Planned Parenthood statement to UN
NEW YORK –The International Planned Parenthood Federation released a statement endorsing the theme of the 41st session of the Commission on Population and Development: “Population distribution, urbanization, internal migration and development.” The session is scheduled to take place April 7-11. According to the IPPF, “Urban growth is predominantly fuelled by natural population increase rather than migration.
It is, therefore, incumbent upon policy-makers and governments alike to insure long-term investment in sexual and reproductive health, family planning and the empowerment of women and girls.” Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition and vice-president of the International Right to Life Federation, said: “Once again, Planned Parenthood is trying to manipulate the proceedings of the UN to push their extreme pro-abortion agenda.” He also pointed to the financial support IPPF gets from governments, including Ottawa, to advocate for abortion worldwide.
UNFPA launches ‘maternal health’ fund
NEW YORK –The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) announced the creation of a new thematic fund dedicated to maternal health in 75 developing countries. The UNFPA is hoping that the UN and private enterprise will pony up $465 million over the next four years to insure, “No woman should die giving life.” According to the website oneworld.net, the fund’s aim is to “boost global efforts to reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth,” in fulfillment of one of the UN’s much-lauded Millennium Development Goals, which focuses heavily on maternal health and the reduction of maternal mortality.
However, a UNFPA issued report about the Maternal Health Fund also discusses “sexual and reproductive health,” UN codes for abortion and contraception. Pro-life groups at the UN say different United Nations agencies are trying to link maternal health and sexual and reproductive rights, including the right to “safe abortions.”
Baroness calls for killing disabled unborn
LONDON –According to Baroness Meacher, a peer in the House of Lords, seriously disabled children should be considered non-persons and would be better off being killed by abortion. During debate on the Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill, she said that children born with severe disabilities are “not viable people.” She made the comments in regard to an amendment that would have protected unborn disabled children from abortion after the 24-week gestational time limit. The amendment was defeated by 89 votes to 22.
Currently, abortion is limited after 24 weeks’ gestation, except in cases of life or health of the mother or when the unborn child has a disability, when abortion is permitted up to birth. After commenting on two children with severe cerebral palsy who she knows personally, Meacher said, “My belief is that there are children, born at those very early ages, who are not viable people. It would be in their best interests to have been aborted … it is important for the professionals to consider their best interests.”
John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said Meacher “clearly considers that her own capacity and achievements in life put her right to life in a different category from the right to life owed to people with cerebral palsy – that she is a ‘viable person’ but ‘they’ are not ‘viable people.’”
British abortion survivors left to die
LONDON –A report by Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health said that at least 66 infants born alive after botched abortion attempts were left to die in 2005 (the most recent for statistics). No medical assistance was offered to these 66 abortion survivors and consequently they died, although one survived for a full 10 hours before dying. According to the report, nearly half the babies died within one hour of being abandoned.
Guidelines from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists offered doctors the recommendation that babies over 22 weeks old who survive abortion be killed by lethal injection, even though in 2004, delegates to the British Medical Association’s annual conference in Llandudno voted 65 per cent in favour of a motion that said children born alive after an attempted abortion should be given the same care and treatment as other infants.
The Daily Telegraph noted that the instruction to murder a living child “can be a difficult procedure for doctors.” In 2005, British doctor Trevor Stammers, a senior lecturer at St. George’s University Hospital in London, described the effect that a baby born alive has on an abortionist: “Despite all attempts at emotional neutrality, the heart does not work that way when you get a baby in front of you that colleagues on another floor of the same building would be trying to keep alive.”
Philippines considers two-child policy
MANILA –Three bills currently in committee in the Filipino House of Representatives seek to implement a two-child policy in the nation. The legislative proposals are being spearheaded by the United Nations Population Fund, together with International Planned Parenthood and its affiliates. The Filipino Family Fund warns that if such a bill passes into law, it would result in widespread human rights abuses, including coerced or forced sterilization and abortions, as have become common occurrences in China. Though backers of the bills claim the program would be voluntary, they contain criminal penalties, including imprisonment for up to six months, that would be imposed against those who would speak out against the population control measures.
