From DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.orgWed Sep 27 09:28:55 1995
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 1995 08:26:00 +0100
From: Debra Guzman <DEBRA@OLN.comlink.apc.org>
Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org
To: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org
Subject: WCW: Vatican Raps Women's Meeting

    [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set]
    [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
    [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]

## author     : chai@UIUC.EDU
## date       : 20.09.95

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[This article has been excerpted.]

        BEIJING (AP) -- For 12 days, many delegates at the
        U.N. women's conference waited for the Vatican to
        drop a bombshell. It never did. But it did set off a
        few firecrackers.

        The Vatican's final shot came Friday when it
        condemned the conference's preoccupation with sex
        and reproduction, which it claimed was at the
        expense of sending impoverished girls to school.

        After 189 countries adopted the conference's
        Platform for Action by consensus, the Vatican
        endorsed sections on alleviating the increasing
        poverty of women, improving education and employment
        opportunities, promoting peace and ending violence
        against women.

        ...it objected to the entire chapter on health, just
        as it did at last year's U.N. population conference
        in Cairo, Egypt.

        ``Surely we can do better than to address the health
        needs of girls and women by paying disproportionate
        attention to sexual and reproductive health,'' said
        American professor Mary Ann Glendon, head of the
        Holy See's delegation.

...

        In Cairo, more than 20 Muslim and Catholic
        countries...joined the Vatican in objecting to
        phrases on reproductive rights.

        But the Vatican suffered several important losses at
        the population conference.

        It failed to block worldwide recognition...abortion
        is a fact that governments must deal with as a
        public health issue. It infuriated delegates and
        U.N. officials with its relentless fight to
        keep...liberal abortion language out of the 20-year
        plan to curb population. It also was put on the
        defensive for allying itself with extremist Muslim
        governments like those of Libya and Iran.

        At the women's conference, the Vatican lost another
        fight on abortion: The platform asks governments to
        review laws that punish women for having abortions.

        Again, the Vatican's closest allies were Islamic
        countries. But the anger generated in Cairo was
        missing.

        Abzug said the Vatican was forced to adopt a lower
        profile in Beijing because ``they didn't win in
        Cairo so they couldn't afford to have a second major
        loss.''