PUERTO RICO — Abortion groups are commandeering regional international meetings in an attempt to create an international right to abortion and do an end-run around democracy, reports Concerned Women for America (CWA).
The abortion groups’ tactics have become apparent at a meeting underway last week in Puerto Rico. The meeting is the latest in a series of small international meetings co-opted by the United Nations Population Fund and its radical abortion rights allies for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The Cairo Program of Action emerged from the Cairo conference on population and development in 1994 and left several countries concerned that the language used in the document, which called for increased reproductive health and reproductive rights, could be manipulated to require countries to increase access to abortion and contraception. Their concerns soon proved well founded as abortion rights groups used the document with much success to push for broader access to abortion.
The abortion advocates' efforts, however, have recently been seriously hampered by the Bush administration’s strong stand against abortion. Frustrated at the opposition, the groups have sought to circumvent the United States' influence.
ECLAC thus told the United States that the series of meetings were just reviews by low-level technocrats of implementation of the Cairo Program. Concerned Women explains that it soon became apparent that the real goal of the conferences was to successfully pressure the United States into signing a document promoting abortion on demand. Bolivia’s official UN delegate and executive director of the Women’s Information and Development Center, Ximena Machicao, made this clear in an interview when she rejoiced over the abortion advocates’ success at the earlier meeting in Santiago, Chile in “isolating the hard-line, conservative position presented by the United States.”
Memos leaked from the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a leading abortion-litigation group involved in the meetings, revealed a strategy “to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are legally bound to do so.” CRR defines “reproductive rights” as including unlimited access to abortion and contraception.
The CRR memos explain the strategy for overcoming the American opposition: “[T]here is a stealth quality to our work: We are achieving incremental recognition of values without a huge amount of scrutiny from the opposition. These lower-profile victories will gradually put us in a strong position to assert a broad consensus.”
A delegate attending the conference for NGO Life Ethics Educational Association agreed, saying that the goal at the Puerto Rico conference essentially remains the same as at previous conferences. It is “obvious that most conference delegates are only interested in promoting access to abortion. True development issues such as clean water and access to basic medical supplies have been virtually ignored.”
See also:
“Stealth” Campaign Exposed: Abortion Group Admits Tactics are on the Edge
U.N. Delegate Reveals Strategy to Advance Abortions
Abortion Groups Commandeer U.N. Meetings in Puerto Rico
Also, Blair Says Abortion Limit May Be Re-examined
LONDON, England — Tony Blair said today that the legal time limit for abortions could be re-examined because of new medical research. Blair was asked about calls for the 24-week time limit for abortion for “social reasons” to be reduced to 12 weeks. The calls came in the wake of a new type of ultrasound scan last month that produced vivid pictures of a 12-week-old fetus “walking” in the womb.
“I have not had an opportunity myself to study in detail the evidence that has been provided,” said Blair. “But I am sure that if the situation does change then it would be advisable for us to have another look at the whole question…. If the scientific evidence has shifted then it is obviously sensible for us to take that into account.” He further stated that, “If we have proposals to put before the House we will put them,” and added that MPs would be allowed a free vote as a matter of conscience.
Former Liberal leader Lord Steel, the architect of Britain's original abortion laws, has led the campaign for a reduced time limit, although not to the 12 weeks reported by the media. Steel's 1967 Act legalized abortion and set a time limit of 28 weeks based on the assumption that 28 weeks was the earliest point of fetal viability. Medical advances then led to the limit being lowered to 24 weeks in 1990. Because medical science has continued to advance, Lord Steel has now advocated reducing the limit to 22 weeks, with abortion still being permitted in the case of severe disabilities. Steel believes that early abortions should be made easier and later ones more difficult
Blair stressed that he was not signaling any new government law plan.
See also:
Blair Hints at Abortion Rethink
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
