place, meaning
\ndifferences between the countries and the United States cannot be
\nbridged,\" he further said, adding that the issue would be brought
\nto the ministerial meeting.<\/p>\n
The chairman of the Senior Officials Meeting Committee of the
\nWhole, J.V.R. Prasada Rao of India, said that the UN-ESCAP
\nministers may either decide to accept the document or extend the
\nmandate for the drafting committee to continue deliberations over
\nthe text until an agreement is reached.<\/p>\n
The U.S. delegation has indicated that should the ministers
\ndecide to adopt the draft Plan of Action, it would ask for a
\nrecorded vote.<\/p>\n
The U.S. delegation posed as the lone barrier towards a
\nconsensus with its strong stance against some of the wording in
\nthe text, particularly over the chapter on reproductive rights
\nand reproductive health, and the chapter on adolescent
\nreproductive health, which it claimed to advocate abortion and
\nunderage sex.<\/p>\n
To clarify their stance, the United States proposed a footnote
\nto the draft Plan of Action which stated that \"it is the view of
\nthe United States that none of these terms as employed in the
\ndocuments listed and throughout this Plan of Action should be
\ninterpreted to constitute in any way an expression of support,
\nendorsement, or promotion of abortion.\"<\/p>\n
Despite the footnote, however, the delegation still insisted
\non changing some of the wording in the draft Plan of Action.<\/p>\n
A member of the Indonesian delegation, Syamsiah Achmad, said
\nthat the proposed changes, however, would only dilute the
\ncommitments already made in the Cairo International Conference on
\nPopulation Development (ICPD) in 1994.<\/p>\n
She pointed out the agreements made during the ICPD in Cairo
\nand its five-year review (known as ICPD+5) in 1999 clearly stated
\nthat \"in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of
\nfamily planning.\"<\/p>\n
The ICPD stated further that \"any measures or changes related
\nto abortion within the health system can only be determined at
\nthe national or local level according to national legislative
\nprocess.\"<\/p>\n
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as the Asian
\nForum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD)
\nwhich held their meeting in conjunction with APPC, expressed
\nsuspicions that the U.S. was \"using\" the international forum to
\npush for amendments of its own laws on abortion.<\/p>\n
\"We would like to express our dismay and disappointment with
\nthe recent standpoint taken by the United States with regards to
\nthe ICPD,\" the AFPPD said in its statement of commitment.<\/p>\n
In the statement, parliamentarians also agreed to \"give high
\npriority to achieving universal access to sexual and reproductive
\nhealth services in national health and poverty reduction
\nframeworks, both in terms of budget allocations and in terms of
\nprogram activities.\"<\/p>\n
Although the Plan of Action adopted at the Bangkok conference
\nwill not be binding, an assessment of its implementation will be
\nuseful during the next population meeting in 2004.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/appc-senior-officials-fail-to-agree-on-plan-of-action-1447899208",
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