US joins global anti-abortion pact as polish women march to protest clampdown

WHAT IS THE BACKGROUND?

• On Thursday, along with more than 30 nations covering over 1.6 billion citizens, the United States signed an anti-abortion declaration.
• Women in Poland took to the streets overnight to protest a clampdown in that country on reproductive rights.
• In a simulated signing ceremony of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar took part. The pact was co-sponsored by Egypt, Uganda, Brazil, Hungary, and Indonesia along with the U.S. It was signed by 32 countries.
• The non-binding declaration states that it aims to promote the health of women, protect human life, and improve the family unit.
• We, the leaders of our sovereign countries, hereby declare our commitment to live together in shared friendship and respect: to reaffirm that there is no international right to abortion, "read the declaration."

WHAT IS THE UNITED STATES’S STAND?

• Under the leadership of President Trump, wherever and always, the United States has defended the dignity of human life, we have also launched an unparalleled defence of the unborn abroad.
• Any election, abortion rouses conservative voters and has come to the fore in recent weeks with the appointment of Judge Amy Coney Barrett by President Donald Trump to succeed liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. Democrats have grilled her on abortion despite concerns that if she is approved, the historic Roe v. Wade decision could be reversed.

WHAT IS THE RELATION BETWEEN GENEVA CONSENSUS DECLARATION AND POLAND PROTEST?

• After Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, declared the signing of the Geneva Consensus Declaration and stated he was "disturbed" by it and worried that U.S. actions would "undermine" the rights of millions. In a statement, Cardin said, "The Geneva Consensus Declaration threatens to dismantle universal human rights agreements and women's health and reproductive rights here at home and across the world." "Luckily, in the United States, same-sex marriage and abortion are legal."
• Crowds in the Polish capital of Warsaw protested after the Constitutional Court of that country ruled that abortion was unconstitutional due to fetal defects. Poland is also officially a signatory to the Declaration of the Geneva Consensus.
• One of the only existing legal reasons possible for terminating a pregnancy in the predominantly Catholic nation was banned by the Polish court's ruling. When the decision enters into force, it would mean that abortion is only legal in Poland in the event of rape, incest, or a threat to the health and safety of the mother.
• The Geneva Consensus Declaration was also denounced by the reproductive health and rights organisation as "a farcical Trump-led document without a legal basis" and said the pledge was signed by "reproductive bullies" and "regressive regimes from all over the world."
• Hundreds marched overnight into the house of Polish ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski, some bearing candles and posters reading "torture."
• On Twitter on Friday, the Warsaw police said that 15 people had been arrested. Officers responded after demonstrators hurled stones and attempted to break through police lines with pepper spray and physical action, they said.
• Since the nationalist Law and Justice party came into power five years ago on a vow to protect the traditional Catholic character of the country, conservative ideals have played a growing role in public life in Poland.