Vatican backs down in abortion row with UN

THE Vatican gave in to international pressure at the United Nations population conference in Cairo yesterday, setting aside its objections to a passage on abortion and the phrase 'family planning' in the final document.

The last-minute climbdown by the Holy See should allow a general agreement on the UN plan to deal with population growth between now and 2015. The proposals aim to stabilise the population at 7.2 billion by 2050.

A senior Vatican negotiator brought sighs of relief to diplomats and population activists by declaring that while the Holy See could never accept abortion as a legal method of family planning, it would not hold up the conference over the subject.

The breakthrough came when Mgr Diarmuid Martin announced that 'The Holy See welcomes the affirmation that abortion should not be promoted as a method of family planning. For moral reasons . . . it does not endorse legal abortion.' The Vatican's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro- Valls, said the Catholic Church was dropping its objections to the phrase 'family planning' wherever it appeared in the declaration.

Nicolaas Biegman, chairman of the drafting committee, called the resolution of the deadlock 'a historic day'.

The Vatican had been insisting that the section on abortion should state clearly that it could not be a method of family planning and that there was no international right to abortion.

The conference had earlier heard that half a million women die every year from pregnancy-related causes, the majority in the developing world.