US Has Not Backed Down on Pro-Life Stance at UN Meeting -- GOPUSA

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US Has Not Backed Down on Pro-Life Stance at UN Meeting
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
March 4, 2005

Page 2 of 2

A longer version of the NYT report appeared in the International Herald Tribune under the headline "At U.N. forum, U.S. drops its demand for a statement on abortion."

In the Reuters report, spokesman Grenell was quoted as saying: "We are hearing from many delegations that they agree with us and they advise us that the amendment is therefore not needed."

But the NYT report in the Herald Tribune removed the quotes, saying: "Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the American mission, said the United States felt that it had accomplished its original objective in raising the issue and that no amendment would now be necessary."

By Thursday afternoon, the NYT story was still available on its website.

NGOs opposed to the Bush administration's pro-life actions have argued in New York that the insistence on including the pro-life phrase threatens to "undermine" the important documents that came out of the Beijing conference and subsequent ones.

Pro-lifers say the U.S. amendment is crucial because campaign groups have been using the Beijing platform in a bid to push the liberalization of abortion laws around the world.

"The Left has used the Beijing outcome documents - which are technically 'non-binding agreements' - to promote abortion around the world," Janice Crouse, an NGO delegate representing Concerned Women for America at the CSW meeting, wrote in an online opinion piece Thursday.

"Radical feminists have blatantly distorted the intent and reality of the Beijing [platform] to say that a woman's 'right' to an abortion is a basic human right."

Crouse, a former Bush presidential speech writer, said the groups were using the administration's stance as a way to stir up anger against the U.S.

"The goal is to use opposition to the United States' pro-life position in order to legalize abortion around the world," she said. "Not only is this goal abhorrent, it is even more despicable (if possible) because it denies freedom of choice."

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