UN chief: Breakdown of the family a 'triumph'

Briefing. Don't be surprised: this is entirely logical. There is a whole literature on how evil the family is, an idea supported for a century or more by leftists and feminists. It is a key source of resistance to their plans to remake the world according to their tastes. These ideas are influential in the UN: that is a reflection of the intellectual culture there.

From LifeSiteNews: A leader of the UNFPA, the UN population agency President Obama plans to fund that has been involved in the forced abortion program in China, is drawing heat for applauding the breakdown of the family caused by abortion. Arie Hoekman from the Netherlands, recently spoke about family breakdown at a colloquium in Mexico City. In his remarks, Mr. Hoekman declared that family breakdown is a triumph for human rights. His remarks came only days after Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, spoke at the World Meeting of Families in Mexico City, where the breakdown of the family was described as a 'crisis.' Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America, responded to Hoekman in comments sent to LifeNews.com. 'Mr. Hoekman praised the 'weakening of the patriarchal structure' and the 'new values' made possible by the United States' change of policy that increases the economic base for UNFPA. This man actually admitted that the goal of the United Nations is to promote 'new values' around the world. Sadly, those who closely watch the U.N. have seen that goal of promoting new values implemented in numerous policies in nations around the world.' Crouse explained the UNFPA's new outlook: 'The official United States policy during the Bush administration was to deny funding for foreign organizations that promoted or provided abortions; that policy meant no funding for UNFPA. Nevertheless, the UNFPA continued to support and subsidize China's One-Child Policy and to help fund sterilizations worldwide. When the Obama administration overturned the Mexico City Policy, the U.S. restored UNFPA funding. Now they will be better able to broaden their impact around the world.' [LifeNews]

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Abortion: any reason is a good reason

Briefing. Feminists are in a bind about sex-selective abortion, a fact which is useful to know. The abortionists are desperate to prevent any restriction on abortion, even when the motivation for the abortion is itself sexist. They argue that women should be 'free to choose' even when their 'choice' is highly likely to be simply giving in to social or family pressure. This is of course is the case with many other abortions as well: the 'freedom to choose' is the freedom to be bullied and blackmailed into disposing of a baby which might cause inconvenience and embarrassment to the mother's family and lover.

From C-Fam: According to a new article circulated by the abortion advocacy organization Ipas, widespread access to “safe abortion” trumps concerns over the gender imbalance stemming from “sex selective” abortion.

As sex-selective abortion overwhelmingly targets unborn girls, the article by Ipas senior research and policy advisor Bela Ganatra acknowledges that the issue divides the “reproductive rights community.” Abortion advocates are “often torn between their desire to allow women to choose when and if to have children, and their own personal disagreement with the basis for that choice.” Ipas, however, comes down on the side of widespread access to abortion, even if this means a female “birth dearth.”

Sex-selected abortion, or “gendercide,” as some feminist critics call it, is a practice whereby parents choose to terminate a pregnancy because the unborn child is not of the desired sex. It is generally carried out against baby girls. The practice has led to unnatural gender imbalances in some countries, mostly in Asia, where in some areas of China, for instance, as many as 150 boys are born for every 100 girls, creating a dramatic demographic crisis.

In response, some governments have banned sex-detection tests and outlawed
sex-selected abortion. Ipas claims that as a result of these policies,
“tremendous pressure emerges to control and restrict all second-trimester
abortions,” the time when most sex-selected abortions occur. Ipas argues that
“providers, afraid of being accused of providing sex-selective abortions, may
limit their services to the first trimester, even when second-trimester
services are legal.”

In “Maintaining Access to Safe Abortion and Reducing Sex Ratio Imbalances
in Asia” published in the latest issue of Reproductive Health Matters, Ganatra
prioritizes access to abortion and argues that it is necessary to address “son
preference” as the root cause, rather than on policies which place restrictions
on abortion. Ganatra fears that outlawing sex-selected abortion is “starting to
have adverse effects on the already limited access to safe and legal second
trimester abortion for reasons other than sex selection” and that the issue is
being used “as a front to promote anti-choice messages.”

Ganatra criticizes media campaigns like those in India that discourage
sex-selected abortions for using “loaded words” that “personify the fetus,”
claiming that these foster an “anti-abortion climate” which threatens “the
gains made in making abortion safe.” Ganatra also criticizes the United
Nations (UN) and some of its agencies for supporting efforts which use
terminology that condemn sex-selective abortion as murder. She blasts the UN
for using terms like ‘feticide’ and opposing sex selection in favor of the
right of unborn girls to be born,” arguing that human rights only “begin at
birth.”

Ipas and Ganatra conclude that the use of prenatal technology and selective
abortions as a “pathway through which son preference results in an imbalanced
sex ratio” but dismiss efforts to combat the problem with policies that hinder
access to abortion.

Demographers project that there are as many as 100 million missing baby
girls because of sex-selected abortion. A 2007 initiative to tackle
sex-selected abortion head-on at the UN was derailed by abortion-rights NGOs
and the European Union because some European states opposed condemning abortion
for any reason.

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UN battle over 'gender identity' discrimination

Briefing.

From C-Fam: By Piero A. Tozzi

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) Two dueling declarations were presented today at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on the controversial subject of “sexual orientation and gender identity.” The first, submitted by the French-led European Union (EU) and signed onto by roughly 65 nations, called upon member states to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected non-discrimination categories and “to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties.”

Nearly sixty nations, principally from the Islamic world, sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania, presented an alternate statement which warned against the attempt to create “new rights” or “new standards” by “misinterpreting” the non-discrimination clauses of long-established human rights instruments. The alternate declaration condemned “all forms of stereotyping, exclusion, stigmatization, prejudice, intolerance and discrimination and violence directed against peoples, communities and individuals on any ground whatsoever, wherever they occur,” while defending the ability sovereign nations to enact laws that meet the “just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare.”

The counter statement emphasized the danger of introducing terms “that have no legal foundations in any international human rights instrument,” such as “sexual orientation,” which “where never articulated nor agreed by the general membership.”

After the dueling statements were read in the GA’s morning session, a high level panel discussion on “Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,” chaired by a representative from the International Lesbian and Gay Association, weighed the effect of the French-led declaration and considered next steps. Rama Yade, France’s Junior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights who announced in September that her country would push the sexual orientation declaration at the UN, was among the participants. Other supporters included the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

Though both declarations were non-binding and neither was voted upon, homosexual rights activists were quick to portray the French/EU declaration as a victory. Speaking at the high level discussion, Dutch homosexual activist and parliamentarian Boris Dittrich called the declaration a “historical event” and a “step forward in the decriminalization of sodomy laws.” Yade echoed this, stating that the “final objective was universal decriminalization,” and vowed that the French/EU declaration was “just a starting point and not an ending point.”

Critics anticipate that the non-binding declaration will reappear in a more permanent form, perhaps as a General Assembly resolution to be voted upon. They also see the French/EU declaration as implicitly advancing radical social policy goals contained in the Yogyakarta Principles, a non-binding statement pushed by certain members of UN treaty compliance committees and civil society. EU government sources told the Friday Fax that a reference to the Yogyakarta Principles in an earlier draft was deleted in order to maintain consensus.

The United States was to issue a statement deploring violence based on sexual orientation. A constituency had emerged within the State Department in favor of the French/EU proposal, but intervention by pro-family advocates ensured that the United States did not sign on to it.

Russia, Belarus, and the Holy See made separate statements critical of the French-EU initiative, independent of those nations that signed onto the alternate declaration.

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Vatican refuses to sign pro-abortion UN treaty

Briefing.

From SPUC: The Catholic church refused earlier this year to sign a United Nations document on disability because it did not defend the unborn. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Vatican representative at the UN, said he had not approved the text because it did not oppose abortion or defend the rights of disabled unborn babies. The Holy See also objected to an assertion of a right to "sexual health and reproduction" because that can include abortion. [Times, 3 December] The UN is immoral according to the Dominican Republic's leading prelate. Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez, Archbishop of Santo Domingo, said the UN had proclaimed life as the principal human right since its foundation, yet it also promoted abortion. There was no need to be grateful to the UN for anything. His fellow citizens should tell those who would bring immorality to the country to leave. [Catholic News Agency, 3 December]

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UN still funding forced abortion in China

Briefing.

From CFNews:The Population Research Institute, whose groundbreaking investigation in China led the Bush administration to cut funding to the U.N. Population Fund for the past seven years, stands by its accusation that the UNFPA was--and is--involved in coercive abortions in China.

'Our investigation remains valid,' says Colin Mason, PRI's media director. 'We put boots on the ground, and made the results available to anyone who wanted them. Those who would disregard our findings show an appalling lack of respect for human rights.'

Here's their video on the subject.


PRI's report, entitled 'UNFPA, China, and Coercive Family Planning,' is based on an investigation conducted by PRI researchers in China's Sihui County. Relying on interviews with over two dozen victims and witnesses, the 2001 investigation found that coercive abortion and sterilization practices were taking place in that county where the UNFPA had supposedly instituted a 'client-centered and voluntary family planning program.' In fact, PRI's investigation discovered that the UNFPA shared an office with the very Chinese family planning officials who were carrying out forced abortions.

Prompted by this investigation, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell sent his own research team to China, which independently verified the facts that PRI had gathered. As a result, Powell himself urged that the U.S. government stop funding the UNFPA. Said Powell in a 2002 letter to Congress. 'UNFPA's support of, and involvement in, China's population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.'

'President-elect Obama and his supporters blame the Bush administration for this decision,' says Steven W. Mosher, PRI's president. 'But in fact it was Colin Powell, who is no friend of social conservatives and who recently endorsed Obama for President, who made this call.'

'It would be a shame if Obama abandons both the women of China--and one of his most high-profile backers--in the name of the failed ideology of population control,' said Mosher. 'Americans don't want their money going to an organization--the UNFPA--which works hand-in-glove with China's population control police as they drag women off for forced abortions and forced sterilizations.'

The first episode of PRI's new video series on the UNFPA is available for viewing on PRI's YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/colinpri1 [PRI]

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Blair Foundation promotes abortion

Briefing: now we can assess Tony Blair's actions on the subject of abortion after his reception into the Church as well as before. His Foundation is promoting the 'Millennium Goals' which include wider access to abortion. Read about it on John Smeaton's blog.

H-t to Fr Blake also, and for the photo. A picture which speaks a thousand words.

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UN committee wants to ban smacking

Briefing.

From CFNews:  The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently taken liberties with the text of the Convention and its latest report on the UK is no exception, according to the independent research charity, Family Education Trust. The Committee, which has gained a reputation for adopting extreme interpretations on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is once again seeking to impose its own view on the discipline of children by demanding that the UK government introduces legislation that would criminalise parents for the mildest of smacks.

In its 21-page report on the UK, the Committee recommends that the government 'prohibit as a matter of priority all corporal punishment in the family, including through the repeal of all legal defences'.

Family Education Trust director, Norman Wells, commented: 'The Committee has strayed way beyond the bounds of any natural reading of the Convention in its determination to force all parents to conform to its own unproven philosophy of parenting. It never crossed the minds of the original framers of the Convention to make it a criminal offence for parents to employ a moderate disciplinary smack; and very few governments would have signed up to the Convention had it been put to them that they would subsequently be required to introduce such a draconian measure.'

The truth is that present legislation throughout the UK is entirely compatible with the requirement of the Convention that states protect children 'from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse' (Article 19). All such treatment is already prohibited by law. As far as moderate parental discipline that causes no injury is concerned, the Convention is completely silent.

The Committee is not consistent in its view of children. Norman Wells observed: 'There is a strange anomaly in the report in that at the same time as calling for an absolute ban on all physical correction of children, the UN Committee is also pressing for a considerable rise in the minimum age for criminal responsibility. It seems that in one breath they want children to be treated exactly the same as adults, while in the next breath they want them to be treated differently. They want children to have adult rights but not adult responsibilities.'

The extreme and inconsistent views of the Committee give rise to serious concern about its proposal that the Convention should be incorporated into UK law. Norman Wells remarked: 'The Convention itself is framed in very broad terms. The problem arises when the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child comes along and presumes to give a definitive interpretation of its meaning and then reserves the right to change that interpretation at whim. It needs to be kept in mind that the members of this Committee are unrepresentative and unaccountable and their interpretations are not binding.

'We need to appreciate that family relationships are very personal and individual matters, and each family is shaped and influenced by social, cultural, religious and philosophical factors which are not common to every other family. Values and standards will therefore differ from family to family and this will be reflected in the way children are brought up. To introduce the language of 'rights' into family relationships runs the risk of engendering a spirit of conflict and turning parents against their children and children against their parents which can be very damaging.'

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Pro-Life petition to the UN

Action: please sign the petition and pass it on!

From C-Fam: Dear Friend,

The UN will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this December 10th. To celebrate this occasion, radical pro-abortion groups intend to present the UN General Assembly with petitions calling for a universal right to abortion. The largest, richest and most powerful pro-abortion groups are even now planning their attack on the unborn at the General Assembly.

Campaigns are being waged right now by International Planned Parenthood Federation and Maire Stopes International, the two groups responsible for more abortions than any other groups in the world. Both are beloved of the powers that be at the UN; and their efforts to promote an international right to abortion are welcomed by many UN Member States, perhaps most of the UN bureaucracy, and powerful US foundations that give millions to promote abortion at the UN and around the world.

We must stop them this December.

I am writing to ask you to sign a petition calling on UN Members States to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as protecting the unborn child from abortion. Did you know that the Universal Declaration calls for a right to life? Did you know that UN committees now interpret that as a right to abortion? We can stop them.

Please go HERE to sign the petition which we will present at the UN on December 10th, the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the very least we must match what the pro-abortion advocates will present to the UN that day! They will present thousands and thousands of names. WE MUST MATCH THEM!

Please send this email to all of your family and friends. Our goal is to present 50,000 names to the General Assembly. We need your help right now to block the pro-aborts from making huge progress for abortion at the UN.

We are going to run this campaign for the next six weeks. There is plenty of time to get this petition to everyone in your address book and all around the world. This is an international right. Please help us now.

Imagine the look on their faces when we slam down 50,000 names! Be a part of that.

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UN: the right to life means the right to abortion

Briefing,

From C-Fam: Last week, the Office for the High Commissioner on Human Rights, which is responsible for overseeing treaty compliance committees, released the concluding observations of the most recent sessions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) Committee and Human Rights Committee (HRC). Both committees used the July sessions to pressure countries appearing before them to liberalize abortion laws, even though no UN human rights treaty mentions abortion.

The HRC, which monitors state compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), told Ireland that it “should bring its abortion laws into line with the Covenant” so that women would “not have to resort to illegal or unsafe abortion that could put their lives at risk or to abortions abroad.” The HRC cited Article 6 of the ICCPR, which states “every human being has the inherent right to life,” as justification for the concluding observation.

Since 2003, HRC has pressured at least 14 countries to legalize abortion or
liberalize laws by misinterpreting the ICCPR provisions like the “right to
life.” Abortion rights advocates claimed victory in the HRC in 2005, when the
Committee made an unprecedented ruling against Peru for allegedly violating the
rights of a woman who was denied permission by the government to obtain an
abortion.

According to an analysis by Focus on the Family’s Thomas Jacobson, who has
been monitoring the work of the CEDAW Committee and the HRC, “The HRC now
interprets this article to mean that the ‘right to life’ of a pregnant woman is
violated if she is not permitted to terminate the life of her preborn child.
Pregnancy has come to be viewed as life-threatening (instead of life-giving).
To the HRC, the ‘right to life’ has become the ‘right’ to abortion.”

No binding UN treaty includes a right to abortion. Observers are becoming
increasingly concerned, however, by how mainstream committees like the HRC are
following the CEDAW trend of misinterpreting treaty articles and questioning
nations about their abortion laws. Over the last ten years, CEDAW has
pressured over 60 nations on abortion.

At the last CEDAW session alone, CEDAW Committee members questioned
Lithuania, Nigeria, Finland, the United Kingdom and Slovakia on their abortion
laws, using lowering maternal mortality as a pretext. CEDAW Committee members
blasted Lithuania on a draft law which would limit when and in what
circumstances abortions are allowed. Committee members also sharply criticized
Slovakia’s concordat with the Holy See, which protects the right of health care
workers to conscientiously object to participating in abortions.

While the rulings of treaty bodies are technically non-binding, abortion
activists have brought litigation throughout the world citing the ruling of UN
human rights treaty bodies, like the CEDAW Committee, in challenging laws
against abortion. Such arguments helped convince the Colombian constitutional
court to liberalize that country’s restrictions on the practice.

Both the CEDAW Committee and HRC are scheduled to hold their next sessions
in October in Geneva.

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France pushes homosexual agenda at the UN

Briefing: so much for the Catholic-friendly President Sarkozy soon to greet the Holy Father.

From C-Fam: (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Rama Yade, France’s Junior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights, this week announced that her country intends to
submit a draft “declaration” calling for the global decriminalization of
“homosexuality” at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in December. She
made the statement at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, which is hosting the 61st
annual conference of non-governmental organizations.

Ms. Yade cited France’s commitment to combat “homophobia” as part of a campaign to advance “universal” human rights. France holds the six-month European Union (EU) presidency through the end of the year, and thus will be able to speak on behalf of the 25 countries of the EU at the UN.

The announcement does not come as a surprise. French delegates had
indicated at the UN High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS this past June that France
would seek to advance homosexual rights globally while holding the EU
presidency.

What is unusual, however, is bringing the issue directly to the General
Assembly without first introducing it in the Third Committee – one of six
committees of the General Assembly, also known as the Social, Humanitarian and
Cultural Committee – where measures on social issues typically arise. Third
Committee debates on issues like sexual orientation and abortion tend to be
contentious, with language extensively negotiated.

A delegate from a country that consistently votes against attempts to
advance a pro-homosexual agenda told the Friday Fax that France was unlikely to
have the votes to secure a resolution in the Third Committee, and thus is
instead introducing a “political declaration” – distinct from either a
“resolution” or a “declaration” – which need not be voted upon. Any member
state can propose a political declaration, which other countries may then join,
before sending it to the Secretary General.

The delegate added that though political declarations are nonbinding, they
may reappear in a more definitive format later. Thus a resolution on the
Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, which passed the Third Committee
last year, first appeared under the guise of General Assembly political
declaration.

Currently, an estimated 90 countries throughout the world criminalize
sodomy. It is expected that this action by France and other like minded states
will touted by proponents as an action of the General Assembly which would be
false. The document would also be touted by advocates as a development of a
soft law norm that signals a movement by states toward a rights-based
acceptance of homosexual conduct. The United States Supreme Court decision
Lawrence v. Texas, for example, cited the emergence of new norms
internationally in striking down state anti-sodomy laws.

Ms. Yade appears to be the French government’s point woman in advancing
this agenda. Born in 1976 in Senegal and raised in Paris suburbs, she is a
member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s political party, the conservative
Union pour un Movement Populaire, or UMP, and a protégé of the President.

This past year there have been several calls at the UN for nations to
repeal anti-sodomy statutes, most notably at the UN High Level Meeting on
HIV/AIDS.

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CEDAW committee calls for abortion in NI

Briefing: more from the notorious CEDAW committee at the UN, and more pressure for abortion in Northern Ireland.

From SPUC: A United Nations body is pressing the United Kingdom to extend Britain's liberal abortion law to Northern Ireland. The Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) calls for a consultation on the matter and urges the UK: "to give consideration to the amendment of the abortion law so as to remove punitive provisions imposed on women who undergo abortion." [Breaking News, 31 July] Mrs Betty Gibson of SPUC Northern Ireland said: "Repeated calls by the CEDAW committee to liberalise abortion in every country which has ratified the treaty only damage the UN's already-poor human rights record. Nowhere in the treaty is abortion mentioned. The UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child recognises that 'the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.' The law in Northern Ireland upholds internationally recognised human rights by providing legal protection for children before birth. The CEDAW committee has no
legitimate interest in abortion law and has no authority to demand that we end the legal protection of unborn children here. In doing so, CEDAW threatens genuine human rights."

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Human Rights Council calls for child sex rights

Briefing.

From CFNews: Over the past few weeks, the Geneva based Human Rights Council debated many issues, including the elimination of violence against women and the rights of the child. This culminated with a decision to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences for a period of 3 years. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography was also extended.

On March 20th, a resolution on the Rights of the Child was bought to the floor. Many elements of the resolution are concerning to pro-life/ pro-family advocates. For example, the resolution, under the umbrella of the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of Health, includes a call for governments to '(…) pay particular attention to …reproductive and sexual health.' Although many of the other concerns listed are legitimate and should be preoccupations for the international community, the reference to the need for 'sexual and reproductive health' (often used by U.N. agencies to mean family planning and abortion) undermines the promotion of the real health needs of children and adolescents.

Furthermore, the resolution also calls on state parties to provide children affected by HIV/AIDS with 'access to voluntary and confidential testing, reproductive health care and education, access to pharmaceutical products and medical technologies.'

Patrick Buckley, from the Society of Protection for the Unborn Children expressed concerns about the language quoted above saying that 'clearly this language while primarily dealing with the HIV/ AIDS issue could also be interpreted as providing children with access to sex education together with access to contraception and abortion without parental knowledge or consent.'

Such language contributes to the notion that children's rights supersede parental rights. There is an inherent contradiction within the resolution. The document states that 'reaffirming the importance of the family as a basic unit of society and that such should be strengthened; (…) all the institutions of society should respect children's rights and secure their well-being and render appropriate assistance to parents, families, legal guardians and other caregivers.'

Acknowledging the importance of the family is a positive step. However, parental rights are trumped and disrespected in many official U.N. documents which do not serve to ensure children's well- being.

Update: Further to our recent alert urging you to help block the Council of Europe
endorsing abortion Europe-wide, we are happy to be able to provide you
with two in-depth briefings to help you when writing to members of the
Council's Parliamentary Assembly. The first briefing, produced by SPUC, is
entitled Abortion law and the Council of Europe and can be downloaded as a
PDF at http://www.spuc.org.uk/pace1.pdf The second briefing, produced by
the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute (SCBI), is entitled Response to
draft report on abortion by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe's Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and can be
downloaded as an PDF at http://www.spuc.org.uk/response.pdf Both of these
briefings plus our original alert can be found on our Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe campaign page
http://www.spuc.org.uk/pace

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UNICEF and Save the Children anti life

Briefing: Catholics cannot support UNICEF (the Vatican has refused to fund it through its UN dues) or Save the Children.

From CFNews: 'For years UNICEF spokesmen denied promoting contraception or abortion,' wrote Winifride Prestwich in UNICEF: Guilty As Charged. She said records prove that 'step by step over a 30-year period UNICEF has tied itself to the population controllers and to the anti-life, anti-family attitudes of such organizations as the International Planned Parenthood Federation.'

A study released by the International Organizations Research Group (IORG) documented UNICEF's ties to abortion and radical feminism. UNICEF: Women or Children First? showed that UNICEF has helped write many documents that call for increased access to abortion and the legalization of the deadly act worldwide.

IORG discovered that UNICEF has funded a program run by the militantly pro-abortion Population Council, which holds the U.S. patent for the abortion pill, RU-486. UNICEF has also supported a South African group that targets adolescents with a pro-abortion message.

It is now official UNICEF policy to 'Promote and expand access to sexual and reproductive health services, including access to condoms,' the IORG report stated. A high-ranking UNICEF official even called for his group to 'make condoms available and accessible for everybody, everywhere and at all times. Abstinence is simply not a realistic option for most young people in the world today.'

The evidence that UNICEF has actively promoted the Culture of Death is overwhelming and indisputable:

* In 1987, UNICEF officially endorsed 'good quality abortion services' at the International Conference on Better Health for Women and Children in Nairobi, Kenya.

* In 1993, UNICEF raised its contribution to the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) open support for Communist China's 'one-child family' policy from $2 million to $5 million.

* In 1997, the Vatican cut funding to UNICEF after the group co-sponsored a manual that endorsed emergency birth control. (Emergency birth control can cause an early abortion.) UNICEF also refused to provide a detailed accounting of its population control and pro-abortion programs.

* On October 26, 2002, the Calgary Herald reported that UNICEF has been straying from its mission for many years. The article, titled 'UNICEF's Other Agendas,' included an interview with Mary Kassian, author of The Feminist Gospel. 'Hundreds of thousands of children are still dying of TB or malaria, or because they don't have clean water. And the UN is giving them IUDs...I chose long ago not to support UNICEF and to support those good causes through other agencies that aren't tainted.'

Save the Children has a working relationship with what it calls 'prominent international organizations.' Several of these groups are actively pro-abortion, including Better World Fund, Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Population Action International, and the U.S. Committee for UNICEF.

In 2001, Save the Children worked with Planned Parenthood, the Population Action Council, and the pro-abortion Audubon Society on its five-year 'Planet Campaign.' Funded by the rabidly pro-abortion/population control David and Lucile Packard and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations, the purpose of the campaign was to 'raise awareness of the connections between international family planning and the health of children, women and the environment.' The Planet Campaign used television and print advertising, community outreach, special events, and other activities to spread its message. Save the Children said the campaign's website provided 'an international forum for discussion of, and action on, women's reproductive health - including family planning - in various countries and diverse cultures around the world.'

Save the Children has stated that 'family planning' has been a 'critical component' of its work for nearly 20 years. The group quoted a UNICEF document which stated that 'family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.' Save the Children noted that the report identified 'access to family planning' as a 'key factor contributing to maternal and child survival and well-being.'

'It is laudable that the people involved with 'American Idol' want to help the poor,' said LDI President Douglas R. Scott, Jr. 'But it is tragic that they would choose to do so through groups like UNICEF and Save the Children. These groups have far too much deadly baggage.' Of course, what many people do not know, because 'American Idol' has not chosen to mention it, is that Simon Cowell is the chief executive officer of International Save the Children. This is surely why Save the Children was selected as a recipient charity.

''American Idol' should stop using the contestants to raise money for groups when they are keeping the activities of these charities a secret,' Scott said. ''American Idol' should practice full disclosure and give those contestants who may wish to decline participation in 'Idol Gives Back' the opportunity to do so without repercussions.'

'If you believe the plight of preborn children is as important as the plight of the poor, do not participate in 'Idol Gives Back'' Scott urged. 'We are caring people who want to do our part to help those less fortunate, but we will do so through organizations that do not view the killing of human beings as a 'solution' to poverty and other adult-created problems.'

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Pro-Life success at the UN

Briefing: no thanks to our own wretched government or the EU.

From C-Fam: (NEW YORK — C-FAM) Final negotiations for the final document of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) ended as the sun rose on Saturday morning. Pro-life efforts helped keep the controversial term "sexual and reproductive health and rights" out of the main document. The term was also kept out of the other negotiated documents, one on female genital mutilation and another on HIV/AIDs.

Non-governmental lobbyists were kept out of the main negotiating room for the two-week conference so pro-life lobbyists kept a vigil outside the negotiating rooms until 4:30am on Saturday. Several delegations thanked the lobbyists for remaining at the UN throughout the night. One Latin American delegate even admitted to the group that delegates needed to be held accountable and know that their actions were being closely watched. One lobbyist told the Friday Fax that “It’s important for these delegates to see that there is a pro-life presence here. As long as they are working on documents that could affect unborn lives, we will be here to bear witness.”

Debate over the abortion issue waged throughout the CSW. Norway initially
proposed the inclusion of the controversial term “sexual and reproductive
health and rights” which has been defined by radical NGOs to include abortion.
To the surprise of many observers, the European Union (EU), a bloc which
normally speaks with one voice on social issues, announced that it would have a
common position on the Norwegian proposal.

The governments of Poland, Ireland, Malta, the United States, El Salvador,
Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Kiribati and the Holy See successfully managed to keep
“sexual and reproductive health and rights” out of the final version of the
text, despite the vociferous calls for its inclusion by the other EU member
states and a number of other states from Latin America and the Caribbean.

At one dramatic moment during negotiations on the HIV/AIDS resolution, a
delegation of EU negotiators swarmed into a negotiating room and demanded the
inclusion of the term. Their efforts were rebuffed.

Though “sexual and reproductive health and rights” did not make it into any
of the CSW documents, a problematic reference to the International Guidelines
on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights was included in a resolution on “Women, the Girl
Child and HIV/AIDS.” The Guidelines call for abortion-on-demand, the legal
recognition of same-sex unions and criminal penalties for any “vilification of
people who engage in same-sex relationships.” Though the government of Uganda
was assured by the facilitator of the meeting that the reference to the
document would be struck, the resolution was adopted by the CSW with the
reference still included.

Tensions between pro-life lobbyists and UN security continued to the end of
the conference. As the Friday Fax reported last week, UN security began
following and monitoring the activities of pro-life lobbyists. At one point, a
UN security guard upbraided pro-lifers for talking to delegates in the hallway
outside the conference room. A senior lobbyist went to UN security office and
asked to see the provision forbidding lobbying delegates in the hallway. The
security office could come up with nothing.

The CSW is expected to convene one final time this week to adopt the final
text and officially conclude the session.

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UN agency: promotion of contraception our key aim

Briefing.

From SPUC: In a newly released report, the UN's population agency (UNFPA) has stated that its primary focus is the promotion of contraception, especially among the young. UNFPA also intends to put pressure on governments to spend more money on reproductive health services, and to promote the increased use, and quality, of contraceptive services. Despite claiming to be abortion-neutral, the organisation has been accused of supporting forced abortions in China. [Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, 3 January]

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More pro-abortioin campaigning by the UN

Briefing.

From C-Fam: A new global initiative was launched by various UN
agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in New York last week that
includes a call for legal abortion. Among the sponsors of the initiative called
"Deliver Now for Women and Children" is the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), a UN
agency that persistently denies they support abortion in any way, shape, or
form.

Marketed as a campaign to raise awareness of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) on maternal and child health, the agenda of "Deliver Now" includes
a call for “safe abortion" which is synonymous with legal abortion. The
campaign is coordinated by The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child
Health, chaired by Kul Gautam, the deputy executive director of UNICEF and
assistant secretary-general of the UN, and whose members include among others:
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, International Planned Parenthood
Federation, government development agencies from the US, UK, Canada, and
Bangladesh, as well as WHO and UNFPA.

The campaign lists a number of severe maladies that effect maternal health
and concludes “most maternal deaths could be prevented if women had access to
and could use professional care.” "Deliver Now" defines “quality care” as
including “services before and during pregnancy, childbirth and the postpartum
period, as well as safe abortion.”

The "Deliver Now" website features the stark tagline, “More than 10,000,000
deaths per year. Too many to ignore.” This enormous number is the conflation
of two numbers; the total number of childhood deaths per year from all causes,
said to be 10 million, and the number of deaths women suffer from maternal
causes, a highly suspect number claimed by some UN agencies to total 500,000
per year.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the child mortality
numbers are calculated from official sources including birth and death data
derived from vital registration, census, and/or household surveys. On the other
hand, the maternal mortality statistics are questionable estimations at best.
According to the WHO, the primary source for maternal mortality statistics,
“data on maternal mortality and other causes of death are often unavailable or,
where available, are unreliable due to deficiencies in vital statistics
registration systems.” Dr. Joseph Chamie, the former head of the UN Population
Division, official statisticians of the UN, states the 500,000 number used for
maternal deaths cannot substantiated and he refused to use it.

Pro-family UN watchers are concerned that the disproportionate focus on
unsafe abortion based upon questionable maternal mortality figures detracts
from addressing the major health risks to pregnant women in the developing
world. Experts say these are severe bleeding, eclampsia and obstructed labor.
By UNFPA’s own admission in a 2004 report, the most important means of reducing
maternal mortality is not access to contraceptives and legal abortion but the
presence of skilled birth attendants and access to emergency obstetric care.

Abortion proponents often link unsafe abortion and maternal mortality to
push for legal, so-called “safe” abortion. Critics of this argument are quick
to point out that in Poland, when abortion was severely restricted in 1993, the
country showed a sharp decline in the abortion rate and a decline in maternal
deaths. In Ireland, where abortion remains illegal, the country reports one of
the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world. By contrast, while the United
States has had abortion on demand since 1973, this year the US reported a rise
in maternal deaths.

The next scheduled event in the "Deliver Now" campaign is the Women Deliver
Conference in London from October 18-20 which also focuses heavily on abortion
rights.

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UN agency lies to support forced abortions

Briefing. Note that the Bush administration is acting as almost the only brake on the anti-life tendencies of the UN.

From SPUC: President Bush has withheld funding from the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA) for the sixth year running because it continues to support
forced abortions and sterilisations. Mr Bush's decision was based on research by the Population Research Institute between 1998 and 2001, which
found that there were violations in UNFPA's work in several countries
including China, Peru and Pakistan. [CNA on EWTN, 13 September] The US
delegation to the United Nations has rebuked the executive director of
UNFPA for claiming that there is a UN global goal related to "sexual and
reproductive health". While presenting UNFPA's strategic plan and its
proposed global and regional programs, Ms Thoraya Obaid referred to "the
target on universal access to reproductive health under Millennium
Development Goal (MDG) 5." The US representative told her that there is no
global target on reproductive health and that only a resolution of the
General Assembly could generate one. Ms Obaid later claimed that UNFPA
held a neutral position on the legalisation and promotion of abortion.

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UN continues to push abortion: appeal to US

Briefing. The US weilds considerable power over the UN, as a major financial contributor and the world's superpower. It has nevertheless failed to stop the UN's politicisation: going far beyond their mandates, UN agencies routinely demand that countries introduce anti-family and anti-life legislation. The example below involves Pakistan.

From CFNews: The Catholic Family Institute (C-Fam) reports from New York that, in a letter to the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, several US senators have argued that the US Senate must demand UN reform prior to US ratification of any UN treaties or conventions. Samantha Singson writes: 'Citing concern over the UN's vulnerability to 'corruption and mismanagement,' the letter to Senator Joseph Biden calls on Congress to ensure that the UN human rights treaty body authorities, which oversee state implementation of ratified treaties, will be 'impartial and will not attempt to exceed [the UN's] mandates.'

A week ago, a diverse coalition of more than 30 influential American NGOs sent a similar letter to US senators expressing their concern about an 'unreformed and politicized UN' which would exercise implementing authority regarding treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Their concerns were validated recently when the text of the Colombian high court decision to legalize abortion was translated and widely distributed. According to the document, the court cited the non-binding recommendations of the CEDAW committee as part of its justification for liberalizing Colombia's abortion laws.

These two letters arrived in the US Senate as the CEDAW committee convened in New York. During its first review of Pakistan on Tuesday, treaty body experts questioned the country on its abortion laws and access to services and contraception. Abortion is illegal in Pakistan except to save the life of the mother. Three separate CEDAW Committee members pressed the Pakistani delegation about possibly liberalizing the country's abortion laws. In response to the questioning, the Pakistani representative said, 'Abortion is considered murder once a foetus is conceived.'

In what has become boilerplate during CEDAW reviews, the committee members linked maternal mortality to unsafe abortion and claimed that Pakistan's low contraceptive prevalence also led to increased instances of unsafe abortion. This line of reasoning contradicts findings the committee has made elsewhere. In their sixth periodic report of France, for example, CEDAW found that, 'despite the massive dissemination of information regarding contraceptive methods in the past thirty years, the number of undesired pregnancies is still high. According to the most recent data, almost one-third of all pregnancies are unexpected; of them, half end in voluntary termination.'

Some experts argue that the committees are not objective and selectively use data to promote a radical social agenda. They argue that the same NGOs that influence the committees to promote legalized abortion are now pressuring the US to ratify CEDAW and other UN treaties. Concerned Women for America president Wendy Wright told the Friday Fax, 'The need for UN reform is an irrefutable fact in the wake of the Oil for Food and Food for Sex scandals. Yet rather than mending their ways, UN officials abuse their authority and pressure countries to adopt immoral and life-threatening policies. The UN needs tough love, and the US is in the position to administer - but that won't happen if the US lends credibility and subjects itself to unrepentant UN officials by ratifying more UN treaties.' [C-Fam]

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UN officials attack morality

Briefing: officials known as 'Special Rapporteurs' exist to look into specific areas of human rights, in the context of the UN Convention. These ones have clearly become obsessed with their own highly controversial agenda.

From C-Fam: At the recently concluded Human Rights Council (HRC) meetings in Geneva, several UN Special Rapporteurs presented annual reports that undercut religion as a defense against radical feminism, promote a radically expansive view of homosexual rights, and have the effect of discrediting national sovereignty.

Special Rapporteur Yakin Erturk who covers Violence Against Women said that in the coming year she would be placing special emphasis on sexual orientation. In this year's report Erturk calls for States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination Against Women to remove any reservation based on religion. Ertuk said any such reservation can only be viewed as "incompatible" with the Convention and contrary to the rights of women.

Erturk also told the Human Rights Council that abstinence-based programs for combating HIV/AIDS "reinforce ideologies of men’s control over women’s sexuality (however they may be culturally framed) and thereby contribute to the perpetuation of the root cause of many forms of violence against women.”

UN Special Rapporteur on Health Paul Hunt asked the HRC to call for the "right to health" a highly controversial and vague term into which is packed much of radical sexual policy. He said there are many ways to promote a right to health including "through the case law of bodies with responsibility for interpreting human rights.”

Hunt announced at a meeting during the Commission on the Status of Women in March that the majority of his reports “dealt with the sexual and reproductive health of girls.” He said one of the goals of his work as Rapporteur was to teach children about sex without talking about reproduction, asking, “If adults bury sexuality in the term ‘reproduction’, how will children understand? So I talk about sexual health rights.”

UN Special Rapporteur is a title given to individuals working on behalf of the United Nations who bear a specific mandate from the former UN Commission on Human Rights to investigate, monitor and recommend solutions to human rights problems. Special Rapporteurs are called to be "of high moral character” and act with “integrity, independence and impartiality.” They have three year mandates which are renewable for three years.

The position was a source of controversy at the HRC meeting. Conservatives at the HRC meetings told the Friday Fax that there was interest among delegations to terminate the mandates of Rapporteurs who overstep or abuse their mandates to push personal agendas, and there was interest in doing away with some of the positions all together. They noted that 9 of the 37 Rapporteurs authored the “Yogyakarta Principles” which promote homosexual rights as international human rights, and also noted that three special Rapporteurs, including Paul Hunt, are members of the pro-abortion NGO Center for Reproductive Rights’ (CRR) Expert Litigation Committee.

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Anti-family manipulation of UN treaties exposed

Briefing.

From C-Fam: A newly published article by C-FAM’s Douglas Sylva and Susan Yoshihara in
National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly exposes the frequent manipulation of the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring system by social radicals to establish an international human right to abortion on demand.

Entitled “Rights by Stealth,” the article exposes a complex network of academics, NGOs and collaborators within the UN system who are working in tandem to perpetuate a pattern of misinterpretation of existing human rights to create a new right to abortion.

Sylva and Yoshihara assert that “rather than seeking to sway voters directly, they seek mastery of the complex and little-known inner working of the international human rights system.” The starting point, the authors argue is their claim that “‘reproductive and sexual health rights’ are necessary components of a host of already existing human rights.”

The study begins with a meeting that took place at Glen Cove, NY in 1996 wherein participants from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and select NGOs met to articulate a comprehensive strategy “to determine how the right to abortion-on-demand could be found in universally accepted norms such as the right to life.” Using primary sources from the meeting and other documents, the article shows how the strategy relies on secrecy, undermining national sovereignty, and never admitting publicly the fact that international law does not include a right to abortion.

According to the article, the treaty-monitoring bodies lie at the center of the strategy. By convincing participants in the system that the “treaties are not fixed as negotiated, but rather are living, mutable documents,” those pushing the agenda could attempt re-interpret existing human rights to include a right to abortion. Furthermore, Sylva and Yoshihara explain, these re-interpretations “would be guided not by representatives of governments, but by members of treaty bodies who are not answerable to governments.”

The article argues that the “stealth” strategy has unfolded to an alarming degree, citing numerous instances when treaty body experts have taken sovereign nations to task for having restrictions on access to abortion, despite the fact that none of the human rights treaties mentions abortion. It further argues that Latin America is a primary focus. Just last month the Human Rights Committee, the committee charged with overseeing compliance to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), questioned Chile on its abortion laws.

According to the authors, the current situation seems untenable since it undermines the very human rights system that abortion proponents need to promote their agenda. Like the feminist-human rights movement in general, they note, the strategy is elitist. While well-funded by big foundations and NGOs, it enjoys very little grass roots support, and while it has succeeded in promoting a feminist agenda in rich countries, it has utterly failed to help poor women. The authors offer policy recommendations to help restore legitimacy to the human rights treaty system and “hope of achieving real progress for the women who are most in need of it.”

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