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UNITED NATIONS:
UN BODY SEEKS “UNIVERSAL
HUMAN RIGHT” TO ABORTION
Babette Francis, April 17, 2010
Beneath the fanfare of the UN’s Commission on the
Status of Women (CSW) 54th session in March, marking the 15th anniversary
of the Beijing Women’s World Conference, raged the usual battle over
a “universal human right to abortion”.
While there was agreement on the need to reduce maternal mortality, government
delegations and UN officials stressed the importance of achieving the
UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, and many
lamented lack of progress on MDG 5 to improve maternal health, citing
legalisation of abortion as a panacea for maternal mortality around the
globe.
Pro-life delegations and non-government organisations (NGOs) quoted World
Health Organisation (WHO) statistics showing that maternal mortality was
higher in countries with permissive abortion laws than in countries with
restrictive laws, e.g., Ireland and Poland (ever since the latter restricted
abortion), which have among the lowest maternal mortality in the world.
Dr Elard Koch, epidemiologist at the University of Chile’s faculty
of medicine, quoted a groundbreaking study showing that “access to
legal abortion does not appear to be necessary to achieve low rates of
maternal deaths”.
Chile, a “developing nation”, offers a unique opportunity to
examine the impact of abortion laws on maternal mortality. Abortion was
legal from 1931 until 1988, but was outlawed in 1989. Chile now maintains
one of the strictest abortion bans in the world. Unlike many nations —
including the USA — Chile has maternal health data from the beginning
of the 1900s.
The study, which examined maternal deaths from 1960 to 2007, reveals that
maternal mortality peaked in
1961, in the midst of legalised abortion. That year, abortion caused 34
per cent of maternal deaths. By 2007 (after 18 years of an abortion ban),
maternal mortality rates were reduced by 97.9 per cent.
The CSW session eventually closed with delegates deleting any reference
to abortion from a resolution on maternal mortality. Even US Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton gave a fairly muted address and did not refer
to abortion (although a month earlier in Brazil she had said women have
“a fundamental right to abortion”), but stressed problems of
female circumcision, HIV/AIDS, child marriage, “gendercide”,
and a pandemic of violence against women.
A number of states, including Chile, Saint Lucia and Iran, made explanations
of their position to ensure that “reproductive rights” and other
“health services” terms of the CSW resolution would not be later
misinterpreted to include abortion. A split within the European Union
over abortion became public when Poland and Malta made statements explicitly
rejecting abortion. Poland interpreted “the reference to reproductive
and sexual rights and services in the resolution as not constituting an
encouragement of abortion”. Malta stated that it did not “consider
abortion a legitimate form of family planning or other services”.
Malta also criticised the notion of “unsafe abortion” which
was included in the resolution, as it “implies abortions could be
free of any physical or psychological risks and ignored the rights of
the unborn”.
In a message to the CSW session, the Vatican’s permanent observer
to the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, asserted: “Global development
work is too often ideologically driven, delaying the true advancement
of women. To link achievement of personal, social, economic and political
rights to a notion of sexual and reproductive health and rights which
is violent to unborn human life is detrimental to the integral needs of
women and men within society. … “The Holy See reiterates its
commitment to improving the situation of women globally, especially the
poorest, and has called on all Catholic institutions for a concerted and
prioritised strategy.”
While member states were embroiled in heated negotiations over “reproductive
rights”, the cultural battle continued in six different venues near
the UN, where dozens of NGOs hosted “parallel events” addressing
issues central to the policy debate, hoping to catch the ear of delegates
and policy-makers.
Amnesty International’s panel addressed “Maternal mortality:
rights of critical concern”. Carmen Baroso, regional director of
the International
Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world’s largest abortion-provider,
claimed that maternal mortality rates can be reduced only by securing
a universal right to abortion.
Ana Christina Gonzalez Velez, social affairs officer at the UN Division
of Gender Affairs, added: “States must avoid any religious influence
in public policy. The Church cannot continue to be the moral tutor of
society unless we want that morality to include the deaths of women.”
Sonnie Ekwowuski, a lawyer from Nigeria, questioned their vision. “I
am a husband, a father and a Nigerian. In Nigeria our women and daughters
die in childbirth because of a lack of basic primary care. At all levels
of Nigerian government it is undisputed that Nigeria needs primary health
care for our women and children. Why do you have to link maternal mortality
to abortion? Why does the IPPF come here pushing its agenda? Nigerians
do not want your abortion clinics. Nigerians want health care.”
Ekwowuski’s comments prompted such loud booing and unrest that he
had to relinquish the microphone. Visibly upset, he said: “I am not
even a Christian. This is not a religious issue. This is about real concern
for our women and children. I cannot understand their way of thinking.”
Literature distributed by the New York-based National Right to Life Educational
Trust Fund and the Minnesota Concerned Citizens for Life Global Outreach
(MCCL GO!) supported his claim. One document stated: “The lack of
modern medicine and quality health care, not the prohibition of abortion,
results in high maternal mortality rates. … Women generally at risk
because of lack of access to a doctor,
hospital or antibiotics before abortion’s legalisation will face
those same circumstances after legalisation.”
One highlight was a workshop conducted by Miriam Grossman MD, author of
the book, Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness
in Her Profession Endangers Every Student (New York: Sentinel/Penguin,
2006), which shows how radical “safe sex”/permissive sex agendas
are aggressively promoted through campus health and counselling services,
with dire consequences for young people.
In her workshop, Dr Grossman slammed the IPPF-inspired program of seeking
to combat maternal mortality by promoting abortion: “It is the Karl
Marx approach to infectious disease. Their enemies are not viruses, disease,
malnutrition or lack of health care. Their enemies are religion, Judeo-Christian
values and traditional sexual ethics.”
A low point was a Girl Scouts event at which copies of the IPPF’s
teen-sex guide, Healthy, Happy and Hot, were distributed. The quasi-pornographic
brochure contained graphic details on the promotion of casual sex in many
forms. It says: “Many people think sex is just about vaginal or anal
intercourse. … But, there are lots of different ways to have sex
and lots of different types of sex. There is no right or wrong way to
have sex. Just have fun, explore and be yourself.”
A highlight for the many Endeavour Forum Inc.-accredited women (and some
teenagers) from the United States was Endeavour’s own “parallel
event” on “women’s reproductive health”, at which
breast surgeon, Dr Angela Lanfranchi, president of the Breast Cancer Prevention
Institute, explained how full-term pregnancy and breast-feeding reduce
women’s risk of breast cancer, while induced abortion increases risk.
(Castle Connolly Medical Ltd’s consumer guide to doctors has declared
Lanfranchi to be one of the top doctors in the New York metro area).
Professor of endocrinology, Dr Joel Brind, cited statistical studies showing
that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. Only last year there
were studies from Turkey and China confirming this, and an admission from
the National Cancer Institute (USA) researcher, Louise Brinton, on the
increased risk caused by abortion.
Molly White, founder and director of Women for Life International, Inc.,
and leader of Endeavour Forum’s US group, described how abortion
had damaged her, physically and emotionally. Attending the Endeavour Forum
event were a man and a woman from the Australian Women’s Health Network
(AWHN), who said that the pro-life speakers were engaging in “scare-mongering”.
Professor Brind asked each of them politely, “And your PhD is in…?”
The couple said they would not debate the science but complained that
Endeavour Forum had “a moral agenda”. Apparently they consider
it immoral to have a moral agenda.
Another highlight was a meeting that Molly White arranged with William
Odisho, the Iraqi chargé d’affaires. He undertook to pass
on our pro-life literature and contact details to women’s groups
in Iraq.
A major concern for pro-life and pro-family groups is the campaign by
radical feminists to establish GEAR (Gender Equality Architecture Reform),
a new UN super-agency with a billion-dollar budget which would consolidate
four existing UN women’s rights entities. It aims to eradicate traditional
gender roles and promote abortion. This is a serious development and I
will report on it in a future article.
Finishing two weeks of deliberation and debate, participating UN member-states
voted on a concluding document to be revealed shortly to what they presume
will be an eagerly awaiting world. The document, while not legally binding,
will nonetheless exert considerable political influence and pressure on
nations.
After the hot-house atmosphere of the UN, it was refreshing that Millie
Lace, who runs a US helpline for pregnancy support, arranged for Endeavour
Forum’s delegates to be in the audience for the first taping of former
Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s documentary
series, Real American Stories, at the Fox News Channel studios in New
York.
Sarah Palin stayed after the taping session and met all of us — I
told her I was from Australia and admired her courage. Her youngest daughter,
Piper, was running around the studio; Sarah is a hands-on mother.
Babette Francis is Australian and international co-ordinator of Endeavour
Forum Inc., an NGO having special consultative status with the Economic
and Social Council of the UN (ECOSOC).
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