Andre Smith
Al Jazeera
General Assembly

Day 2 of Zimun, and to begin The General Assembly delegates regrouped and
completed any outstanding sections of their resolutions before the debate began.
The General Assembly Committee debated the resolution “Sexual Reproduction
Health and Rights: Family Planning and Abortion in Japan” under the topic
“Population Planning” which some of the delegates wrote yesterday.
To begin the delegates were given five minutes to read over the resolution,
after which, the Delegate of Japan read the whole resolution to the Chairs and other
Delegates. Delegate of Japan then read their speech on the resolution and the
Delegate’s position on it.

This was followed by an amendment for operative clause 2 sub clause a)
submitted by the Delegate of The UK, which reads: “Provides family planning
education in Secondary schools to all people despite socioeconomic status in both
rural and urban areas.” This amendment was passed and added to the resolution.
The Delegate of Cuba then took to floor to speak on the resolution as a
whole. Delegate of Pakistan gives point of info and encourages the delegate of Cuba
to include a section into the resolution to strengthen it.

Majority of the points of information that were raised mainly referred to Clause
1 which described legalizing abortion if women are raped. Which I believe has been
a sensitive and highly controversial issue in today’s debate. So, the Delegate of India
took the floor to speak totally against the resolution, and uses the abortion clause as
an example of how fragmented the resolution is as a whole. Delegate of India
expresses strongly how many women fake being raped just so they can get a legal
abortion if they fell pregnant by mistake. So the Delegate goes on to express how
women need to be checked by a doctor to see if they are legitimately raped, and only
then can they get an abortion.

Two more amendments were submitted, one by the Delegate of Uruguay
which read: “Creating safe medical centers in member nations which will be centered
around general usage of all methods of family planning such as but limited to: a)
Insertion of IUDs b) Abortion.” This amendment was not passed. The Delegate of
Russia submitted the next amendment: “Urges governments to make it legal
requirement to have mechanical contraceptives such as condoms in public
bathrooms in areas such as, but not limited to: Restaurants, Schools, Hospitals.” This
amendment was passed by a small majority.”

So far, the debate has been fairly slow, with few active participants and
minimal interesting discussion. No intense or exciting debate has taken place
between any delegates. Debate was suspended for lunch and when resumed will
continue until they come to a conclusion- whether the resolution should passed or
not. Voting procedure will take place at the end of debate.