US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said “reproductive and sexual health rights” was a redline preventing the US from supporting a UN resolution opposed to sexual violence against women.
The headlines suggested that Donald Trump opposed an anti-rape resolution brought before the Security Council by Germany last month. The Washington Post’s read, “The UN wanted to end sexual violence in war. Then the Trump administration had objections.” The Guardian’s read, “US threatens to veto UN resolution on rape as weapon of war.” Technically true, but neither captures the issues involved. The Foreign Affairsheadline was more accurate: “How a UN bid to prevent sexual violence turned into a spat over abortion.”
The resolution was aimed at preventing rape in conflict zones. The German draft resolution contained provisions that several member states objected to, including language that is code for abortion. The Security Council resolution called on the UN to provide “comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health.” The Trump administration has consistently opposed such language in any UN document. Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council with veto power like the US, also opposed this language. Red China was also threatening to veto the resolution over other objections. The US delegation also had other objections, but chose the fight over abortion as its priority and won, successfully convincing Germany to drop the problematic language.
A senior diplomat told the New York Post’s Sohrab Ahmari that America opposed using wartime rape to “normalize abortion rights as the standard of care” in all circumstances. This is opposed by delegations from countries throughout Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, in addition to the U.S. Yet as the diplomat says, the European Union (and Canada) relentlessly push “the same agenda” of abortion, contraception, and comprehensive sex education, “on everyone else.”
An internal State Department cable sent by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s office to the US Embassy in Berlin and US mission to the UN was obtained by Foreign Affairs magazine. It stated that the US was prepared to veto the resolution if the pro-abortion language was not removed, saying this and other provisions are “red lines” for Washington. Other problems included references to the International Criminal Court, budget concerns, and the creation of a new bureaucracy at the UN.
Foreign Affairs reported that “other governments and advocacy groups” dispute the view that sexual and reproductive health is synonymous with abortion, but the Canadian delegation has confirmed this understanding in the past.
Germany also removed a provision that would establish a UN monitoring body to report rape atrocities, but several countries including the US opposed the section, saying it was superfluous because such mechanisms already exist within the office of the Secretary General of the UN. The resolution passed 13-0, with the US joining those in favour, while Russia and China abstained.
Ahmari said that contrary to attempting to scuttle the resolution, “the Trump administration’s diplomacy helped save” it by successfully cajoling Germany to remove sections that were problematic to three permanent members with veto power in the Security Council.
That did not stop Nobel Peace laureates Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, and numerous celebrities from condemning President Donald Trump for threatening the veto.
Tarah Demant, the director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Program at Amnesty International also condemned the US administration, saying “The US is turning its back fully and completely on human rights and it’s not hiding it.” Amnesty International has declared abortion a human right.
Jessica Neuwirth, a former special advisor on sexual violence to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who now serves as head of The Sisterhood Is Global Institute, said that women in war zones must have access to “sexual and reproductive health services … for the sexual violence they have endured.”
The US State Department said more needs to be done to prevent sexual violence in armed conflict.
