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The 54th session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March 2010 in New York was chaotic compared to previous years as it marked the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Women's World Conference.

Feminists were there in force - they had been waiting for pro-life President George W. Bush to be out of office, hoping the new US delegation, the largest at the UN, would be pro-abortion. They had their wish - President Obama is the most pro-abortion US President in history, as were his representatives at CSW.

There were around 6,000 registered NGOs, and during the first week, Denise Mountenay of Canada Silent No More, Endeavour Forum's Canadian representative at the UN, reported there were long queues for registration, and much confusion about venues for the NGO parallel events due to changes to control the numbers of who went where.

Denise brought a team of seven and they worked valiantly lobbying government delegations, making appointments with ambassadors and UN missions, distributing pro-life literature and giving personal testimony on how women are hurt by abortion. Beneath the fanfare of CSW there rages the usual battle over a "universal right to abortion".

Endeavour Forum had asked for venues for six NGO parallel events and we usually get at least four, but this time we were only allotted one, during the second week of CSW. However, Denise managed to get a private venue at a Catholic church near the UN, and organised for Dr. Angela Lanfranchi and Professor Joel Brind to speak on the abortion-breast cancer (ABC) link.

Two of Denise's team also attended an International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) parallel event - their last speaker spent her whole talk trying to discredit Endeavour Forum’s event of last year on the ABC link. She was nervous, repeated herself for 20 minutes, promised to give a PowerPoint presentation but then said there was no time. We must be making an impact if IPPF are still grizzling about our last year’s talks.

Maternal Mortality
During the second week of CSW I attended along with Molly White (Women for Life International) our US representative at the UN, who brought a team of 30 including some teens. CSW focus was on the need to reduce maternal mortality. Government delegations and UN officials stressed the importance of achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, especially MDG 5 to improve maternal health. Many cited legalization of abortion as a panacea for maternal mortality around the globe.

Pro-life delegations and NGO's quoted World Health Organisation statistics showing maternal mortality was higher in countries with liberal abortion laws than in countries with restrictive laws, e.g. Ireland, and Poland since it restricted abortion, have among the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.

Dr. Elard Koch, epidemiologist, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile, quotes a ground-breaking study showing “access to legal abortion does not appear to be necessary to achieve low rates of maternal deaths.” Chile, a "developing nation", offers a unique opportunity to examine the impact of abortion laws on maternal mortality. Abortion was legal from 1931 until 1988, but was outlawed in 1989; Chile now maintains one of the strictest abortion bans in the world. Unlike many nations - including the USA - Chile has maternal health data from the beginning of the 1900s.

The study which examined maternal deaths from 1960 to 2007, reveals maternal mortality peaked in 1961, in the midst of legalized abortion. That year, abortion caused 34% of maternal deaths. By 2007 (after 18 years of an abortion ban), maternal mortality rates were reduced by 97.9%.

CSW closed with delegations defining abortion out of a resolution on maternal mortality. Even Hillary Clinton gave a fairly muted address and did not refer to abortion (although a month earlier in Brazil she had said “women have a fundamental right to abortion") but stressed problems of female circumcision, HIV/AIDS, child marriage, "gendercide", and a pandemic of violence against women.

A number of states including Chile, Saint Lucia and Iran, made explanations of position to ensure "reproductive rights" and other “health services” terms of the CSW resolution would not be later misinterpreted to include abortion. A split within the EU over abortion became public when Poland and Malta made statements explicitly rejecting abortion. Poland interpreted “the reference to reproductive and sexual rights and services” in the resolution as not constituting an encouragement of abortion.” Malta stated it did not “consider abortion a legitimate form of family planning or other services.” Malta also criticized the notion of “unsafe abortion” which was included in the resolution, as it “implies abortions could be free of any physical or psychological risks and ignored therights of the unborn.”

In a message to CSW, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, asserted “.... global development work is too often ideologically driven, delaying the true advancement of women. To link achievement of personal, social, economic and political rights to a notion of sexual and reproductive health and rights which is violent to unborn human life is detrimental to the integral needs of women and men within society......The Holy See reiterates its commitment to improving the situation of women globally, especially the poorest, and called on all Catholic institutions for a concerted and prioritized strategy."

While member states were embroiled in heated negotiations over "reproductive rights" the cultural battle continued in six different venues near the UN, where dozens of NGOs hosted "parallel events" addressing issues central to the policy debate, hoping to catch the ear of delegates and policy makers.

Amnesty’s Pro-abortion lobbying
* Amnesty International's panel addressed “Maternal Mortality: Rights of Critical Concern” by having Carmen Baroso, regional director, International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world’s largest abortion provider, claiming that maternal mortality rates can be reduced only by securing a universal right to abortion. Ana Christina Gonzalez Velez, social affairs officer, UN Division of Gender Affairs, added: “States must avoid any religious influence in public policy. The Church cannot continue to be the moral tutor of society unless we want that morality to include the death of women.”

Sonnie Ekwowuski, a lawyer from Nigeria, questioned their vision. “I am a husband, a father, and a Nigerian. In Nigeria our women and daughters die in childbirth because of a lack of basic primary care. On all levels of Nigerian government it is undisputed. Nigeria needs primary health care for our women and children. Why do you have to link maternal mortality to abortion? Why does IPPF come here pushing their agenda? Nigerians do not want your abortion clinics. Nigerians want health care.” Ekwowuski’s comments created such loud booing and unrest he had to relinquish the microphone. Visibly upset, he said: “I am not even a Christian. This is not a religious issue. This is about real concern for our women and children. I cannot understand their way of thinking.”

Literature distributed by International National Right to Life and Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life Global Outreach supported his claim. “The lack of modern medicine and quality health care, not the promotion of abortion, results in high maternal mortality rates. Women generally at risk because of lack of access to a doctor, hospital or antibiotics before abortion’s legalization will face those same circumstances after legalization.”

Family Watch International
Impressive parallel events were four organised by the energetic Sharon Slater, President, Family Watch International. "Celebrate Motherhood" was on 8th March, International Women's Day - quite a challenge to feminists. The other events were: “When Sex Education is Harmful: A physician's evidence-based critique of human sexuality education”, featuring Miriam Grossman, M.D., author of "You’re Teaching My Child What?"; “Looking Forward: Beijing, the MDGs, and the Family”, and "The Family Rights Caucus,” bringing together pro-family delegations and NGOs to strategize together.

A low-light at a Girl Scouts event were copies of IPPF's teen-sex promotion guide, "Healthy, Happy and Hot." The quasi-pornographic brochure contained explicit graphic details on the promotion of casual sex in many forms: “Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal intercourse… But, there are lots of different ways to have sex and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself”

A highlight for the many Endeavour Forum Inc. accredited women and girls from the USA was our Parallel Event on "Women's Reproductive Health", at which breast surgeon, Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, president, Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, explained how full-term pregnancy and breast-feeding reduce women's risk of breast cancer, while induced abortion increases risk. [The Castle Connolly guide to doctors has declared Angela Lanfranchi to be one of the top doctors in the New York metro area].

Professor of Endocrinology, Dr. Joel Brind, cited statistical studies showing abortion increases risk of breast cancer: just last year there were studies from Turkey and China, and an admission from the National Cancer Institute (USA) researcher, Louise Brinton, on the increased risk caused by abortion.

Molly White described how abortion had damaged her, physically and emotionally.

Present at our event were a man and a woman from the "Australian Women's Health Network", who said the speakers were scare-mongering. Professor Brind asked politely "And your Ph.D is in ???" They said they would not debate the science but complained we had "a moral agenda". Apparently they consider it immoral to have a moral agenda.

Another highlight was a meeting Molly White arranged with William Odisho, Iraqi Charge d'Affaires. He undertook to pass on our pro-life literature and contact details to women's groups in Iraq.

GEAR
A major concern for pro-life and pro-family groups is the campaign by radical feminists to establish GEAR (Gender Architecture Reform) a new UN super-agency with a billion-dollar budget which would consolidate four existing U.N. women's rights entities: the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) and the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues (OSAGI).

Lesbian activist, Charlotte Bunch, founding director of Rutgers University's Center for Women's Global Leadership made clear that the chief goals of the new U.N. superagency would be (1) the eradication of traditional genders and (2) the universal use of reproductive health care, i.e. the family planning package of abortion, sex education, contraception and sterilization. This new agency would influence global policy, control funding, and run the UN global, national and regional women's programs.

Among those pushing the GEAR campaign are IPPF, the Obama Administration, Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, Spain's Prime Minister José Zapatero, and Denmark. They have the support of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and UN General Assembly Resolution 63/311.

However, GEAR is by no means a done deal: the economic crisis makes it difficult to raise the massive funding needed from donor countries - and the current President of the UN General Assembly, Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki, is pro-life and pro-family.

Finishing two weeks of deliberation and debate, the participating UN member states at CSW voted on a concluding document which will be revealed to a (breathless!) world shortly.While not legally binding, the document’s influence could be far-reaching. Taken as an international point of reference, it exerts political pressure on nations and international bodies.

After the hot-house atmosphere of the UN, it was refreshing that Millie Lace, one of our US team, who runs a national helpline for pregnancy support, arranged for us to be in the studio audience of the first taping of Sarah Palin's "Real American Stories" at the Fox studio in New York.

Sarah stayed after the taping and met all of us - I told her I was from Australia and admired her courage. Her youngest daughter, Piper, was running around the studio; Sarah is obviously a hands-on Mum, and meeting with her was a happy end to CSW 54.