How the United States Challenges Abortion and Reproductive Rights Language in UN Documents

The United States explains its position

The Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations published a document titled “Long Form Explanation of Position with Respect to All Resolutions as Listed under the UNGA 80 Third Committee”. This document provides a comprehensive and detailed explanation of the U.S. position on all resolutions considered by the Third Committee during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which is responsible for social, humanitarian, and human rights issues.

The document goes significantly beyond standard diplomatic practice. Instead of brief explanations of vote on individual resolutions, the United States presented a comprehensive and systematic interpretation of the language used in UN documents, encompassing both general issues and specific terms and legal concepts. In practice, this publication serves as a kind of interpretive “glossary” of international law, indicating how the United States understands the meaning of specific terms and what limits it places on their application.

Back to basics

In the introductory section, the United States declares that its goal during the 80th session of the General Assembly was to “get the UN back to basics,” understood as fulfilling its original mandate of maintaining international peace and security. In this context, the United States is critical of the expansion of the UN bureaucracy, its politicization, and the shift away from practical action in favor of adopting symbolic and ideological resolutions.

The United States emphasizes that it is not moving away from multilateralism as such, but opposes its ideological distortion. International organizations, including the UN, should serve sovereign states and their citizens, rather than act as a tool of global governance or create supranational norms without the consent of member states. In this sense, the document is part of a broader debate about the limits of the powers of international organizations and the relationship between international law and state sovereignty.

In practice, the US position has resulted in selective participation in the work of the Third Committee. The United States has openly acknowledged that it had not engaged in negotiations on a series of resolutions that it considered to go beyond the UN mandate or to be part of a political process that failed to deliver tangible benefits to the citizens of member states. The United States has voted against or distanced itself from dozens of resolutions, including those concerning women’s rights, children’s rights, the rights of Indigenous peoples, migration, the right to development, and the implementation of the Beijing Declaration.

Ideological language of UN documents

However, the section of the document titled “Points of Clarification” is crucial, as it precisely sets out how the United States understands the language used in UN resolutions. The United States unequivocally emphasizes that General Assembly resolutions are non-binding and do not create rights or obligations under international law. They neither change treaty law nor customary law and cannot be interpreted as imposing on states an obligation to become parties to conventions that they have not ratified.

The U.S. position regarding human rights is of particular importance. The United States notes that shorthand references to human rights in resolutions should be understood solely as referring to specific rights contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or in ratified treaties. The United States rejects interpretations that suggest the existence of new principles of international law, such as the extraterritorial obligations of states.

The document also unequivocally questions the concept of a “human rights-based approach” ), noting that there is no internationally agreed definition of this term. Consequently, its use in resolutions cannot create any legal obligations or justify specific actions by states.

From the perspective of the ideological debate, the provisions concerning sex, women’s rights, and the so-called sexual and reproductive health are particularly important. The United States unequivocally declares that it recognizes the existence of two biological sexes, male and female, and expects UN documents to use precise language referring to women and men, girls and boys, without using ambiguous or ideological terms.

The United States emphasizes that it supports the protection of women’s dignity, women’s equality, and efforts to counter violence; however, it cannot accept the language of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” without explicit reservations. The document notes that this term is sometimes used by UN agencies to promote abortion, gender ideology, and concepts not widely recognized as human rights. The United States makes it clear that under international law there is no “right to abortion.”

The provisions concerning children’s rights are also important. The United States states that it is not a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and does not recognize General Assembly resolutions as capable of imposing obligations on it arising from that instrument. It is also emphasized in this document that not all work performed by persons under 18 years of age constitutes unacceptable child labor under international law.

The statement of the United States Mission to the UN also refers to a number of other concepts, such as the “right to development,” which the United States considers a concept lacking an agreed meaning in international law and one that potentially protects the interests of states rather than individuals. Similarly, the tendency to use terms such as “vulnerable groups” or the “marginalized” is criticized, with attention drawn to their paternalistic and politicized nature.

An important document for the future

The Long Form Explanation of Position with Respect to All Resolutions as Listed under the UNGA 80 Third Committee published by the United States Mission to the United Nations concludes with a declaration that the explanations presented apply to all actions undertaken by the United States under the Third Committee and should be incorporated into the official record of the proceedings. In this way, the United States made its position a lasting point of reference in the UN’s subsequent work.

“The publication of such a comprehensive explanation of the U.S. position shows how important a role the interpretation of international law concepts plays today. This document confirms that General Assembly resolutions cannot be treated as a source of new legal norms or as a means of circumventing the principle of state consent. From the perspective of international law, this is a clear signal of opposition to the expansive interpretation of concepts such as reproductive rights, gender, or children’s rights, as well as others that lack a clear treaty basis,” notes Julia Książek of the Ordo Iuris Center for International Law.

Read also: 

• UN: An Increasingly Broad Coalition of Pro-Life Countries Against So-Called “Reproductive and Sexual Rights”
• Abortion Access Is Not a Human Right—and Here’s Why
• Perversion in Human Rights – The Second in a Series on “Abortion, the Road to National Horror”
• The United Nations Human Rights Council is pushing abortion under the pretext of protecting maternal health