In late November, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) released its annual report, State of the World Population 2008. Reaching Common Ground: Culture, Gender and Human Rights.

This document, published after the election win of Barak Obama, sets the tone for the new administration in the White House on the international stage. Many UN agencies have a longstanding history of pushing population control, but during the Bush administration’s tenure, they were not able to push the anti-life, anti-family envelope as they once had. Under the Clinton administration, social radicals and feminists used international conferences on all manner of issues and topics to push for sex education, birth control and abortion. For the past eight years, however, pro-life and other socially conservative observers of the UN found that the U.S. delegation had done an outstanding job of standing up for life and the family at the international level.

This year marks the 15-year review of the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (1994). The following year will mark the 15-year review of the Fourth World Conference on Women, the infamous 1995 Beijing Women’s conference where former first lady Hillary Clinton aggressively pushed abortion “rights.” With Obama in the White House, pro-life and pro-family forces will have to redouble their efforts at these events and others. The latest UNFPA report is the first of a new era and clearly shows that anti- life forces got a boost in confidence from Obama’s victory.

The UNFPA says that some cultural practices are harmful to the human rights of women. According to the report, “Cultural sensitivity entails support for the many women – and some men – within the society who contest (religious) practice.” Far from demonstrating respect for people who choose to live their faith, such a statement reinforces negative stereotypes about people of all religious backgrounds. It is an indirect attack on the traditional values that are at the core of many religious doctrines.

In addition, the document acknowledges that “human rights can be ingrained through ‘cultural legitimacy'” ? essentially summarizing the tactics used by radical feminists to normalize abortion, contraception, divorce and radical sex education. “Sexual and reproductive rights” are not mentioned in the Universal Human Rights Declaration, which marked its 60th anniversary in December, but pro-abortion forces believe that by consistently reinterpreting UN documents and working at the local level to give cultural legitimacy to their demands, people will eventually perceive sexual and reproductive rights as always having been interpreted to include things such as contraception and abortion.

The UNFPA’s definition of a “culturally sensitive approach” advocates relativism and is in direct opposition to the idea that some rights are universal and inherent to each human being. By establishing and working with groups in developing countries, the UNFPA is able to manipulate cultural norms and make it appear that abortion is a generally and widely accepted practice, and it may even fabricate the number of illegal abortions to suggest greater demand for decriminalizing the practice.

Chapter 4 of the report is entirely dedicated to sexual and reproductive health. It addresses HIV/AIDS, obstetric fistula, female genital mutilation and family planning. The report states that “millions of women still do not have control over spacing or limiting pregnancies nor access to effective contraception. This is the result of ineffective health systems, but there are also social and cultural factors involved. In many cultures, patriarchal frameworks determine notions of masculinity and femininity, as well as the meanings of sexuality, reproduction and rights.” Reproductive rights have been interpreted here to include abortion and contraception.

The International Planned Parenthood Federation also published a document in November. The IPPF’s statement on sexual rights is yet another example of what may be expected in the years to come. However, pro-life, pro-family forces are ready to fight back. A pro-life coalition at the UN made up of organizations from around the world, including Campaign Life Coalition and led by the UN-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, has presented a petition with over 400,000 signatures, requesting that the UN stop its constant reinterpretation of the Universal Human Rights Declaration to include abortion.