Global Justice Center E-News May 1, 2007
Introduction
As you all know, April was a dark month for women in America. Unfortunately, the implications of the recent Gonzales vs. Carhart Supreme Court decision are far broader and potentially more devastating to women around the globe than many realize. The watered-down definitions of sex discrimination our Supreme Court has developed are at odds with and a threat to evolving global standards for women's rights. Currently, there are some ongoing "phony wars" for women's rights which are starting out with rights so compromised that winning them would be worse than losing.
The US Ratification of CEDAW
The US version of CEDAW is not worth ratifying. To date 185 countries have ratified the treaty called "the international bill of rights for women" officially, the Convention for Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women or CEDAW. Although the United States signed CEDAW in 1980, it was not until 2002 that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve after hearings which imposed a bundle of "conditions and understandings" on CEDAW. This US version, CEDAW "lite" or CEDAW "lie" as I call it, has so limited the scope of equality rights that it could undermine rather than further women's rights globally.
The U.S. CEDAW conditions include an anti-abortion "understanding" sponsored by Senator Helms in 1994 which states:
"nothing in this Convention shall be construed to reflect or create any right to abortion and in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning."
Already, Senator Barbara Boxer testified that CEDAW "has nothing to do with abortion"; Rep Carolyn Maloney testified to the Senate that "the CEDAW treaty has been identified as abortion-neutral by the State Department, Senator Helms lead the way in making this explicit". Over 180 groups have joined this chorus, including the American Bar Association. Now, you might ask, what is wrong with that, what exactly does it do? Although these phrases may sound neutral-or even benign-they most decidedly are not. In fact, the language strikes at the central premise-and promise-of CEDAW which is the promise of full equality. Under CEDAW, all laws must be given the strictest scrutiny as to whether they act to impede women's rights to full citizenship and dignity. If any law fails this test, women have the right to have it invalidated as sex discriminatory.
Yet the U.S. version would exclude abortion, and only abortion from this scrutiny. The phrase "abortion as a method of family planning" is a euphemism which has a legal definition that would mean CEDAW supports criminal abortion laws with the exception of those few for life, rape and incest. This U.S. anti-abortion interpretation of CEDAW is at odds with developing jurisprudence globally. The UN treaty monitoring bodies have repeatedly held countries responsible under both CEDAW and the ICCPR for the harms ensuing to women from restrictive abortion laws.
On May 10, 2006 the Constitutional Court in Colombia struck down Colombia's criminal abortion law on the ground it violated women's rights under a "bundle" of laws, with CEDAW at the centerpiece. The Court's language is noteworthy:
"Sexual and reproductive rights also emerge from the recognition that equality in general, gender equality in particular, and the emancipation of women and girls are essential to society. Protecting sexual and reproductive rights is a direct path to promoting the dignity of all human beings and a step forward in humanity's advancement towards social justice."
Proponents of CEDAW in the US vigorously deny that CEDAW could ever be what I think it could be-our strongest legal tool for women to fight abortion restrictions and redefine equality.
The Global Gag rule
Furthermore, the global censorship of abortion speech orchestrated by the United States, has fully saturated the U.N. and reaches inside over 170 countries. There are two restrictions, but only one has been subject to criticism-the gag rule. Under the gag rule over 400 nonprofit groups world wide will loose all U.S. health and democracy grants if they discuss abortion, even with their own funds. Yet however pernicious this gag rule is, its repeal would not stop the problem. We must kill the virus which foments it, the Helms amendment. The 1973 Helms Amendment to the FAA prohibits US funding of any abortion services or speech except in cases of life or rape or incest. Although such funding is allowed in those cases the U.S. has never permitted it. For example, right now we could help the women in Sudan who suffer rape and forced pregnancy as war crimes. Abortion in the case of rape is legal in the Sudan, it is legal under Helms, but who is speaking up for this medical service to survivors? The Helms censorship has meant that all U.N. agencies now follow its strictures. UNFPA alone imposes censorship on abortion speech in all its projects, ones funded by some 171 donor countries totaling over $350 million annually.