At the Global Safe Abortion Conference, which took place in London during 23-24 October, the Netherlands’ Minister for Foreign Cooperation, Bert Koenders, called on fellow leaders to speak-up on the issue of safe abortion. “By any measure, this situation is deplorable,” said Minister Koenders in the closing plenary of the Conference. “Unsafe abortion is a major killer. Legal barriers serve only to make women wait longer and force them to seek clandestine and unsafe care.”
Minister Koenders echoed a theme heard frequently throughout the conference when he called for liberalising abortion laws, something The Netherlands – which reports one of the lowest abortion rates in the world – did in 1981.
Koenders said that he recognised that sexual and reproductive health and rights is a delicate matter surrounded by stigma and taboos. But in recent meetings with the US Congress he chose to take-up the US Mexico City Policy, which blocks US Government funding to organisations who counsel abortion or provide abortion services. And in a meeting with Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega, Koenders tabled concerns on Nicaragua’s new legislation criminalising abortion on medical grounds.
“I believe that a comprehensive approach to sexual and reproductive health and rights is a matter of common sense,” Koenders said. “I will not be silent. Not on sexual and reproductive rights, not on abortion. We can save the lives of women and girls around the world. Let us do so.”