(CNSNews.com) - A host of international organizations supporting abortion have launched a campaign against the United States and the Bush administration on the eve of a population conference focusing on Asia and the Pacific.

Diplomats from across the globe have gathered in Bangkok, Thailand, for the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference, which starts Wednesday. It is the first of a series of regional meetings being held in advance of the 10-year anniversary of the International Conference of Population and Development.

Activists on both sides of the abortion debate are closely watching the conference and specifically the language of an action plan that the countries are expected to adopt. Pro-life groups want the United States to send a strong message opposing abortions, but abortion supporters claim that view is detrimental to the reproductive health of women.

Catholics for a Free Choice, an organization that rejects the Vatican's stance on abortion, has led the campaign to drum up opposition and decry the Bush administration. It organized two petitions -- one signed by 100 religious leaders and the other by 400 individuals -- that endorse the agreement reached at the 1994 population conference in Cairo.

"Since the Bush administration came into office, we've seen a very programmed and strategic effort by the U.S. delegation to roll back the language of these agreements," said Ellen Sweet, a spokeswoman for the International Women's Health Coalition, which signed one of the statements.

"We are expecting more of the same at this current meeting," Sweet said. "The United States is going to lead the attack on words like 'reproductive rights' and 'sexual rights.' These are all terms that the United States sees as adding up to abortion, when actually they represent a huge range of reproductive health services."

The plan that is ultimately adopted in Bangkok will not be binding, but groups like Catholics for a Free Choice fear that it could sway future decisions, including a 10-year review of the Cairo agreement that could take place in 2004.

"Unless this attempt to undermine the Cairo agreement is stopped at the Bangkok meeting, we fear that the U.S. and the Vatican will turn important U.N. efforts to evaluate success of family planning into polarized debates, thus blocking progress on making family planning available to all women and men," said Frances Kissling, the group's president.

An organization that supports the Bush administration's position and has applauded its efforts to stress abstinence over abortion downplayed Kissling's accusations.

Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, said the agreement reached by 179 countries in Cairo was anything but unanimous in 1994, and deep divisions remain today in the United States and abroad.

"The Bush administration is not the Clinton administration and has no obligation to uphold the pro-abortion positions of the Clinton administration," Ruse said. "The Bush administration is not rejecting the entire Cairo document, only the parts of the document that endorse abortion."

In addition, he said more countries are following the lead of the United States under Bush's leadership, which is shifting the focus on population control from abortion to abstinence.

"A lot of governments all over the world are rallying to the Bush administration for leadership on these issues and you'll see this in the negotiations in Bangkok," Ruse said. "The Bush administration will lead the negotiations and it will win."

But a Canadian group that opposes the Bush administration's policies claims the United States uses threats and deception to get its way, which increases the chance that a watered-down version of the Cairo agreement will be adopted at the Asian and Pacific summit.

"The United States may only hold one vote, but they hold the purse strings for many aid dollars," said Katherine McDonald, president of Action Canada for Population and Development. "They will bully other governments to come on side with them."

McDonald maintains that Bush's policies are out of step with most other countries. Her organization is lining up supporters of the Cairo agreement to counter U.S.-led efforts at other regional conferences that will follow the Bangkok meeting.

Sweet's organization has a policy expert on the ground in Bangkok who will be watching the meeting closely. She said the outcome of the conference would set a tone and create a precedent for the other regional summits.

Ruse also understands the importance of the meeting as well, but he is confident that U.S.-backed language will be adopted.