NEW YORK — Marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund attempted to link the denial of abortion to violence against women. A United Nations press release entitled “World Should Promote Zero Tolerance For Violence Against Women,” quotes from a speech by the UNFPA's Thoraya Ahmed Obaid and also provides a UNFPA video both associating the group's abortion advocacy with the ending of violence against women.
The first half of Obaid's speech and the first half of the UNFPA film deal with the universally accepted goal to end violence against women and girls including trafficking of women, physical abuse, and the need for food, water and shelter. However, the conclusion of both the speech and film bring in the usual UNFPA mantra of promotion of contraception and abortion — but abortion under the guise of “reproductive health care.”
In her speech Obaid says, “There is a tremendous need for reproductive health services and trained health workers to provide family planning and care during pregnancy and delivery, and also counseling and treatment for rape, unsafe abortion and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.” UNFPA has been one of the world's foremost promoters of the abortifacient morning after pill for rape “treatment” and also of 'safe legal abortion' as the solution to “unsafe abortion.” The film concludes with a pitch for contraceptives and says that “reproductive health care” (which in UNFPA-speak includes abortion) is “not a luxury, it is a human right.”
The Women's group REAL Women Canada was outraged that the UNFPA would link stopping violence against women with their pro-abortion agenda. REAL Women's Gwen Landolt told LifeSiteNews.com, “How dare they usurp the legitimate concern we all have for fighting violence against women and girls and link it with their partisan promotion of abortion and contraception.” Landolt said, “In fact, abortion is double-violence against women. First, it is deadly violence against the unborn baby girls killed by abortion. Secondly, abortion with its many medical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual consequences harms the mothers who undergo abortions and are not forewarned by abortionists of these dire consequences.”
Click here to read Obaid's speech.
The UNFPA film is available here.
Also, Anti-Catholic 'Catholics for a free Choice' Encourages Restoration of US Funding to UNFPA
NEW YORK — Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC), is promoting an initiative for renewed US funding of the United Nations Population Fund (NFPA). The UNFPA supports programs aimed at reducing world population. Kissling was one of 9 “religious” delegates (and the only “Catholic”) that visited China under a CFFC initiative.
In May of 2002, the US State Department investigated UNFPA's involvement in China. The investigation found that “the population programs of the People's Republic of China (PRC) retain[ed] coercive elements in law and practice…. The PRC has a longstanding and draconian program of controlling birth rates, including imposing crushing fines on parents who deviate from the number of children viewed as appropriate by the state.” UNFPA provides financing for PRC “family-planning” activities including expenditures for “surgical and other medical equipment…. Although such equipment has legitimate uses, it also facilitates the…performance of abortions.”
The U.S., under the leadership of President Bush, cancelled financial support of the fund because of UNFPA support for China's one-child policy. U.S. law precludes support for the UNFPA. The Kemp-Kasten Amendment prohibited financing for any group that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”
Kissling founded CFFC in the 1980s, a dissenting group which promotes abortion and contraception. In the 1970s, she directed one of the first family planning clinics to provide legal abortions in the United States. CFFC is one of 12 groups included in Lincoln, Nebraska, Bishop Bruskewitz's edict of excommunication. The excommunication applies to individuals who belong to one of these dissenting organizations, characterized as “perilous to the Catholic Faith.”
See also:
State Department's findings on UNFPA and China
Recent LifeSite coverage of UNFPA in China
Bruskewitz denunciation and excommunication of CFFC
(This update courtesy of LifeSiteNews.com.)
