US Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned that the declaration “would undercut the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and strip the fundamental rights of millions, especially women”.
“The Geneva Consensus Declaration attempts to undermine bedrock human rights agreements and women’s health and reproductive rights here at home and around the world. Fortunately, same-sex marriage and abortion remain legal in the United States. Despite the White House’s efforts, LGBT rights and women’s rights will always be human rights,” Cardin said in a statement.
Outrage in Kenya
Kenya’s signing of the declaration prompted outrage from Kenyan civil society organisations (CSOs), including the Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and Aids (KELIN), which believes it may have been illegal.
“Kenyan law protects sexual and reproductive health and rights within its legal and policy framework,” KELIN programme officer Linda Wanjiru Kroeger told openDemocracy. “Article 43(1)(a) of the Constitution provides for the right to health including reproductive healthcare, and Article 26(4) provides for access to safe and legal abortion within certain circumstances.”
“The government signing on to the Geneva Consensus undermines our Constitution as well as the mandate and ability of the UN to develop harmonised policies that advance desirable human rights documents,” Kroeger explained.
An alliance of 14 CSOs in Kenya including KELIN wrote to the foreign affairs ministry, arguing that the country’s support for the declaration is unconstitutional, but to date they have received no response.
In a joint statement, the CSOs demanded that the government withdraw its support for the declaration and reaffirm its commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights and to protecting the lives of women and girls.
The statement was published as a petition in the Daily Nation newspaper, where it was supported by 21 civil society groups.
“It is our hope that the incoming Biden-Harris administration will nip this onslaught against human rights, and particularly sexual and reproductive health and rights, in the bud once and for all,” said Kroeger.
Serra Sippel, president of the US-based Center for Health and Gender Equity, also denounced the declaration as “a vehicle for the United States to undermine national sovereignty and bully other nations into following its anti-choice, anti-human rights and anti-evidence agenda”.
Sippel urged the US Department of State and Department of Health and Human Services to “reflect the ideals of the American people – not the fringe, conservative, Christian ideologies in power”.
Print
Kerry Cullinan | Radio Free (2021-01-25T09:38:04+00:00) Will Trump’s anti-abortion Geneva Consensus fall apart?. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2021/01/25/will-trumps-anti-abortion-geneva-consensus-fall-apart/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.