U.N. Debate Opens on Population Plan : Growth: Gore calls issue ‘single most important problem humankind faces.’ Government leaders from Pakistan and Norway offer differing abortion views.

With bitter disputes flaring here already about abortion, world leaders on Monday started debating a historic global population plan to deal with what Vice President Al Gore called “the single most important problem humankind faces.”

The 20-year voluntary program would for the first time downplay demographers’ traditional preoccupation with sheer numbers in discussing population, focusing instead on enriching the health and lives of women and children and seeking a more balanced sharing of the Earth’s resources.

“We would not be here today if we were not convinced that the rapid and unsustainable growth of human population was an issue of the utmost urgency,” Gore said in his opening remarks to the U.N. Conference on Population and Development, the largest such event ever organized by the United Nations, with almost 20,000 participants from around the world.

He noted that it has taken “10,000 generations to reach 2 billion (people), and then in one human lifetime--ours--we leap from 2 billion toward 10 billion.”

“These numbers are not by themselves the problem,” Gore said. “But the startling new pattern they delineate is a symptom of a much larger and deeper spiritual challenge now facing humankind. Will we acknowledge our connections to one another or not? Will we accept responsibility for the consequences of the choices we make or not?”

There already is broad international consensus on many crucial steps that must be taken to deal with population problems around the globe: giving women more control over their own lives and health; improving health care; ensuring that economic development eases the burden in the world’s fastest-growing regions, and widening access to family planning.

But some of the world’s most powerful religions have attacked this conference for considering issues such as safe abortion, non-traditional families--which some interpret as an endorsement of homosexuality--and adolescent sexuality.

The Vatican has been joined by a range of Islamic organizations in demanding that the U.N. delegates, representing more than 100 nations, eliminate from their 113-page population blueprint all references to abortion and other language seen as out of step with traditional family norms.

The controversy prompted at least four Muslim countries--Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon--to boycott these sessions, scheduled to run until Sept. 13.

Even moderate Islamic countries like Jordan, Turkey and Bangladesh have downgraded their level of representation here.

The depth of feeling about the long-controversial issues was evident at Monday’s opening ceremonies, especially in remarks by the only two female heads of government appearing here.

Benazir Bhutto, prime minister of predominantly Muslim Pakistan, offered a conservative view on abortion and reproductive issues, warning delegates to deal with such matters carefully to avoid “a clash of cultures.”

But Gro Harlem Brundtland, a physician and the prime minister of Norway, offered an emotional call for legalizing abortion worldwide to end unnecessary maternal deaths.

“Morality becomes hypocrisy if it means accepting mothers . . . dying in connection with unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions and unwanted children living in misery,” Brundtland said. “Decriminalizing abortion should therefore be a minimal response to this reality.”

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali--at home in his native Egypt, whose population of 59 million grows by 1 million every year--warned against abandoning the mission of effective population management in the search for compromise.

“Tolerance must be shown in the strongest possible way, (but) it should not lead to cautious compromises, half measures, vague solutions or, still worse, statements that lull us into complacency,” he said, adding, “such tolerance must also be mutual, for we cannot allow a given philosophical, moral or spiritual belief to be imposed upon the entire international community or to block the progress of humanity.”

U.N. population officials have repeatedly emphasized that the draft the conference is considering creates no internationally recognized right to abortion and does not encourage use of abortion in family planning; it in fact discusses the procedure only in encouraging measures to protect women against unsafe, illegal abortions.

“We must look squarely at the facts about abortion,” said Nafis Sadik, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund and secretary general of the Cairo conference. “There may be as many as 50 million to 60 million abortions a year. This is a serious threat to women’s lives and health. Between 70,000 and 200,000 lives are lost each year as a result of abortion.”

The Clinton Administration has repeatedly been attacked and accused of seeking to promote legalized abortion around the world.

Gore came out firing Monday, noting that American aid programs do not cover abortion financing. He also outlined the American policy, which emphasizes that each nation must decide for itself whether to legalize abortion.

“The United States Constitution guarantees every woman within our borders a right to choose an abortion, subject to limited and specific exceptions,” the vice president said. “We are committed to that principle. But let us take a false issue off the table: The United States does not seek to establish a new international right to abortion, and we do not believe that abortion should be encouraged as a method of family planning.

“We also believe that policy-making in these matters should be the province of each government, within the context of its own laws and national circumstances and consistent with previously agreed human rights standards,” he added. “We believe that where abortion is permitted, it should be medically safe and that unsafe abortion is a matter of women’s health that must be addressed.”

In recent days, American and European officials have sought to broker a compromise that would help address many of the objections to the population conference draft, some 95% of which is already in agreement.

Timothy E. Wirth, undersecretary of state for global affairs and a former Colorado senator, said a key provision of the proposed compromise would remove in the draft plan any reference to abortion in the section on family planning; instead, it would go in the section on reproductive health care services. This would be done to emphasize that this issue should be decided by each nation, not globally, and the reference would be worded almost identically to Gore’s description of national policy-making and human rights.

Other compromises would clarify “reproductive rights,” specifying that “sexual and reproductive rights encompass respect for the security and dignity of the person and the physical integrity of the human body as expressed in human rights documents.”

Wirth noted that the population plan “before the conference is 92% agreed. . . . I think we are very close to having language arrived at that will move us from 92% to close to 100%.”

Still, Gore predicted that the 1994 Cairo population plan, like the two that preceded it in the last two decades, would not win Vatican endorsement.

“It is remarkably significant that there is a broader consensus in Cairo than on any document in any international conference in history,” he said in a meeting with a small group of reporters.

But he added of the Vatican: “They’re not going to agree to the final document in any event, and nobody should be surprised by that. They have other disagreements beyond abortion, including issues related to contraception, and regardless of what changes are likely to be made here, they will not endorse the final document.”

Bishop James McHugh of Camden, N.J., a Vatican delegate, warned that the U.S. government’s advocacy of abortion as an option for women “would be a powerful incentive to American Catholics to walk away from the Democratic Party, as well as the Clinton Administration.”

But Gore said he never expected the support of the Roman Catholic Church for the Administration’s backing of contraception and “within our borders . . . a woman’s right to choose.” He said the government nonetheless had the backing “of the vast majority of American citizens.”

The present proposal, proponents say, is unprecedented because for the first time it moves away from simply relying on target population figures and contraceptive programs.

Instead, leaders here also are considering other ways to improve life for the 1 billion humans who now live in poverty.

They still hope to control the world’s population growth, holding it by the year 2015 to 7.27 billion rather than the 7.92 billion it is likely to reach if left unchecked.

There are also proposals to decrease births by educating women and giving them access to safe contraception and related health care.

But for the first time, world leaders here are also discussing issues such as: reducing violence against women; providing family leave for fathers to give them a greater stake in child rearing; reducing consumption by industrialized nations, and providing a range of reproductive health care programs--not just contraceptive services--to women.

“The program emphasizes people rather than numbers,” Sadik said. “It concentrates on the individual’s quality of life and well-being. It takes a wide view of reproductive health and personal choice. A key objective is to meet the needs of families and individuals, especially women.

“The measures called for are simple and undramatic,” she said. “Implementing the program will, however, call for commitment to change and dynamism. Based on the highest of moral and ethical principles, it is a reminder to every country that they are collectively responsible for the quality of life of every individual.”