Editorial

...government became the focus of the Vatican's cnticism has something to do with the pope's view that Amencans breed and export the "culture of death...

...COMMONWEAL Picking a fight For many long months the Vatican and the United States have been sparring over the International Conference on Population and Development meeting in Cairo this month...

...Given the world's looming quandaries over development and population, their quarrel has struck many people as a ludicrous waste of time and energy...

...But a closer look at the Cairo proposal gives grounds for the Vatican's complaints— the quarrel it picked is one worth having especially if it keeps the language of "reproductive nghts" from infecting the rest of the world Vatican questions focused primarily on language in the draft Plan of Action that seemed to allow abortion to be introduced as a routine practice in family planning services...

...In the second place...

...Initially we shared that view In the first place: Why fight7 It is only a conference Moreover, it's a conference that will very possibly come and go without much discernible impact on the wretched of the earth, including many resident in Cairo with whom the several thousand delegates will jostle for space and limited resources—a perfect example of the problem...

...Whether that will ease matters in Cairo depends on whether the rest of the American delegation agrees with Gore and how far the Vatican will go to press opposition not only to abortion, but to artificial contraception, about which it has been more muted In fact, the draft Plan of Action is the work of many nations and population groups, and the contested chapters are only a part of a document that attempts to integrate questions of population and development in ways that honor their complex and varied interplay in many different countries and cultures There is no talk of population bombs or population explosions, nor of zero-population growth or life-boat ethics—scare language of the fifties and sixties that gave license to coercion, relatively subtle (paying men to be sterilized in India) and not-at-all subtle (forced abortion in China) Since then, language has changed and so has the imperious view that it is the poor that must control their desire for children while the rich consume the earth's resources Curbing overconsumption, encouraging married couples to act responsibly and freely in deciding how many children to bring into the world, and sustaining precious human and natural resources are goals the Vatican and many other countries champion If no fire fights break out between the feminists in the American delegation and the black suits from the Vatican, it is a message the media might succeed in conveying to the world—that is, of course, if threats from Muslim militants don't end in capturing the headlines and derailing the conference altogether ET CETERA THE NEW ETHICS Earlier this year a Scottish physician argued that it could be ethical to harvest the eggs of aborted female fetuses in order to enhance the supply available to infertile women This would make genetic mothers of fetuses aborted by their own mothers That proposal now has been ruled out of order by the British Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority Among the reasons cited by the London Tablet was "an instinctive adverse reaction" among the public known as the "yuk factor " Yes But is it an absolute factor9...

...So inured are Chntomtes like Wirth to expansive claims of reproductive and gender nghts in the United States that they are 3 unable to foresee trouble on the international front Where are their multicultural antennae when they need them9 And where a sense of modesty about promoting to the developing world what is so problematic in our own9 The land of reproductive rights, sex education, and widely available contraceptives has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, the highest pregnancy rate among unmanned teen-agers in the developed world, and family breakdown at an unprecedented level After much back and forth, the Clinton administration has made it clear that it does not want a fight with the Vatican in Cairo Vice President Al Gore, who will lead the American delegation, told the National Press Club that the United States was not working to make abortion a guaranteed international right, did not think abortion was or should be a form of family planning, and endorses the Plan of Action's call for women's education, children's health, economic development, and other means to stabilize population growth as common ground upon which everyone could agree and build...

...That the U.S...

...in many quarters, it has little credibility on women's nghts or women's issues no matter the statements of pope or bishops on the dignity of woman and her equality with man...

...The persistent linking in the draft of the phrases "family planning" and "reproductive health services" made this at least a legitimate question for the Vatican to raise ) The draft also encourages governments to extend family planning services to adolescents, in fact, it seems to assume, as Vatican representative Monsignor Diarmuid Martin noted at a UN preparatory meeting this past April, "that each individual, including adolescents from an early age, may be 'sexually active.'" The Vatican also questioned the real meaning of phrases such as "reproductive nghts" and sought clanfication of overarching definitions such as the one offered of reproductive health: "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes " Does this unexceptional, if ovennflated, language (no doubt modeled on the World Health Organization's definition of health) mask, as the Vatican suggested, a notion of sexuality largely removed from interpersonal responsibility, moral considerations, and communal contexts...

...But the Vatican's attention may also have been drawn by the apparent ingenuousness of this administration, specifically Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Timothy Wirth, in not recognizing that the language of "reproductive nghts" was a red flag, and not only to the Vatican...

...The Vatican can't win...

...Rome will always be the heavy on issues staked out by feminists...