The United States plans to rejoin an international anti-abortion pact alongside countries like Uganda, Saudi Arabia and Belarus, with the Trump administration taking its first formal step to roll back Biden-era global health policies and previewing an expected strategy of seeking to throttle abortion access for millions of women and girls worldwide.
Last Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed the US Mission to the United Nations to notify countries that it plans to re-join the so-called Geneva Consensus Declaration, reports Politico.
The Geneva Declaration was a first Trump-term initiative sponsored by six countries – the United States, Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda – that sought to curb global access and support for abortions by stating that there is no international right to abortion and thus countries don’t have any obligation to finance it or facilitate it.
When he took office, President Joe Biden withdrew from the declaration as part of the Democrats’ support for abortion rights.
Rubio said Biden’s decision to withdraw from the pact combined with that administration’s “negative rhetoric and pressure tactics, undermined women’s health and diminished each nation’s sovereign right to legislate its own position on matters of women’s health and the family”.
On the same day, Vice-President JD Vance told thousands of anti-abortion protesters at the March for Life rally in Washington that Trump will be the “the most pro-family, most pro-life American President of our lifetimes”.
Declaration
The Geneva Consensus Declaration is a non-binding pact that was adopted in October 2020. It eventually drew support from 39 countries.
Brazil and Colombia have since withdrawn from it, as progressive heads of states took over in both countries.
Abortion and gender rights advocates have slammed the pact, saying such initiatives endanger the lives of women and girls, particularly in developing countries that rely on foreign assistance for sexual and reproductive health support.
The Declaration’s signatory countries state that they support women’s health, but that reproductive health and rights do not include abortion.
The first Trump administration took a hardline stance against any health initiatives seen to be tacitly endorsing abortion.
In 2019, for example, it threatened to veto a UN-led resolution aimed at preventing rape in conflict zones over claims that language in the resolution on sexual and reproductive health condoned abortions.
Ultimately, the resolution was passed with US support after Germany, a lead sponsor of the initiative, stripped the language in question from the resolution.
Politico article – Trump administration takes first anti-abortion move on world stage (Open access)
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