In what critics denounced as the Trump administration’s latest attack on women’s rights across the globe, U.S. officials are reportedly threatening to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution seeking to end the use of rape as a weapon of war over its language on reproductive health.
According to the Guardian — which first reported on U.S. opposition to the measure late Monday — Trump officials are objecting to the resolution’s “language on victims’ support from family planning clinics.”
“In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any U.N. documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions,” the Guardian reported. “It has also opposed the use of the word ‘gender,’ seeing it as a cover for liberal promotion of transgender rights.”
The Trump administration’s opposition to the measure, proposed by Germany, quickly sparked international outrage.
“If we let the Americans do this and take out this language, it will be watered down for a long time,” an anonymous European diplomat told the Guardian. “It is, at its heart, an attack on the progressive normative framework established over the past 25 years.”
Heather Barr, acting co-director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, tweeted: “In the latest step in Trump’s war on women, U.S. opposes healthcare for survivors of rape during war. Yes, you read that right.”
Others also took to Twitter to condemn the Trump administration’s efforts:
The Trump administration is so obsessed with ensuring women remain walking incubators that it is willing to destroy an anti-rape resolution.
US threatens to veto UN resolution on rape as weapon of war, officials say https://t.co/Gk8vQ5m39h
— Mona Eltahawy (@monaeltahawy) April 22, 2019
A reminder of how morally despicable the US is on the global stage https://t.co/irJQpVKWSa
— Jonathan “Boo and Vote” Cohn (@JonathanCohn) April 22, 2019
Pramila Patten, U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, told the Guardian that the resolution’s passage is now in serious doubt due to U.S. opposition.
“We are not even sure whether we are having the resolution [Tuesday], because of the threats of a veto from the U.S.,” Patten said.
The resolution seeks to improve monitoring of sexual violence in conflict, punish perpetrators, and increase support for victims.
Patten said the language on reproductive health “is being maintained for the time being and we’ll see over the next 24 hours how the situation evolves.”
“It will be a huge contradiction that you are talking about a survivor-centered approach and you do not have language on sexual and reproductive healthcare services, which is for me the most critical,” said Patten.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 500 new monthly donors in the next 10 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy