Contrary to earlier reports that the US would consider a boycott, a State Department official said that the US will send a high-level delegation to a special UN General Assembly session on children in New York on September 19th despite some reservations about a UN convention of children's rights and language relating to reproductive health services.
The three-day special session on children is a follow-up on the 1990 World Summit for Children, which adopted a plan for promoting education, reducing disease, improving health care for women and children and providing better sanitation and food supplies. A UN spokesman said 75 heads of state and government from five continents have confirmed they will attend the session.
"The outcome document [for the special session] shouldn't support or endorse abortion counselling and services for adolescents. The draft does," a State Department official had earlier been quoted in the Washington Post.
As a result of uncertainty about the final document, the State Department spokesman, Mr Charles Hunter, earlier said the administration has not yet determined the level of representation it will have.
"The decision about US participation in the conference will be made closer to the event," he said.
However, a UNICEF spokesman, Mr Albert Ironside, told The Irish Times that plans for the conference are "moving forward." We have never had indications that the US would not attend," he said. "The normal discussions about language are ongoing."
Fifteen members of Congress had criticised the administration's waffling on attendence.
"We are deeply disturbed both by the positions taken by our threatening tactics to force the hand of other participants in the UN Special Session on Children," the members wrote in a letter to the US Secratray of State, Mr Colin Powell.
The Congressional criticism was led by two New York Congress members, Ms Carolyn Maloney and Ms Nita Lowery, both Democrats.
The letter criticised the US opposition to references to "reproductive health services".