Hungary, together with thirty-one other countries, has signed an anti-abortion declaration, Guardian reports. Commenting on the signing, Hungary’s Family Affairs Minister said that Hungary had joined the initiative to show the value of life.
The declaration calls on states to promote women’s rights and health, the preservation of human life, strengthening of family, and “the sovereign right of every nation to make their own laws in regard to abortion, absent external pressure.”
The “Geneva Consensus Declaration” is part of the Trump administration’s campaign to steer U.S. foreign policy in a more socially conservative direction, the paper writes.
The “core supporters” of the initiative include the USA, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Uganda and Hungary, but there are 27 other signatories such as Belarus, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan and Libya.
Among the 32 signatories, only three European countries decided to sign the declaration. Apart from Hungary and Belarus, this includes Poland, where on Thursday the constitutional court ruled an existing law allowing the abortion of malformed fetuses to be incompatible with the constitution, thus further restricting the legal options for abortion in the country.
According to the Guardian, none of the top twenty countries in terms of women’s rights, based on Georgetown University’s Women, Peace and Security Index, – except for the US ranked 19 – has backed the declaration.
Hungary’s Minister for Family Affairs, Katalin Novák, also commented on the signing of the declaration. In a Facebook post, the minister said that Hungary had joined the convention because” we need to show the value of life”.
When asked by RTL News last year, Novák clearly denied that the government intended to change the current regulation of abortion in Hungary.
Featured photo via Katalin Novák’s Facebook page
