U.N. diplomats drafting an international treaty on the rights of the disabled debated a possible ban on the abortion of fetuses with disabilities in an emotional negotiating session that ended on Friday.

A working text of the convention would prohibit the termination of a pregnancy in the case of a fetus with a disability in countries where abortion was otherwise legal.

“It was a very emotional argument, and if you are a person with disability and you are thinking that you might have been aborted because of your disability, it becomes a very personal issue,” said New Zealand Ambassador Don MacKay.

Diplomats ended up deferring action on the ban because it was too hot a topic, said MacKay, coordinator of the two-week session.

“This will be one of the hardest issues to resolve. but there are a lot of really hard issues here,” he said.

The convention, which drafters hope will come into effect in 2008, also called on governments to provide financial support to the parents of children born with disabilities.

It would require nations ratifying it to adopt laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of any form of disability, from the blind to the mentally ill.

The United Nations has been writing a treaty establishing the rights of the world’s 600 million disabled since 2001.

Ambassador Luis Gallegos of Ecuador, chairman of the drafting panel, said he hoped it would be completed by the end of 2006 and ratified by enough governments to take force in 2009 at the latest, alongside landmark U.N. conventions protecting women’s and children’s rights.

He had previously estimated the drafting process would be completed by late 2005.

Gallegos said the concept of disability and how to deal with it was rapidly evolving. The current challenge was to ensure the rights of the disabled and integrate them into society.

Not that long ago, people wearing glasses could neither fly a plane nor drive a car, but now they can, he said.