U.S. rejects U.N. rights panel upholding access to abortions during
pandemic
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[August 26, 2020]
By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on
Wednesday hit back at a U.N. women's rights panel that said some U.S.
states limited access to abortions during the COVID-19 pandemic,
rejecting its interference and the notion of "an assumed right to
abortion".
"The United States is disappointed by and categorically rejects this
transparent attempt to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to assert
the existence of such a right," the U.S. mission in Geneva said in a
release posted on Twitter.
"This is a perversion of the human rights system and the founding
principles of the United Nations," it said, citing an Aug. 11 letter it
sent to the U.N. experts responding to the "spurious allegations".
The U.N. working group on discrimination against women and girls said on
May 27 that some U.S. states "appear to be "manipulating the COVID-19
crisis to curb access to essential abortion care".
The panel of five independent U.N. experts said that states including
Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee
had issued COVID-19 emergency orders suspending procedures not deemed
immediately medically necessary to restrict access to abortion.
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"This situation is also the latest example illustrating a pattern of
restrictions and retrogressions in access to legal abortion care
across the country,” Elizabeth Broderick, panel vice-chair, said at
the time.
The U.S. statement cited allegations of forced abortions and
sterilisations in China's western region of Xinjiang and urged the
panel to focus on "actual human rights abuses".
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A lack of comment on such issues was "one of the reasons that the
United States and others increasingly see the U.N.’s human rights
system as utterly broken".
U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking re-election in November, works
closely with evangelical Christians and puts their causes of
restricting abortion and preserving gun ownership at the top of his
policy agenda.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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