Abortion Accord Gains Support : Population: Compromise at U.N. conference calls on nations to deal with risks of procedure but doesn’t promote it as family planning tool. Vatican is holdout.

The nations of the world rallied Tuesday around a compromise on abortion at the population conference here, lending substantial support to a measure calling for governments to deal forthrightly with the health risks of illegal abortion while not promoting the procedure as a family planning tool.

Legalization of abortion would be up to each nation to decide for itself under an emerging compromise that won substantial endorsement in principle from members of the U.N. committee seeking to finalize a new, 20-year plan for global population. The measure won support from nations as diverse as Pakistan and Norway.

But the Vatican dashed all hope of a unanimous agreement Tuesday night when it opposed the compromise language, and the drafting committee delayed a final decision pending new deliberations this morning, when Nicaragua and several other Latin American states are scheduled to weigh in.

Most conference officials predicted the abortion amendment would finally be agreed on over the objections of the Roman Catholic Church, which has opposed all global population plans over the past 20 years. But delegates were clearly frustrated that the Holy See had failed to sign on to the carefully drawn abortion provisions, designed to avert the church’s fears of creating an international right to abortion.

Still, with other compromises nearly complete on adolescent sexuality and non-traditional relationships, conference officials said they were well on the way to overcoming some of the most divisive issues on world population.

“There was a powerful movement on the chapter . . . related to abortion, and a strong consensus. There was an overwhelming number of countries who said (the compromise paragraph) as it appears in the draft was the basis for the consensus,” a Clinton Administration official said Tuesday night.

The paragraph no longer contains a reference to “sexual health education” or a plea to governments to review their abortion laws and policies. And a call to consider women’s health “rather than relying on criminal codes and punitive measures” was eliminated.

Vice President Al Gore appeared to reach agreement with the Vatican on the issue of adolescent sexuality after meeting with the Holy See’s chief delegate, said Timothy E. Wirth, U.S. undersecretary of state for global affairs and head of the U.S. delegation to the conference. Wirth reported that the Vatican representative called the latest compromise under discussion “a concluded deal.”

An Administration official said the proposed compromise draws on language from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which notes the role and right of parents in providing guidance to adolescents in matters of reproductive health.

Gore also clarified with the Vatican proposed language on non-traditional families, which the church feared could be seen as an endorsement of homosexual relationships. The clarifications preserve the original intent, which was to satisfy the request from several Caribbean and African nations to sanction relationships such as common-law marriage that are outside the scope of traditional marriage.

The first important signs of an overall agreement came early in the day when Benin, Malta and Ivory Coast, which earlier had backed the Vatican’s opposition to the abortion provisions, signed on to the compromise along with several Muslim states.

Later, when an informal working group met to finalize the details, 10 additional nations, including Norway and Pakistan, endorsed the wording. Norway, with one of the most liberal abortion policies in the world, has endorsed worldwide decriminalization of abortion, while Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim nation, has shared the Islamic bloc’s reservations on the issue.

Thus their endorsement was seen as something of a bellwether, indicating the Vatican may be left nearly alone in its opposition.

The Holy See, in an official statement issued earlier in the day, reiterated its stand against abortion and artificial contraception, which has fueled much of the controversy behind the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. The conference proposes to curb Earth’s growth explosion by aiming for a global population of 7.2 billion in 20 years. There are currently 5.6 billion people.

The Vatican acknowledged that the draft plan contains “many positive points,” lauding its focus on education and health care services for women and children. But it said the church could not give “explicit or implicit support to those points of the document regarding abortion, the weakening of several family-related terminologies, the effective encouragement among adolescents of a liberal sexual lifestyle free of parental rights, with no reference to ethical values--all of which in the long term can only bring damage to individuals and society.”

Separately, the Holy See implied it was prepared to quietly agree to disagree on the issue of contraception as long as it is specifically stated that family planning programs do not include abortion.

Liberal voices also expressed reservations about the emerging compromise, arguing that it does not go far enough to protect women against the dangers of unsafe illegal abortions.

“We still view it as a compromise,” said Jacqueline Jackson, chairwoman of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

She said Planned Parenthood, which operates family planning clinics around the world and sits as an observer at this week’s U.N. meeting, was of the view that the abortion language as it was emerging Tuesday does not provide enough focus on women, does not adequately address the quality of care for women, is not “proactive enough” and still provides “the opportunity for people to view abortion as a legal issue, rather than a health care issue.”

However, she said most opposition to the abortion issue had been overcome even from Muslim nations, many of which had initially shared the Vatican’s concerns. Most Islamic scholars have ruled abortion illegal except to protect the health of the mother.

“A number of countries felt there still needed to be some work, but as of this morning, the majority of countries were supporting the alternate language replacement,” Jackson said.

The alternative language under discussion, which still could be revised somewhat during refinement talks, contains these elements:

* In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.

* All governments and non-governmental organizations are urged to deal openly and forthrightly with unsafe abortion as a major public health concern.

* Prevention of unwanted pregnancies must always be given the highest priority, and all attempts should be made to eliminate the need for abortion.

* In circumstances in which abortion is legal, women who wish to terminate their pregnancies should have ready access to reliable information and compassionate counseling, and such abortion should be safe.

* Any measures to provide for safe and legal abortion within the health system can only be determined at the national level through policy changes and legislative processes that reflect the diversity of views on the issue of abortion.

Several nations were still lobbying Tuesday night for minor wording changes, additions and deletions, some as conditions for signatures on the final document. For example, some want to say abortion should not be “encouraged” as a method of family planning, rather than “promoted.”

The U.S. delegation had suggested providing post-abortion family planning counseling and education services to prevent repeat abortions.

Wirth, in a meeting with reporters, reiterated the U.S. position that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”