Traditional Countries Squash Sexual Revolution 30 Years After Cairo Conference

By | May 3, 2024

UN Commission on Population and Development

NEW YORK, May 3 (C-Fam) Traditional countries blocked any mention of abortion and homosexual/transgender issues in a political declaration adopted by the UN Commission on Population and Development this week.

In a major setback to Western countries, the declaration to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the landmark UN Conference on Population and Development held at Cairo in 1994 does not even contain euphemisms for abortion and homosexual/trans policies like the term “sexual and reproductive health” and language about “intersectionality.”

The declaration was adopted by the UN Commission on Population and Development this week after negotiations that delegates described as “hot” and “tense.”

From the outset, the Honduran Ambassador to the United Nations, Noemí Espinoza Madrid, attempted to bypass paragraph by paragraph negotiations, as is customary in intergovernmental processes. This was made worse by the fact that her proposed agreement emphasized sexual and reproductive health multiple times but did not focus on the priorities of many traditional countries, specifically, the family, poverty, and the right to development.

Western governments could not risk another failure to reach an agreement at the Commission on Population and Development. Seven of the last ten sessions of the annual commission have failed to produce an agreement after negotiations collapsed over these very issues.

In the end, traditional countries convinced other UN member states to adopt a short procedural document that does not mention sexual policies at all.

The setback for Western countries is compounded by the fact that the declaration does not expressly commit countries to the 1994 Cairo agreement past the year 2030, as they wanted. The UN system is already debating the UN development goals that will replace the current ones in 2030.

After the declaration was adopted, the disagreements voiced in closed negotiation spilled over on the floor of the commission.

Delegates from Africa and the Middle East complained of the Western focus on sexual policies during negotiations and emphasized the importance of policies to eradicate poverty, protection of the family, as well as respect for sovereignty, culture, and religion.

Western countries complained that the declaration adopted a “minimalist” approach.

Biden administration officials and some Western delegates were adamant that they will continue to promote abortion and gender ideology under the pretext of implementing the 1994 agreement in their official statements at the conference.

“Maternal health, access to contraception, and safe abortion are inextricably linked,” said Jessica Marcella, HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs, in the U.S. official statement at the commission.

Marcella re-committed the Biden-Harris administration to a “whole-of-government approach” to promote sexual and reproductive health and rights at home and abroad. She complained of “setbacks” and said there was no place in the world for “subversive efforts to maintain gender inequality” against abortion and gender ideology.

The debates about the declaration for the 30th anniversary of the Cairo conference proves that reproductive health and gender policies are more controversial today than in 1994. This is largely because Western countries and the organizations they fund are no longer coy about what these policies mean. When Western countries and UN agencies first began to promote terms like “gender” and “sexual and reproductive health” thirty years ago, the terms were new and no one understood them. Now, it is impossible to deny that they are vehicles for abortion, homosexual/transgender issues, and sexual autonomy for children.

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