The New York Times

Friday, July 2, 1999

126 Women's Groups Attack Vatican's Stance on Population Plan

By PAUL LEWIS

UNITED NATIONS -- Frustrated by the Vatican's efforts to thwart a plan to limit world population growth, 126 women's organizations from around the world presented an open letter to the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday at a conference here.

Expressing their disagreements in a series of questions, the women's groups, led by 57 Latin American organizations, asked how a church that holds life as "a fundamental value" could watch thousands of women die because they lack access to family planning and abortion.

The letter asked why the Vatican wanted parents to supervise young people's sex education when many cases of abuse occur in the home, and why a church committed to social justice opposed women's achieving aspirations fundamental to their "just and humane development."

The letter also asked why an institution, which "by its nature does not have women or children or sexual and reproductive problems" is "blocking advances in contraception, sexual education and HIV prevention" beneficial to millions of women.

The plan being discussed at the conference, first agreed on five years ago in Cairo, Egypt, deals with sex education, contraceptive advice for adolescents and safe abortions.

A small group of conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries with Vatican support continued to oppose aspects of the plan Thursday.

Many private organizations interested in population policy are also frustrated, saying that the Vatican and its allies have deflected the conference from its fundamental purpose of reviewing how the Cairo plan is working. "What is objectionable is the Vatican's refusal to accept that the conference's purpose is to review implementation of the Cairo plan and suggest ways of improving it, not reopening the agreement," said Ingar Bruegemann, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

On Thursday, a Catholic theologian, Daniel Maguire, professor of moral theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, also attacked the Vatican's teachings on birth control and abortion.

Speaking as head of an organization called Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, he cited St. Antonius, a 15th- century archbishop of Florence, Italy, as a church father who defended abortion. Maguire told the conference that the Vatican should drop its "dogmatism" on the subject because it "offends many Catholics and most of the world's religions."

Meanwhile, a different kind of attack on the Vatican is coming from Catholics for a Free Choice, an organization opposed to the Vatican's teachings on sexual matters, and 70 other voluntary organizations.

They are seeking to downgrade the Vatican at the United Nations from being one of only two nonmember observer states, along with Switzerland, to the more modest status of nongovernmental organization.

As an observer state the Vatican can take a full part in all U.N. conferences, addressing them at will although it has no vote. As a nongovernmental organization it would loose those privileges. "The best thing that ever happened to us was when the Vatican opposed abortion for Kosovo rape victims," said the group's president, Frances Kissling. "Support came rushing in."

The Cairo plan, at the center of this week's conference, seeks to ease population growth, allowing the world population to rise from the present 6 billion to 9.8 billion by 2050, then freeze it there. The means for accomplishing that is to improve the lot of women, in the belief they will then have smaller families