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(CNSNews.com) -- There is no fundamental "right" to abortion, but non-governmental groups (NGOs) are trying to "hijack" language in key United Nations documents, to define terms like "sexual rights" in such a way as to include abortion, a senior U.S. official said Monday.

Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, the U.S. delegate to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), was speaking at a press conference in New York.

She is representing the U.S. government at a high-level CSW session reviewing the progress made in promoting equality for women in the 10 years since a major U.N. conference on women was held in Beijing.

Organizers want the Feb. 28 - March 11 gathering to issue a short and unanimous declaration, affirming documents that came out of the Beijing meeting.

The Bush administration is pressing for the statement to say categorically that the documents do not create any new international human rights and "do not include the right to abortion." Discussions on the draft will continue on the sidelines of the conference.

Since President Bush began his first term in January 2001, he has limited or withdrawn funding to foreign NGOs or other groups that carry out or advocate abortion. He has also blocked U.S. funding for the U.N. Population Fund, because of links to China's coercive family-planning policies.

The policies have been slammed by campaigners who accuse the White House of "conducting a war against women."

The administration has also sought since 2001 to clarify vague or undefined wording in international documents, arguing that phrases like "reproductive rights" and "reproductive health services" are interpreted by some to refer to abortion.

In some cases, despite supporting the broader measure, the U.S. has opposed resolutions after failing in a bid to have such wording amended or removed.

A number of women's rights NGOs issued statements last week voicing concern that the U.S. may withdraw from the Beijing agreements because of the abortion issue.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, more than 30 organizations said they wanted Bush "to join and cooperate with other countries in the unequivocal re-affirmation" of the Beijing documents.

"We are asking for your help in ensuring that this message is heard and acted upon at the highest levels in our country," they wrote.

NGOs themselves have acknowledged - in documents not intended for public consumption - that they are covertly pushing an abortion agenda in international forums.

"There is a stealth quality to the work," the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) said in one internal memo in 2003.

"We are achieving incremental recognition of values without a huge amount of scrutiny from the [pro-life] opposition," the NGO said in documents that were introduced onto the Congressional Record by a pro-life lawmaker.

"These lower profile victories will gradually put us in a strong position to assert a broad consensus around our assertions."

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