“In regard to global health”
News like this begs to be spread:
Last week in Geneva, Switzerland, negotiations went down to the wire as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) wound down its high-level meeting on health. After a marathon negotiating session that lasted until the wee hours of the morning, delegates adopted the Ministerial Declaration on “implementing the internationally agreed goals and commitments in regard to global public health” rejecting a push by the United States (US) and most European Union (EU) countries to include language that some interpret to include abortion.
That’s dense reading, but it’s the latest victory against the aggressive joint forces trying to spread abortion around the globe.
Late night negotiations carried on in Geneva as delegations continued to battle it out over the “reproductive rights” language in the draft text. While the US delegation remained quiet on the reproductive health provisions, the EU remained divided as Poland, Malta and Ireland continued opposing the controversial language despite pressure from their colleagues.
The US delegation has been emboldened by backing from the Obama team at the UN. Which makes Obama’s appointment of Douglas Kmiec as ambassador to Malta perhaps more tense. Kmiec declares himself pro-life, but pro-Obama policies, including his policies on abortion. Malta however sees it and calls it for what it is, and wants explicit clarity in this universal declaration.
Malta’s ambassador Victor Camillari made a strongly worded statement that stressed that “the right to life extended to the unborn child from the moment of conception and that the use of abortion as a means of resolving health or social problems was a denial of that right, and therefore Malta consistently disassociated itself from, and considered invalid, all statements or decisions that used references to sexual and reproductive health, directly or indirectly, to impose obligations on anyone to accept abortion as a right, a service or a commodity that could exist outside the ambit of national legislation.”
No ambiguity there, moral or semantic. Ambassador Camillari, meet Ambassador Kmiec.
