http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=655&e=15&u=/oneworld/4536814461079095349 - Health officials from all but one of the 40 countries of the Americas Friday reaffirmed their commitment to an international program on family planning and reproductive health program at a hemispheric population conference in Chile, leaving the United States isolated as the only nation to refuse to join the final communique.
By acclamation, the more than 300 participants at the Santiago Health Conference added language over U.S. objections that reaffirmed and expanded the so-called "Cairo Consensus," the program of action endorsed by 179 countries, including the U.S., at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The Consensus asserts that promoting women's reproductive and sexual rights and services is central to reducing poverty and promoting economic development.
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The role played by the administration's delegation in Santiago provoked more than a dozen U.S. lawmakers to send a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) Wednesday warning that Washington is sacrificing its traditional leadership role in global population issues. While Washington has continued as the world's largest funder of family planning services, the administration's recent refusal to fund UNFPA, and now to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the Cairo Consensus, is eroding that status.
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The U.S. position in that respect was unfortunate. "What is sad for us is that in 1994, the U.S. was a leader in building the Cairo Consensus, and now, ten years later, instead of a leader, the U.S. has taken almost every opportunity to turn back the clock on the goals of Cairo by refusing to reaffirm its commitment, by attempting to renegotiate globally-agreed terms and by using its influence to promote a U.S.-based, anti-Cairo, anti-reproductive health agenda," Bartlett continued.
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US health care is going to crash