A tale of two conferences: women against women as ‘poison of patriarchy’ returns and abortion fight intensifies

In a meeting room on the 27th floor of a swish Manhattan hotel, Denise Mountenay is telling the audience that the right to abortion is “Nazi thinking.” Mountenay regrets her own abortions, and says she has been called by God to spread the word that she and other women “were lied to, deceived, pressured into making the most horrible choice: to choose death instead of life”.

She goes on to list reasons why abortion is “not a safe procedure. [That’s what] they want woman to think – that is a lie.”

Many of her claims, including that abortion leads to breast cancer, have been thoroughly disproved by scientific studies. Other claims, such as that abortion causes lifelong mental health problems and infertility also have been shown to be untrue when access to abortion is safe and legal. Studies show that abortion denial increases the risk of both.

Mountenay, from the Christian, anti-abortion Endeavour Forum, is one of many speakers, mostly women, to address the Conference on the State of Women and Family (CSWF) in New York. Over two days they speak repeatedly of love and respect for women, yet decry global efforts to empower women and expand their rights. They reiterate their stance against abortion in any circumstances, including gang-rape, and hail motherhood as the ultimate role for women.

Sponsored by four leading US, rightwing organisations, including the Heritage Foundation – architect of Project 2025 – and C-Fam – designated a hate group by the The Southern Poverty Law Center – CSWF is an opportunity for conservative heavyweights and anti-abortion campaigners to reassert their opposition to “gender ideology” and air their grievances about the perceived attack on conservative values. LGBTQ rights, the pandemic treaty, comprehensive sex education and “leftish insanity” on US college campuses are held up as examples of corrupting secular ideologies.

Trump’s blizzard of executive orders, including the assertion that “there are only two genders”, felt like “Christmas multiple days in a row,” says Jay W Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Centre for Life, and a fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Suddenly it’s a new day – that’s the good news; the bad news is the fight is not over.”

Anti-rights actors are nothing new. But the ferociousness of the attack on – and scale of the current backlash against – women’s rights is sending a chill through rights defenders, giving an urgency to calls for a united response.

A minute’s walk from the CSWF gathering, the 69th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is taking place at the same time at the UN’s headquarters. This annual meeting aims to address the widespread inequalities, violence and discrimination women continue to face around the world.

UN secretary general António Guterres opens the conference with a red alert: “The poison of patriarchy is back – and it is back with a vengeance: slamming the brakes on action; tearing up progress; and mutating into new and dangerous forms.”

His warning that hard-won gains are being thrown into reverse follows a UN report revealing that one in four countries reported a backlash on gender equality in 2024. Based on a review of progress by 159 member states, the report attributes the rollback to crises including a weakening of democratic institutions, Covid, climate breakdown and conflict. But it notes the key role of anti-rights actors who “are actively undermining longstanding consensus on key women’s rights issues. Where they cannot roll back legal and policy gains altogether, they seek to block or slow their implementation.”

Earlier this month, Oxfam published its own assessment of the damage being wreaked by anti-rights groups: “A range of rightwing, religious, and conservative actors around the world are capitalising on persistent crises, to reorient state power towards a reassertion of racist and sexist profit-driven systems that favours the wealthy, privileges men, and harms and disadvantages women and LGBTQIA+ people in the name of ‘traditional’ family values.”

Many of the events taking place at UN event address the threat posed by anti-rights groups. In a session called Feminism for the Win: Strategies to Defy and Defeat Anti-feminist Movements, panellists speak of the rise of “chainsaw masculinity” and “rapid authoritarian transformation”. Marta Lempart, the activist who led Poland’s pro-choice women’s strikes, notes grimly “the alpha male is back in town,” adding: “The backlash is a pre-emptive strike in case feminists win, it’s a deliberate organised effort because we were so close.”

The anti-rights movement is also present at the UN. In one Q&A Liana Gordon, a youth delegate from the Canadian anti-abortion organisation Campaign Life Coalition, asks the panel: “You talk of women’s rights but what about the rights of the unborn child?”

The question infuriates Lempart. “Whenever someone says ‘women’s rights but … or human rights but …’ it’s bullshit … I hate these guys and I’m saying that out loud. You have to fight, insult them, do all the things you should’t be doing. You have to speak how you feel.” It is a response that delights Gordon who later relays it to her fellow anti-abortion activists. “Last year I did not see this type of emotional response at least not at this level. It confirmed to me that we are winning,” says Gordon. “I have a message for Marta: you may hate me but we love you.”

Challenging participants and taking up oxygen in discussions is a key strategy for anti-rights groups at CSW. After taking part in one panel discussion, Nelly Munyasia from the Reproductive Health Network Kenya, recalls being handed a flyer incorrectly stating that abortion is not legal in any country. “Initially I wasn’t scared, and then it hit me that this [anti-abortion] movement is more daring, bolder and is doing anything they can do to convey their message.”

On the first day of CSW, member states adopt a political declaration reaffirming their commitment to respect, protect and champion the rights, equality, and empowerment of women and girls. Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women calls the declaration “a show of unity for all women and girls, everywhere … at a time when hard-fought gains for gender equality are under attack.”

The US government refuses to endorse it, but it is welcomed by leading health and rights groups such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) as a sign of international solidarity and support for the human rights of women and girls.

But the declaration has a glaring omission: while sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) was part of a draft declaration published in January, there is no mention in the final agreement. IPPF believes the absence of SRHR, a cornerstone of women’s equality and sustainable development, significantly weakens the text’s scope.

Thirty years ago SRHR was included in the 12 critical areas covered by the historic Beijing declaration in 1995, a policy framework still regarded as the blueprint for gender equality and justice. Since then, it has often been a point of contention in international forums, but the 2024 agreement acknowledged “the need for ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services, including for family planning, information and education”. The omission this year is seen by global advocacy groups and research centres as another effect of the increasingly hostile environment.

“This year negotiators didn’t feel they could continue to fight for [those rights] so they let it go – because [otherwise] it would crash the negotiations. Many of us find that profoundly disappointing,” says Beth Schlachter, senior director of US external relations at MSI Reproductive Choices.

Schlachter’s colleague, Bethan Cobley, director of external affairs and partnerships, adds that the absence of language around SRHR has global ramifications, “These words set the global normative framework in the countries where we operate; countries take this language and use it to inform their national policies – it is hugely important.”

The environment of extreme hostility is having numerous detrimental effects on healthcare providers attempting to deliver services to communities across Kenya, says Munyasia. “We come from a continent where abortion continues to be regarded as a taboo – you can imagine the work we have done to show women [they can have a safe abortion]. Now we are seeing disinformation which contributes to stigma and instils fear in women who will be termed murderers.”

Munyasia has been harassed on social media and has had to remove signs from Reproductive Health Network Kenya offices, and even move offices; the call centre it runs has been reported to the authorities. The organisation has also recorded a rise in police targeting healthcare providers – it has documented 28 arrests of healthcare providers and their patients in the last two years.

She is alarmed at the prospect of the Pan-African Conference on Family Values taking place in Nairobi in May adding to the atmosphere of fear and distrust among women who use reproductive healthcare services.

The worst part of it, says Munyisia, is that relentless attacks combined with aid cuts will prevent women and girls accessing contraceptives and safe abortion leading to unplanned, unwanted pregnancies, a rise in HIV infections and maternal deaths.

“It’s going to be messy unless we have funders that can step up to mitigate this,” she says. “What breaks my heart is that vulnerable women and girls will suffer in global south.”

Back at CSWF, a delegate from Liberia asks a panel how she could support young women who have been gang-raped.

“Pray,” comes the reply.