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UN Stealth Pro-Abortion Stand Exposed by Refusal to Back US Abortion Clause

NEW YORK, April 8, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - If last month's fuss by pro-abortion groups over a US proposal to clarify that a United Nations document on women did not promote abortion was not enough to convince people of such a UN agenda, a repeat performance this month should add more credibility to the charges against them.

At United Nations headquarters in New York this week, UN delegates from all over the world are meeting to discuss population and development, HIV/AIDS and poverty.  The meeting of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD), was however another opportunity for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and its pro-abortion allies to propose abortion be foisted on the world as a human right.

Addressing the CPD session at its opening Monday, UNFPA executive director Thoraya Obaid,  employed the language of 'reproductive health' which has been interpreted to include abortion by UN committees, in an attempt to suggest universal access to abortion by 2015.  Speaking of all nations, she said, "They have acknowledged that the issues of population and reproductive health are central to the Millennium Declaration, and to the creation of a world where people live free from fear and free from want, in dignity and in peace."

The United States delegation has proposed a clarifying clause noting that the CPD document drawn up in Cairo should be reaffirmed "with the understanding that nothing therein creates an international right to abortion."

Despite the fact that UNFPA, and European countries which promote abortion have protested loudly that the Cairo document does not promote abortion, they are nonetheless vehemently refusing the simple US clarification.  UN observers, especially after witnessing a similar display last month where pro-abortion groups went into a frenzy to halt a US resolution noting abortion wasn't being pushed by the UN Women's document, are more than a little suspicious of the UN's motives.

Pro-abortion countries have in the past and are currently exerting heavy pressure on pro-life countries to refuse the US clarification, with the suggestion that the measure only seeks to cause division. 

The comments of Werner Fornos, president of the radically pro-abortion Population Institute, exemplify the attempt to vilify the US for its clarification clause.  "Once again the Bush administration throws raw meat to placate fundamentalist zealots who use the abortion issue as a backdoor ploy to suppress family planning," Fornos told the Inter Press Service.

However, Joseph A. D'Agostino, of the pro-life counterpart to the Population Institute - the Population Research Institute, pointed out the inconsistency with the pro-abortion forces at the UN.  In a briefing on this week's developments at the CPD, D'Agostino notes that many delegates and even the UNFPA head herself have "assured us that they do not wish to promote abortion and that 'reproductive rights' does not include a right to abortion in countries where abortion is illegal." Thus D'Agostino asks, "So perhaps this amendment will be adopted without controversy?"

While the CPD meeting was scheduled to end today, no decision on the US amendment was available by press time.

jhw

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