UFI article on abortion policies

UFI Supports Human Life in the Face of Wealthy, Powerful
Opposition

August 28 , 2007

In our support of human life, we often feel as if we are David going up against not one Goliath, but many powerful anti-life giants. Huge well-funded organizations with close ties to the United Nations are flexing their might in attempting to spread abortion rights to every region of the world. In comparison, our pro-life coalition is the tiny mouse that roared.We can fight them and we have gained some victories, but our opponents are growing in power and they never relent. Among the organizations opposing life are the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Amnesty International, the committee of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), international abortion providers and others.

The UNFPA is an organization dedicated to worldwide legalization of abortion. To make it sound more palatable to people, the organization refers to abortion as "reproductive health services." Under the guises of “sustainable development,” “human rights” and “gender equality,” UNFPA aims “to make universal access to reproductive health by 2015 a reality.”

UNFPA has issued a proposal for a four-year, $224 million advocacy strategy aimed at raising awareness of reproductive rights. The proposal calls for a media saturation play to promote “the right to reproductive health applies to all people at all times” and to increase the “demand for sexual and reproductive health services and reproductive rights” around the world by permeating all areas of society.

UNFPA proposes to spend:

• $90 for a global program,
• $47 million in Africa,
• $33 million in Asia and the Pacific,
• $26 million in Latin America and the Caribbean and
• $14 million each for regional programs in Arab nations, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.  The UNFPA uses money to entice poverty-stricken nations to violate their own values.

Furthermore, the UNFPA is targeting high fertility rates in African nations with a call for condom use among children.

Efforts to legalize abortion in Latin American nations are particularly troublesome, if not downright disrespectful to the nations with pro-life language written into their national constitutions. Steve Mosher, of the Population Research Institute, said pro-life Latin Americans face a coalition of foreign-funded radical feminists, family planning groups, radical population controllers and others dedicated to forcing abortion, sterilization and contraception upon their countries. Among the pro-life nations under assault are Peru and the Dominican Republic. The City Council of Mexico City earlier this year legalized abortion in that city.

Among the many organizations pouring money into efforts to legalize abortion in Latin America are the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNFPA, Planned Parenthood International's Latin-American branch, Flora Tristan, the Latin American Center for Sexuality and Human Rights and others.

This summer, the committee governing CEDAW chastised Honduras for its pro-life laws, labeling it as “crime.” In addition, the CEDAW committee pressured Kenya, Belize, Liechtenstein and Brazil to liberalize their abortion laws. CEDAW language does not include abortion, but the committee repeatedly tries to force it upon the nations that ratified the treaty. The committee plans to move its 2008 meetings to Geneva, Switzerland in a move seen by some as an attempt to make it more difficult for our coalition to monitor proceedings.

Recently, Amnesty International made known its intentions to promote worldwide access to abortion. Its policy, adopted in April, aims to decriminalize “abortion to ensure women have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion -- within reasonable gestational limits -- when their health or life are in danger.”

At its International Council Meeting held in Mexico two weeks ago, Amnesty International “committed the organization to strengthening its work on the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and other factors contributing to women's recourse to abortion and overwhelmingly affirmed the organization's policy on selected aspects of abortion.” More than 400 Amnesty International representatives from more than 75 countries attended the meeting and affirmed Amnesty International's goals.

Defending the sanctity of life is one of our greatest passions. As you can see, we are up against wealthy and powerful forces.

We are thankful for each of our supporters; we need your continued help as we work to counter those organizations bent on destroying human life. Will you please take a moment today to introduce UFI to someone who supports life, but who doesn't yet know about our work in defending life?

United Families International Website
http://unitedfamilies.org/default.asp?contentID=164