Trump Admin Pushes Back Against UN Abortion Agenda

The UN Commission on the Status of Women concluded its annual meeting in New York last week. As always, sex radicals from the developed world did their best to push their agenda—under the cover of women’s equality—on rightly resistant countries in the developing world.

The meeting marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Fourth World Congress on Women, which took place in Beijing, China in 1995. There, delegates endorsed a Declaration and Platform for Action purportedly to achieve equality for women. And it was there that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton issued her rallying cry, “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights,” ushering in decades of debate on the world stage over the proper meaning of that claim.

The Beijing conference produced a progressive wish list, but negotiators kept abortion out of the final document. That battle didn’t end in 1995, though. Every subsequent meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women has witnessed a renewed debate over so-called sexual and reproductive health and rights, the Left’s umbrella term that includes abortion rights.

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By now, most delegates are wise to the shell game of the “SRHR” term. In this deception, the documents under negotiation never use the word “abortion.” Instead, they use vague terms such as “sexual and reproductive health and rights.” But that term—when the World Health Organization or The Lancet medical journal uses it—always includes abortion.

In that sense, this year’s meeting was no different. Abortion and “SRHR” dominated the agenda of speeches and side events.

In his opening address to the commission, UN Secretary General António Guterres declared, “women’s rights are under siege.” He warned UN delegates that “the poison of patriarchy is back – and it is back with a vengeance.” This because “reproductive rights are under attack.”

The secretary general released a status report on the implementation of the Beijing goals. “Given the surge in misogyny and a rollback of women’s human rights,” it said, “Member States have explicitly committed to removing the legal, social and economic barriers that prevent women and girls from fulfilling their potential in every sphere.”

The report noted improvements in education for women and girls since 1995, as well as progress on maternal mortality. It celebrated more women in parliaments and fewer discriminatory laws.

But the good news stopped there. The secretary general lamented the limited world progress toward the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The “vision” of the Beijing conference remains “out of reach,” he said. “Discriminatory social norms remain deeply embedded across all social institutions – the State, market, religion, community and family.”

Even worse, Secretary General Guterres wrote, “the pushback against sexual and reproductive health and rights… challenges long-standing global agreements and disregards well-established knowledge on what works to safeguard the health and well-being of women and girls.”

The narrative of a “backlash” on gender equality or “pushback” against women’s rights was everywhere. A report on “Women’s Rights in Review 30 Years After Beijing” used the word “backlash” ten times. In it, UN Women claimed that “anti-rights actors are actively undermining long-standing consensus on key women’s rights issues.”

“Backlash” and “pushback” headlined the title of many events on the CSW agenda. The governments of Denmark, Norway, Canada, Colombia, Sweden, and Tunisia held a joint event on “Advancing Abortion Rights and Access: Strengthening our Resilient Movement.”

Belgium and Mexico sponsored an event with a UN human rights body on “Addressing the backlash: Pushing forward to secure sexual, reproductive, health and labour rights.” While Finland and the Nordic Council of Ministers sponsored an event on “Turning Push-Back into Progress.”

UN Women hosted an event responding to “serious backlash on women’s empowerment … and on sexual and reproductive health and rights across the globe.”

Who are these “anti-rights” actors pushing back against “women’s rights?” Feminists deploy the “anti-rights” label against anyone who rejects their positions on sexual rights, abortion, and gender ideology. Pro-life and pro-family groups have been in their crosshairs for years.

But now, as far as the Left is concerned, the worst “anti-rights” actor on the world stage is the U.S. under the new Trump administration.

The fact that U.S. policy is again pro-life and pro-family was the 800-pound gorilla in the room at CSW. During President Joe Biden’s tenure, the U.S. sided with the European Union, the UN bureaucracy, and feminist groups to promote abortion and gender ideology at every turn. But no longer. Even without Rep. Elise Stefanik having been confirmed to the role of Ambassador to the UN yet, the U.S. delegation took a strong stance in defense of life and opposed to gender ideology.

In its national statement before the Commission, the U.S. representative declared, “The United States government will no longer promote radical ideologies that replace women with men in spaces and opportunities designed for women.” This was a sharp rebuke to the Biden administration and others advocating for “women and girls in all their diversity,” to include men and boys who “identify” as women.

The United States will fight “unhealthy and extremist gender ideology,” the statement continued. And “in rejoining the Geneva Consensus Declaration, we have shown our commitment to women’s health, protection of life at all stages, and the defense of the family as the fundamental unit of society.”

These promises come not a moment too soon.

For far too long, the Left has framed abortion access as a prerequisite for women’s empowerment, motherhood as a barrier to women’s success, and “gender” as a subjective identity. These lies hurt real women and girls. In the thirty years since the Beijing conference more and more people have seen them for what they are: the euphemisms of a dangerous ideology that shortchanges men, women, and children alike. Now is the time for the UN—led by the United States—to recommit to a pro-woman, pro-life, and pro-family agenda.

LifeNews Note: Grace Melton is The Heritage Foundation’s senior associate for international social issues. She is part of the think tank’s DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family. This column originally appeared at Daily Signal.