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.
Thirty-four of the UN’s 193 member countries signed the declaration, which was authored by the US and co-sponsored by Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda. They include nineteen authoritarian regimes and six of the world’s least safe countries for women. A number of African countries that receive significant US financial support, including Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Zambia, are also signatories.
