Sunday, March 06, 2005

Gender equality and the UN


A woman cannot vote in Kuwait. A woman cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. A woman is not allowed to work at night in Bolivia except as a nurse or public servant. In India, Malaysia and Tonga, husbands can legally rape their wives. Women are barred from working on military submarines in Britain.

So when the United Nations has a conference on gender equality in Beijing, what do they end up debating?
Whether abortion is a human right or not.

Typical. What's abortion got to do with gender equality? Men can't exactly have abortions, can they.

Our UN Ambassador Don Mackay emphasised that the Beijing document under discussion included a woman’s right to control her own sexuality. Does that mean that the UN considers abortion a human right without formally saying so, and without specifying it in a UN treaty?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You hit the nail on the head David.

And yet people in this country still don't know the powerful role NZ attaches to the UN have in forcing the issues of debate. Hence people back here got all flustery when Alexis Stuart wrote an article pointing this out.

Congratulations on your new child and best wishes for him/her to start sleeping through the night early!