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UN Adopts 2030 Agenda; Push for Abortion Begins
Thursday, October 29, 2015
The world has adopted an ambitious plan to change the world in “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.

The 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, and 169 targets with indicators still to be determined, are meant for all countries and for all people and purport to “leave no one behind” as it addresses social, economic, and environment aspects of development with interconnected actions to “end extreme poverty”, “fight inequality & injustice”, and “fix climate change”.

The push has begun to use the 2030 Agenda to increase global access to abortion as a component of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” as stated in target 3.7— “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services”— and 5.6— “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights”. If successful, the lives of unborn children will be valued on subjective views of utility and wantedness as the world experiences an unprecedented fifteen year push for access to abortion.

Pro abortion activists are using the official 2030 Agenda process to advance their agenda and seek inclusion of indicators related to access to abortion that will measure progress on related targets; the determination of indicators is currently underway with final indicators being adopted in March 2016. For example, pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute states, “Induced abortion is a key sexual and reproductive health service” in its new report, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Indicators for the SDGs Recommendations for inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Its recommendations include tracking the “Proportion of health facilities that …where it is not against the law that provide safe abortion”; the “Grounds under which induced abortion is legal“; and the “Number of unsafe abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44.

In addition, Guttmacher seeks to create data on “unsafe abortion” and explains that the “definitions of safe and unsafe abortion are currently being assessed for revision by WHO. Data on levels of unsafe abortion are generally available only from special studies. Major investments in the collection of these data at the country level will be necessary for this indicator to be technically adequate. A common definition of categories for the grounds under which induced abortion is legal needs to be identified to ensure comparability of the law and policy indicator across countries.”

Other pro-abortion efforts can be found in initiatives related to the goals of the 2030 Agenda. UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon recently launched the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health which is touted to provide “guidance to accelerate momentum for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. It should achieve nothing less than a transformation in health and sustainable development by 2030 for all women, children and adolescents, everywhere.”

Tragically, the transformation that the Global Strategy promotes includes the destruction of children in the womb as it lists so-called “safe abortion” among the intervention packages it recommends for ‘Pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal care’.

Commenting on the Global Strategy and the increase of access to health care as detailed in Global Goal 3, Marleen Temmerman, director, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, and states her desire to train “health workers” in abortion in Towards a new Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health:

“Quality of care must therefore go side by side with the increase of service coverage… Upgrading of first and second level facilities with appropriate infrastructure and equipment, and providing adequate numbers of skilled and motivated health workers, with ongoing training and mentoring for women’s health, including on sexual and reproductive health and abortion care… is necessary to increase coverage and facilitate access.”

Funding for the 2030 Agenda is also a key area demanding attention by NGOs to ensure coverage of the cost related to increase access to abortion. IPPF, for example, is following the money trial and has criticized the World Bank Group (WBG) for its decision to not renew its Reproductive Health Action Plan stating,

“IPPF is disappointed that the WBG is not renewing its Reproductive Health Action Plan which expires this year, given current need to increase sustainable financing for sexual and reproductive health and the scale and ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IPPF remains concerned that without the WBG committing to a dedicated strategy and ring-fenced financing window for sexual and reproductive health, future financing may decrease because of lack of prioritization and political will. Moreover, without clear accountability mechanisms, at both the global and national levels, there will be no way of tracking spending and monitoring whether financing for sexual and reproductive health increases in future years to come.”

PNCI notes that promoting abortion perpetuates the throwaway culture that Pope Francis warned the United Nations about in his address when he stated, “The common home of all men and women must continue to rise on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor, the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned, those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a statistic.”

Including abortion in the 2030 Agenda ensures that one whole group of individuals, unborn children, will be “left behind” and considered to be “disposable”.

[29 October 2015, http://www.pncius.org/update.aspx?id=140 ]

 

 

UN “Experts” Complain U.S. Has Too Many Pro-Life Laws Protecting Babies From Abortion

The UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice conducted a visit to the United States last week and denounced laws restricting and regulating abortion as discriminatory and interfering with “women’s reproductive rights”.

The Group railed against state laws on abortion, designed to protect women’s safety and provide for an informed and non-coerced decision, calling the laws “severe barriers” to women’s rights asserting:

“These take the form of unjustified medical procedures, such as compelling women to undergo ultrasounds or to endure groundless waiting periods, withholding of early pregnancy abortion medications, imposing burdensome conditions for the licensing of clinics, which have resulted in the closing of clinics across the country leaving women without geographical access to sexual and reproductive health services.”

The visit to Montgomery, Alabama, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and Washington, D.C. was reported to be timely given “there are increasingly restrictive legislative measures in some states and violent attacks to prevent women’s access to exercise of their reproductive rights.”

The Group promoted adoption of the Woman’s Health Protection Act which it declared “would prohibit states from enacting restrictions on reproductive health care providers that interfere with women’s personal decision making and block access to safe and legal abortion services; and to require all hospitals to provide these services and insurance schemes to provide coverage for abortions to which women have a right under US law.”

The Working Group–a Special Procedure under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council to advance non-discrimination against women–on its first country visit to the US called for “increased funding of clinics under the Title X Family Planning Program in order to expand coverage for low-income women who lack insurance in order for them to access preventive care, including sexual and reproductive health services…”

Opposition to conscientious objection and religious freedom was expressed in the strongest terms as the Group– sounding like pro-abortion activists and repeating pro-abortion arguments– proclaimed:

“We wish to recall, as independent United Nations human rights experts have consistently stressed, that freedom of religion cannot be used to justify discrimination against women, and therefore should not be regarded as a justification for denying women’s right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. We encourage steps to reconcile U.S. laws on religious or conscience-based refusals to provide reproductive health care with international human rights law and to prohibit refusal to provide sexual and reproductive health services on grounds of religious freedom, where such refusal will effectively deny women immediate access to the health care to which they are entitled under both international human rights law and US law.”

The delegation comprised of members Eleonora Zielinska, Frances Raday and Alda Facio claimed that the “stigma attached to reproductive and sexual health care” leads to “violence, harassment and intimidation against those seeking or providing reproductive health care” and called on authorities to “investigate and prosecute violence or threats of violence”.

The Group charged “many of the clinics work in conditions of constant threats, harassment and vandalising, too often without any kind of protection measures by law enforcement officials” and claimed that it observed such actions during its visits to Texas and Alabama. It maintained that shooting at the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic “once again demonstrated the extreme hostility and danger faced by family planning providers and patients.”

Members of the Group were appointed by the Human Rights Council and include former “experts” who served on the treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Not surprisingly, the Group strongly urged the US to ratify the CEDAW convention stating that the US is “one of only seven countries which have not ratified CEDAW” despite the fact that the “US government committed to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All of Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)” in 2010 and 2015, “in the framework of its Universal Periodic Review.”

The Group charged that it “is a myth that women already enjoy all these rights and protections under US law.”

According to the Group, opposition to CEDAW reflects “political resistance” that has also “consistently blocked efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, which would entrench women’s right to equality in the US Constitution.”

It should be noted that CEDAW regularly instructs countries to remove pro-life laws declaring that such laws are discriminatory since they only apply to women.

The Group used the visit to issue negative comments about the Republican candidates for president as it stated,”…our visit is particularly timely at a moment when the political rhetoric of some of the candidates for the Presidency in the upcoming elections has included unprecedented hostile stereotyping of women.”

In its conclusion, the Group asserted,

“The United States, which is a leading state in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing its women to lag behind international human rights standards. Although there is a wide diversity in state law and practice, which makes it impossible to give a comprehensive report, we could discern an overall picture of women’s missing rights.”

Radical US NGOs assisted the Group during its visit. The findings and conclusions will be developed and presented in a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council in June 2016.

[LifeNews.com Note: Marie Smith is the director of the Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues. [Marie Smith, Dec 15, 2015,Washington, DC, http://www.lifenews.com/2015/12/15/un-experts-complain-u-s-has-too-many-pro-life-laws-protecting-babies-from-abortion/ ; original article (see below): http://www.pncius.org/update.aspx?id=143 ]

 

MORE DETAILS:
CEDAW Tells Countries to Remove Laws on Abortion

During its recent session, the UN treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) told a number of countries that they must remove laws and policies regulating abortion including mandatory counseling and waiting periods.

All related documents can be found here — http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=970&Lang=en
[www.pncius.org ]

 

UN “Experts” Visit US;  Denounce Laws Against Abortion
Tuesday, December 15, 2015 http://www.pncius.org/update.aspx?id=143

The UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice conducted a visit to the United States last week and denounced laws restricting and regulating abortion as discriminatory and interfering with “women’s reproductive rights”.

The Group railed against state laws on abortion, designed to protect women’s safety and provide for an informed and non-coerced decision, calling the laws “severe barriers” to women’s rights asserting:

“These take the form of unjustified medical procedures, such as compelling women to undergo ultrasounds or to endure groundless waiting periods, withholding of early pregnancy abortion medications, imposing burdensome conditions for the licensing of clinics, which have resulted in the closing of clinics across the country leaving women without geographical access to sexual and reproductive health services.”

The visit to Montgomery, Alabama, Austin and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and Washington, D.C. was reported to be timely given “there are increasingly restrictive legislative measures in some states and violent attacks to prevent women’s access to exercise of their reproductive rights.”
The Group promoted adoption of the Woman’s Health Protection Act which it declared “would prohibit states from enacting restrictions on reproductive health care providers that interfere with women’s personal decision making and block access to safe and legal abortion services; and to require all hospitals to provide these services and insurance schemes to provide coverage for abortions to which women have a right under US law.”

The Working Group–a Special Procedure under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council to advance non-discrimination against women–on its first country visit to the US called for “increased funding of clinics under the Title X Family Planning Program in order to expand coverage for low-income women who lack insurance in order for them to access preventive care, including sexual and reproductive health services…”

Opposition to conscientious objection and religious freedom was expressed in the strongest terms as the Group– sounding like pro-abortion activists and repeating pro-abortion arguments– proclaimed:
“We wish to recall, as independent United Nations human rights experts have consistently stressed, that freedom of religion cannot be used to justify discrimination against women, and therefore should not be regarded as a justification for denying women’s right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. We encourage steps to reconcile U.S. laws on religious or conscience-based refusals to provide reproductive health care with international human rights law and to prohibit refusal to provide sexual and reproductive health services on grounds of religious freedom, where such refusal will effectively deny women immediate access to the health care to which they are entitled under both international human rights law and US law.”

The delegation comprised of members Eleonora Zielinska, Frances Raday and Alda Facio claimed that the “stigma attached to reproductive and sexual health care” leads to “violence, harassment and intimidation against those seeking or providing reproductive health care” and called on authorities to “investigate and prosecute violence or threats of violence”.

The Group charged “many of the clinics work in conditions of constant threats, harassment and vandalising, too often without any kind of protection measures by law enforcement officials” and claimed that it observed such actions during its visits to Texas and Alabama. It maintained that shooting at the Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic “once again demonstrated the extreme hostility and danger faced by family planning providers and patients.”

Members of the Group were appointed by the Human Rights Council and include former “experts” who served on the treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Not surprisingly, the Group strongly urged the US to ratify the CEDAW convention stating that the US is “one of only seven countries which have not ratified CEDAW” despite the fact that the “US government committed to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All of Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)” in 2010 and 2015, “in the framework of its Universal Periodic Review.”

The Group charged that it “is a myth that women already enjoy all these rights and protections under US law.”

According to the Group, opposition to CEDAW reflects “political resistance” that has also “consistently blocked efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, which would entrench women’s right to equality in the US Constitution.”

It should be noted that CEDAW regularly instructs countries to remove pro-life laws declaring that such laws are discriminatory since they only apply to women.

The Group used the visit to issue negative comments about the Republican candidates for president as it stated,”…our visit is particularly timely at a moment when the political rhetoric of some of the candidates for the Presidency in the upcoming elections has included unprecedented hostile stereotyping of women.”

In its conclusion, the Group asserted,

“The United States, which is a leading state in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing its women to lag behind international human rights standards. Although there is a wide diversity in state law and practice, which makes it impossible to give a comprehensive report, we could discern an overall picture of women’s missing rights.”

Radical US NGOs assisted the Group during its visit. The findings and conclusions will be developed and presented in a comprehensive report to the Human Rights Council in June 2016.

[15 Dec 2015, http://www.pncius.org/update.aspx?id=143 ]

 

 

Feminists From the UN Visit U.S. and Complain We Don’t Do Enough to Promote Abortion

We at C-Fam have never taken the position that the UN ought to be closed or that the UN ought to move out of New York City. We believe there is a role for this body, mostly in airing out issues in the General Assembly.

But, we do take the position that radical feminist busybodies aught to stay out of not only the United States but every other country, too. Three leftist lawyers representing the UN just visited the United States for a ten day tour during which they met only with fellow leftists, only those who support the killing of unborn children.

Their report is replete with misunderstandings about U.S. law and U.S. politics. Worse than that, it is replete with deliberate lies about what international law requires.

One of the more comical statements in their report is that the U.S. ought to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. You read that and you just have to laugh. The Equal Rights Amendment is just about the deadest public policy idea in the United States. It was defeated a few decades ago and never resurrected.

These three radical feminists also bemoan that the U.S. has never ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. They say the U.S. promised to ratify it! If only Barack Obama was a dictator that may be possible. As it is, passing CEDAW is not even remotely possible.

C-Fam and other like-minded groups have spent the better part of two decades explaining to the Congress and the American people how various UN treaties are dangerous to our people and our system of government. Moreover, we have spent almost twenty years exposing how UN treaty monitoring bodies are out of control, most especially the CEDAW Committee.

So successful have we been in exposing these dangerous treaties, that the U.S. Senate refused three times to ratify the treaty that ought to be the lowest hanging fruit, the treaty on persons with disabilities. It has been repeatedly defeated over the question of importing abortion into the treaty and also how crazy the treaty monitoring body will inevitably be.

The ladies were especially upset with pro-life protestors in front of an abortion center. They say the protestors were kinds of terrorists. What nonsense. If these ladies want to curtail free speech, they ought to do it elsewhere and not here where speech is protected by the world’s oldest Constitution.

They were also upset with the Republican candidates for President for supposedly saying things about women that were stereotypical and also warring on women.

These radical law professors had special praise for the pro-abortion group called Emily’s List for their efforts in getting women involved in politics and running for office.

Did they even think about praising the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group that does the same thing? Not on your life.

And that gets to the heart of the matter. Not a single UN treaty says abortion is a human right. Not one.

But, these quite dishonest women insist that international law requires abortion on demand. They come to our countries and proceed to lie about them. This is simply outrageous.

Ladies, you are not welcome here. Go home. Never come back.

[Austin Ruse; article originally appeared in C-Fam’s Friday Fax publication.
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/12/24/feminists-from-the-un-visit-u-s-and-complain-we-dont-do-enough-to-promote-abortion/ ]