070299 Time short for population deal

BBC ABORTION EDITORIAL
Delegates remain in deadlock as the countdown begins

The UN Population Conference remains in deadlock over two key issues as time runs out to reach agreement.

Access to abortion and the right of adolescents to contraceptives are proving to be the two big stumbling blocks dividing the conference in New York.

Most countries want adolescents to have access to contraceptive services without needing their parents' permission, but some religious leaders and a few conservative states say such a measure could undermine families.

There are also angry divisions over attempts to allow easier access to abortions.

The BBC's Environment correspondent Robert Pigott says that, while speeches are made in the main meeting, delegates are carrying out increasingly urgent discussions outside to try to resolve their differences before the conference ends later on Friday.

The central issue is over whether adolescents have rights independently of their parents to sex education and help with contraception.

Adolescent angst

There are a billion people at the most sexually active age of 15 to 24, most of them in poorer nations, the conference heard.

The majority of countries argue that sex education has been shown to reduce unwanted pregnancies and deaths during pregnancy, and to help prevent the spread of Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Bruntland, now director-general of the World Health Organization, said there are 333 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases every year - and one in 20 adolescents was infected.

She said that over half the 5.2 million people who are infected annually with the HIV virus that causes Aids are under the age of 24.

"Giving young people information does not encourage promiscuity, rather it fosters mutual respect and shared responsibility," she said.

Gro Harlem Bruntland was instrumental in breaking the deadlock over a 20-year action plan during the 1994 Cairo population conference with an impassioned speech calling for reproductive rights and health programmes for women and adolescents.

The Vatican and Islamic states like Egypt, Sudan and Pakistan regard sex education as the duty of parents and easier contraception as encouraging promiscuity.

On Thursday, the Vatican took issue with a proposal from Brazil, calling on governments to change laws that punish women for having illegal abortions.

The Brazilians also advocated public health systems to train and equip abortion providers properly.

Unholy alliance

Clare Short, Britain's secretary of state for international development, accused an "unholy alliance" of seeking to stall the 1994 agreement on keeping global population down.

"If (the Vatican) had its way, a million people could get HIV (unless of course they kept their pants on), there would be more and more unwanted pregnancies, more and more illegal abortions, more and more mothers dying as a result of illegal abortions," she told the UK's Guardian newspaper.

The UN population conference is an attempt to upgrade the Cairo agreement. Since 1960 the world's population has doubled to six billion, and there are fears that it could rise to 10 billion by 2050.