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  • Title: Population conference: consensus and conflict.
    Author: Willson PD.
    Journal: Plan Parent Rev; 1984; 4(2):24, 27. PubMed ID: 12339890.
    Abstract:
    The United Nations-sponsored International Conference on Population held in Mexico City was both a rejection and an affirmation of a new policy of the Reagan administration. The policy denies international family planning funds to nongovernmental organizations that perform or actively promote abortion as a family planning method in other nations. A compromise statement was accepted urging governments to take appropriate measures to discourage abortion as a family planning method and when possible to provide for the humane treatment and counseling of women ho resorted to abortion. The statement on abortion was 1 of 88 reccomendations approved by the conference. The commitment expressed in the 10-year-old World Population Plan of Action to the rights and responsiblity to all people as reaffirmed. The conference also endorsed family life education and sex education as well as suitable family planning, information and services for adolescents, with due consideration given to the role, rights and obligations of parents. Increased support for international population and family planning programs was urged and World Bank President, Clausen, urged a 4-fold increase in international funding by the year 2000. Most of the conference's recommendations re devoted to the broad range of population policy issues, including morbidity and mortality, international and internal migration, the relationship between population and economic development and the status of women. The purpose of the recommendations is to increase the momentum of international support. The Mexico City conference was characterized by a remarkable degree of consensus about population policies with respect to integration with economic development, the need to respect individual rights and the recognition that all nations have sovereign rights to develop and implement their own population policies. Conflict and controversy arose in the areas of the arms race and the Middle East. The US position on abortion funding did not become a focus of controversy, although it has the most immediate implications for changes in international funding. Although the conference did not endorse the US policy aiming at blocking support for programs that include abortion regardless of source of funding because of thecommon opposition to promoting abortion, it is likely to be played up at some other point. It is also clear that the question of abortion cannot continue to be addressed as a strictly moral issue given its increasing legalization, widespread incidence and important role in fertility declines.
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