Geneva Consensus Declaration: Institutionalizing Attacks on Women and LGBTQ+ Rights

May 28, 2026

Trump’s former Special Representative for Global Women’s Health and a long-time anti-abortion activist, Valerie Huber, argued recently in an opinion piece in The Hill that an international anti-abortion agreement she spearheaded is one of the “most underused diplomatic assets in America’s current foreign policy toolkit.”

Huber, now CEO of The Institute for Women’s Health, served during the first Trump administration, where she was instrumental in the creation of the October 2022 Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD). Signed by 41 countries, the GCD is a nonbinding international agreement with the stated goal of promoting better “health for women, the preservation of human life, strengthening of the family as the foundational unit of society, and protecting every nation’s national sovereignty in global politics.”

Continued: https://globalextremism.org/post/geneva-consensus-declaration/

Australia – Doctors shouldn’t be allowed to object to medical care if it harms their patients

July 22, 2025
Julian Savulescu

A young woman needs an abortion and the reasons, while urgent, are not medical. A United States Navy nurse at Guantánamo Bay is ordered to force-feed a defiant detainee on hunger strike.

These very different real-life cases have one connecting thread: the question of whether a health professional can conscientiously object to carrying out a patient’s request.

Freedom of conscience is often held up as a purely noble principle. But when it’s used to deny health care, it means a single person’s beliefs are dictating what is best for another person’s physical and mental health – which can have devastating, even fatal, results.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/doctors-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-object-to-medical-care-if-it-harms-their-patients-260003

22.07.2025

Commentary

belief-based care denial

conscientious objection

freedom of conscience

Julian Savulescu

Rethinking Conscientious Objection in Healthcare

Savita Halappanavar

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

What happens in the US could have global implications for abortion

What could Project 2025 mean for abortion rights around the world?

Dr Anu Kumar
27 August 2024

It has been two years since the US Supreme Court blew up federal protection for abortion, handing states the power to enact abortion bans and realising the decades-long fever-dream of anti-rights actors.

Though a minority in the US, these extremists are loud and determined and won’t stop at our borders. Their plans for the future are outlined in Project 2025, which is already being implemented in the US and abroad through anti-abortion and anti-LGBTIQ+ initiatives and would be fully executed if radical conservative forces reclaim the White House.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/us-elections-project-2025-global-abortion-rights/

Türk urges progress on ‘unfinished agenda’ of women’s sexual and reproductive health rights

19 October 2023
BY Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

(delivered at UNECE Regional Conference to mark the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development “Population and Development: Ensuring Rights and Choices”)

…When the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development was agreed to by States in Cairo 30 years ago, it promised a profound impact on the lives of women and girls.

It promised them the power to make decisions about their own lives, their bodies, and their futures – rights which should have, in the first place, been non-negotiable.

Continued: https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2023/10/turk-urges-progress-unfinished-agenda-womens-sexual-and

19.10.2023

Commentary

ICPD Programme of Action

International Conference on Population and development

maternal deaths

maternal mortality

Programme of Action

sexual and reproductive health and rights

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

UNECE

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Rwanda – Women’s rights are human rights: the right to autonomy and self-determination

By Brenda Mutoni
September 30, 2021

Worldwide, women enjoy 25% fewer legal rights than men. Millions of women around the world are not able to make decisions about their own bodies.

According to research published in September 2021 by UNFPA titled “My body is my own. Claiming the right to autonomy and self-determination”, just over half of women and girls in middle- and low-income countries have the right to decide for themselves whether they have sex, use contraception or seek medical care. In some sub-Saharan countries, the figure is even below 10%.

Continued: https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/womes-rights-are-human-rights-right-autonomy-and-self-determination

Rethinking Abortion In India: A Human Rights Conversation

Niharika Kaul
16 May 2021

The issue of abortion has gained particular momentum in the past few months with two interesting developments in very different parts of the world- the passage of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) (Amendment) Bill 2020 in the Rajya Sabha (Upper House) in India and the recent passage of the Argentinian abortion bill, that legalises abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy. While the MTP (Amendment) Bill 2020 extends the existing time period within which abortion can be conducted in India to 24 weeks in some cases, the Argentinian bill replaces the prior abortion law based on the 'exception model', where three exceptions were allowed to an otherwise blanket criminal prohibition- when a pregnancy endangers the life or health of a woman, girl, or pregnant person, or when it results from rape. After the Argentinian Senate narrowly rejected a bill to decriminalize abortion in 2018, the lower house of Congress finally passed the bill this January.

Continued: https://www.livelaw.in/columns/medical-termination-of-pregnancy-mtp-amendment-bill-2020-world-health-organisation-who-174212

Will Trump’s anti-abortion Geneva Consensus fall apart?

The pro-choice Biden administration is very unlikely to support the declaration, signed just two weeks before the 2020 US elections.

Kerry Cullinan
25 January 2021

The anti-abortion Geneva Consensus Declaration, signed two weeks before the 2020 presidential elections, brings together some of the most authoritarian and anti-women regimes in the world – reflecting who President Trump counted as his international allies by the end of his four-year reign.

The declaration claims that “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion”. It declares that the ‘traditional family’ – meaning a married, heterosexual couple and their biological children – is the “fundamental group unit of society”, and each country has “the sovereign right” to make their own laws on abortion.

Continued: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/will-trumps-anti-abortion-geneva-consensus-fall-apart/

Women Activists Escalate Demand for “Bodily Autonomy” as 19 Nations Dissent

Women Activists Escalate Demand for “Bodily Autonomy” as 19 Nations Dissent

By Thalif Deen
Jan 17, 2020

UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - The United States and 18 other UN member states have come under fire for denying a woman’s legitimate right to “bodily autonomy”—the right to self-governance over one’s own body without coercion or external pressure.

The Executive Director of Women’s March Global, Uma Mishra-Newbery, told IPS the United Nations has worked towards progress in fighting for women’s rights.

Continued: http://www.ipsnews.net/2020/01/women-activists-escalate-demand-bodily-autonomy-19-nations-dissent/

Philippines – Lives in danger: Extrajudicial killings and the denial of abortion

[OPINION] Lives in danger: Extrajudicial killings and the denial of abortion
Permitting access to safe and legal abortion saves lives; extrajudicial killings take them away

Jihan Jacob
July 29, 2019

While President Duterte left out the status of women’s reproductive health and rights in the country from his 4th State of the Nation Address, the recent UN Human Rights Council resolution and false claims against those who advanced it demonstrate that the government still has a long way to go in respecting, protecting, and promoting the reproductive rights and human rights of all Filipinos. (READ: Quick point-by-point summary of Duterte's SONA 2019)

For the past 3 years, a slate of extrajudicial killings has been committed as part of the government’s anti-illegal drug campaign. Thousands have gone missing or have been killed, prompting the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution condemning these acts. It urged the country to prevent more killings, conduct investigations, and ensure accountability.

Government officials who are sympathetic to the campaign have attempted to undermine those who passed the resolution, on the false pretext that such countries lack the moral legitimacy to condemn the Philippines because they permit legal abortion.

Continued: https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/ispeak/236392-extrajudicial-killings-legal-abortion

Mike Pompeo taps staunch abortion foe for fresh look at U.S. stance on human rights

Mike Pompeo taps staunch abortion foe for fresh look at U.S. stance on human rights

AFP-JIJI
Jul 9, 2019

WASHINGTON - Charging that human rights advocates have deviated from their core principles, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday named a staunch abortion opponent to lead a new panel to set the future direction for the United States.

Pompeo, an evangelical Christian who often speaks of his faith, announced the creation of a State Department commission on “unalienable rights” that has already drawn suspicions among gay and women’s activists.

Continued: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/09/world/social-issues-world/mike-pompeo-taps-staunch-abortion-foe-fresh-look-u-s-stance-human-rights/#.XSTOaI97lPY