[The Cairo compromise on abortion and its effect to make it safe and legal].

This paper critically assesses how the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 addressed abortion in the Programme of Action and the effect of the Cairo "compromise" on abortion on efforts to make abortion safe and legal in the decade that followed. Moral judgement constantly trumps the public health imperative to save women's health and lives in the Programme of Action. Safe abortion, it says, should be provided only if it is legal. Thus, women seeking abortion in countries where it is not legal are left with unsafe abortions. Unlike the rest of the Programme of Action, the stance on abortion is not based on evidence of what is required to protect reproductive health or reduce maternal mortality. The statement that "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning" has proven to be a potent weapon in the hands of a right-wing US government, which has used it to block work on making abortion safe and legal. However, in the longer-term, the public health problem of abortion has been put onto the global agenda as never before.