Victory at UN Commission on Population and Development

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The first week in April was not a good week for UNFPA, the UN Population Fund which was first given the news at the outset of its conference, the Commission on Population and Development, that the Trump Administration had decided to withdraw funding of  around $75 million on the basis that UNFPA’s activities in China are complicit with that nation’s coercive population control program, the implementation of which includes forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.

The UNFPA problems continued later that week with a firm rejection of the anti life and family policies they and other UN organs are attempting to impose globally.  The outcome of the Commission on Population and Development (CPD) was in fact a significant victory by pro-life and family forces and was the second time in three years that the Commission failed to produce an outcome document.

The 50th session of the Commission held at UN headquarters in New York, was themed, ‘Changing population age structures and sustainable development’. This was the first CPD since the Trump Administration took office in the US and was viewed by UNFPA and their anti-life allies, such as International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), as a testing ground to establish the direction the administration would take when faced with demands for the acceptance of controversial language on sexual and reproductive rights and comprehensive sexuality education for children.

In recent years the negotiating strategy adopted by Western governments has been to insert many references to controversial issues in documents during the negotiating period and rely on the chair to issue a compromise text which inevitably retains some of those issues.

In this case the outcome document was similarly loaded up with controversial language and when the chair’s text was circulated early on Friday morning it was completely unacceptable. Negotiations continued all day Friday and a so called compromise text was produced by the Qatar Chair, Ambassador Alya Ahmed Al Thani, which in the end failed to satisfy either side leaving her with no option for her but to withdraw the text.

The decision by the chair to withdraw the document was enthusiastically welcomed by pro-life and pro-family NGO’s but was greeted with a shocked silence and anger by the anti-life and family brigade when the realisation sunk in that there would not be an outcome document and that their plans for sexualising children had been stopped.

One of the most poignant interventions was made by the Russian Federation’s delegate who told the meeting that pushing sexual and reproductive health rights as indivisible from human rights was nothing but an attempt to undermine international agreements on human rights.  Such formulations, he said, diluted basic human rights, which only discredited the Commission’s work.

 He also expressed opposition to use of the Commission as a “back door” through which to force various human rights concepts that did not meet the broader consensus.

Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), expressed regret that the Commission had been unable to reach consensus on its outcome document for the second time adding that it was clearly a challenging time for the Commission. As population age structures changed, commitment to improving the lives of women and girls was becoming increasingly important, he said, and he urged all Member States to continue their funding of UNFPA so as to restore its core budget.

UN population reduction strategy for Kenya

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The New American has published an important article highlighting the anti-life agenda of the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA and commenting on one of its reports issued during 2013 under the title ‘KenyaSituation population Analysis’.

 We have linked to the complete article but will comment on the report, its implications and will highlight some of the issues raised in the article. 

The controversial report claims that Kenya’s population is too large and growing too fast. UNFPA through the report wants increased efforts to reduce the number of children Kenyan women bear and encourages more “family-planning” and “reproductive-health” schemes to reduce the Kenyan population to levels considered “desirable” by the UN. Millions of dollars have been spent by the UNFPA on schemes aimed at reducing the number of children women bear rather than on ensuring that every woman has a safe delivery.

The timing of the Kenyan report is significant in that the United Nations is currently working to establish the basis of the next phase of its development agenda because many of its earlier programmes are coming to an end.

A series of meetings and conferences have been held in different parts of the world to try to establish the different regional priorities. Needless to say this process has been targeted by ideologues determined to ensure that the final outcome documents contain their deadly anti-life and family agenda and reports like this one are intended to feed into that process.

The New American article comments as follows

The controversial report, produced by the Kenyan government’s “population” minions and the UNFPA, claims that — despite dramatic declines in fertility over recent decades — authorities must do much more to bring the population down to “desirable” levels. Citing debunked claims about what the UN views as “too many” people supposedly resulting in a wide range of real and imagined problems, the radical document outlines numerous schemes to reduce the population. Among the suggested plots: more taxpayer-funded contraception, re-education, “empowering” women, reducing the “demand” for children, and more.

“One issue surrounds the realization of the policy objective of reducing total fertility rates from the current level of 4.6 to 2.6 children per woman by 2030,” observes the report, taking special aim at the poor. “This is because the demand for children is still high and is unlikely to change unless substantial changes in desired family sizes are achieved.” Incredibly, the document also states matter-of-factly that there is a “need for rapid decline in fertility.” Thus, the UN population-control zealots claimed, “the challenge is how to reduce the continued high demand for children.”

The more than 300-page report, dubbed “Kenya Population Situation Analysis,” does not explicitly call for abortion. However, experts say anyone versed in the UN’s deceptive bureaucratic language would see the real agenda clearly. For example, the document is packed with references to so-called “reproductive health” and “reproductive rights.” As then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it in a 2010 speech, “reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.”

The article also highlights other issues set out in the report such as delaying marriage, establishing comprehensive sexuality education and so called sustainable development.

Another common theme throughout the report on Kenya is the alleged “need” to prod women into delaying marriage, family, and child-bearing. Some of the proposed methods for achieving that goal include “education,” with a wide range of schemes admittedly aimed at brainwashing African women into having fewer children. “The achievement of lower fertility is complicated by differences between individual fertility preferences and desirable fertility levels,” the report explains. In other words, the UN knows better than African families.

“Investing” in what the UN calls “education” and “health,” the document continues, would “contribute to the attainment of more favorable demographic indicators.” The “favorable” outcomes the population-control zealots are seeking, according to the report, include “lower fertility through enhanced contraceptive use” and “lower ideal family size.” The document also advocates getting more women into the workforce and government-mandated changes in “gender roles” as a way to ensure fewer African births.

“Sustainable development requires Kenya to be in a position to proactively address, rather than only react to, the population trends that will unfold over the next decades,” the widely criticized UN report continues, alluding to another one of the international outfit’s controversial ploys — sustainability — to empower itself at the expense of liberty, humanity, and national independence. “Universal access to sexual and reproductive health is still being constrained by a number of factors that are economic, social and cultural. UNFPA is expected to be in the forefront in supporting implementation of the Reproductive Health Policy.”

UN launch major attack on unborn life

Despite the fact that there is no such right as a "right" to abortion  and despite vast amounts of research that confirms its disastrous effects on women’s lives in addition to killing their babies, the ongoing attempt by pro-abortion forces to create a so called human right to abortion through the United Nations system has been ramped up significantly this year.

This is evident both in the Human Rights Council in Geneva and in the General Assembly in New York.

The focus of the UN along with the WHO and UNFPA is fatally flawed, instead of making child bearing safe for every woman it is aimed at reducing the number of children a woman bears by the provision of family planning and abortion. Sadly by re-directing millions of dollars to these areas many women are left without adequate assistance thereby slowing the reduction in the maternal mortality levels. Organizations that could make a real difference such as Matercare are being denied the funding they urgently need and if offered it will be conditional upon the inclusion of abortion.

Two major UN pro-abortion reports were issued recently one in Geneva and one in New York

In Geneva the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs. Navanetham Pillay, titled “Practices in adopting a human rights-based approach to eliminate preventable maternal mortality and human rights” correctly calls for urgent attention to be given to reduction of maternal mortality, however the methods being proposed include abortion on demand, eliminating laws that “stigmatise” women and addressing so called “unsafe abortion” which it is claimed is responsible for 1 in every 8 deaths

The High Commissioner in her report claims that States have an obligation to address so called unsafe abortion, which she says is one of the 5 major causes of maternal death. Of course all abortion is unsafe for the baby and in addition is never a solution for any crisis

In New York the Report of Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the highest attainable standard of health, published as a report of the Secretary General will be debated during the current session of the General Assembly.

The report, written by UN Special Rapporteur Anand Grover, links the availability of abortion on demand with the fundamental right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

The report calls for the removal of all Criminal laws penalizing or restricting induced abortion and calls for abortion on demand without any restrictions and calls for availability of so called medical as well as surgical abortion. According to Grover, 

“Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated.”

Grover goes on to say that legalizing abortion, alone, is not enough for states to avoid violating women’s right to health. States he says must also actively promote the procedure. 

“States must take measures to ensure that legal and safe abortion services are available, accessible, and of good quality. Safe abortions, however, will not immediately be available upon decriminalization unless States create conditions under which they may be provided. These conditions include establishing available and accessible clinics; the provision of additional training for physicians and health-care workers; enacting licensing requirements and ensuring the availability of the latest and safest medicines and equipment.” 

Grover also calls for removal of all stigmatization relating to abortion and calls for the protection of abortionists and abortion providers from so-called “harassment”. 

He also claims that lack of access to legal abortion leads to women seeking unsafe abortion and this in turn increases maternal mortality

 His report then attacks conscientious objection and requires access to information and education on all matters relative to sexual and reproductive health and the removal of all barriers thereto.

It seems that the pro-abortion forces want to get their agenda fully and finally in place before President Obama leaves the White House which suggests that they see him as a one term President.

World Population Day 2010 ‘Everyone Counts’

World Population Day was established in 1989 by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to call attention to urgent global issues.

The theme for this year’s population day, Sunday July 11 2010, “Everyone Counts” is a really important one and whatever the intention of UNFPA was in choosing the theme, it affirms the lives of every living human being irrespective of who they are and whether they are born or unborn. There are of course many groups of people throughout the world who are suffering from lack of food, water, health care and other essentials of life and every one of these lives counts. It incumbent on first world countries to ensure, that everyone can access the means of survival. Yes everyone, every human being counts

I say of UNFPA ‘whatever their intention was’ because they proclaim the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. Their stated goals are to advance

“policies and programs to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.”

Sadly UNFPA, despite their wonderful rhetoric, are not known for upholding the right to life of unborn babies, they have a long history of being more interested in population control and the establishment of a human right to abortion than accepting that unborn babies are human beings who actually count, human beings with an equal right to life.

There are some rights, which the state has authority to confer (such as citizenship) but there are also fundamental rights of human beings. Fundamental rights, including the right to life, are inherent to, and derive from, the dignity of the human person. These rights are not bestowed by governments but must be recognised by them and protected in law. The right to life and equality is enshrined in a number of international human rights instruments.

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins the articulation of the human values to be defended in terms of human rights.

"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person."

There is no basis for dividing up the human family into persons and non-persons, but there is agreement from science that from fertilisation we all share a common humanity, that we are all members of the "human family", to use the Declaration's words. The attempts to disenfranchise some members of the human family from moral consideration has led to justifications of intolerable abuses of human rights including slavery and genocide. The Declaration, following the United Nations Charter, rejects discrimination against any members of the "human family", and requires the "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family".

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that: "The child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth." This is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world.
Article 6 of the CRC is also relevant
States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.

The destruction of human life by abortion is the greatest human rights struggle of our time. The World Health Organization estimates that 42 million abortions are performed worldwide each year—a profound violation of the equal dignity and rights of human beings and one that requires urgent and sustained attention to ensure the survival of every human being particularly the most vulnerable every one of whom definitely counts.

Exposing UNFPA

One of Barack Obama's many promises to the abortion lobby during his presidential campaign was that he will resume US Funding of the UNFPA.

The US government has refused to fund the UNFPA for seven years because of its abysmal human rights records, particularly in China where it has colluded with abuses against women including forced sterilisation and forced abortion.

Population Research Institute is urging people to watch their YouTube video on UNFPA and to circulate it as far as possible to raise awareness of UNFPA's disgraceful record.

A Pro-Abortionist's Dream

Vincenzina Santoro, Chief United Nations Representative of the American Family Association of New York, has published a summary of Congressman Chris Smith's comments on President Obama, made during an interview for Family News in Focus.

He states what many of us at the UN already know, but with so many people still deluding themselves about the terrible consequences an Obama presidency will have on the culture of life at the UN, Chris Smith's comments need to be heard.

Representative Chris Smith, Republican from New Jersey and the main defender of life in the United States Congress, was interviewed Sunday morning (November 16th) on the radio program “Weekend Edition of Family News in Focus.” His remarks on the incoming president were frightening (but not new) to all supporters of life, especially at the United Nations.

According to Rep. Smith, “on day one, sadly and tragically,” by executive order (more than 250 have been identified) Obama will overturn every pro-life policy in the United States. The list includes the Mexico City Policy dating back to the Reagan Administration in 1984 that refuses funding to NGOs that promote the inclusion of coerced abortion in family planning. Obama will support the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) that provides taxpayer funds for abortions including partial-birth abortions, will completely nullify all state laws restricting abortion including references to parental notification, and permit all kinds of stem cell research.

Rep. Smith called attention to an Obama speech to Planned Parenthood, available on YouTube, in which he stated that his “first priority” as president will be FOCA and lifting all restrictions on abortion – measures that go well beyond Roe v. Wade.

“Obama will be the pro-abortionist dream and the culture of life nightmare” according to Rep. Smith. Nowhere should the “state of euphoria” be greater than at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) as funding for this UN entity had been cut off for several years by the current Bush Administration. UNFPA will now receive US taxpayer money to promote its anti-life agenda even more forcefully. Rep. Smith stated that UNFPA is in “co-management” in coercive abortion and child abuse. He reminded listeners that at the Nazi trials at Nuremberg forced abortion was “considered a crime against humanity.” Finally, only pro-abortion individuals will be considered for the Supreme Court.

According to Rep. Smith’s estimates, Obama favors a doubling of spending on anti-life matters from $450 million to one billion dollars.

Obama’s actions will have a devastating effect on countries of Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa with unrestricted pursuit of abortion by UNFPA and the large number of anti-natal NGOs.

Where has the UNFPA been for 50 years?

The United Nations Population Fund has invented the Rhythm Method. Yes, really. The Population Research Institute reports the bewildering news that UNFPA has begun promoting a method of natural family planning. To make it look modern, they call it Cyclebeads and base the method around a string of plastic beads where days 8 to 19 are coloured white to indicate a strong possibility of fertility. It would be nice to believe that UNFPA has finally got the message about Natural Family Planning when the contraception-peddlers of this world have been sneering at NFP as 'Vatican roulette' for decades.

It certainly makes a refreshing change to hear these people singing the praises of NFP - educates women about their bodies, no side-effects, involves co-operation of men, free, acceptable to people who object to contraception - and I don't wish to be negative. Like all pro-life campaigners, I would far rather see UNFPA use its considerable resources promoting NFP than abortion and sterilisation, but as Colin Mason points out in his article, something just doesn't feel right here.

The major question we need to ask is, why on earth is UNFPA ignoring the major strides made by agencies that promote NFP and are instead promoting a method of birth spacing that has long been superceded by more efficient and user-friendly symptom-based methods? UNFPA's Cyclebeads, like the method it is based on, only works for women with a regular cycle, has a higher failure rate than modern methods of NFP and according to UNFPA's own website, is only suitable for women who have never used any method of artificial contraception or have had an abortion. In other words, it is suitable for all women... except those whose cycles are irregular and pretty much any woman who has made the mistake of taking UNFPA's advice in the past.

UNFPA and China

Activist, lawyer and prisoner of conscience, Chen Guangcheng

I posted recently on UNFPA and its involvement with China’s One-Child Policy. The one-child policy must rank among the most appalling human rights abuses of our age and yet in spite of some high profile cases hitting the headlines, the West remains largely indifferent to the suffering and degradation of millions of women across China in the name of population control.

The one-child policy, which began in 1979 and was formally codified into Chinese national law in 2002, denies women the basic human right to have children. Couples who choose to have a second child face crippling fines or ‘social compensation fees’ that can amount to 10 times the average annual household income. They are also subjected to ‘disciplinary’ and ‘administrative’ punishments, demotion, dismissal from work, expulsion from the Party (a requirement for certain jobs), the destruction of property and loss of education and health care for the child. Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have repeatedly condemned the subjection of women to forced abortion and sterilisation and the active persecution of activists campaigning against the one-child policy.

Two such activists are Mao Hengfeng and Chen Guangcheng. Chen Guangcheng is a blind lawyer and activist who was placed under house arrest in 2005 after talking to reporters from Time magazine about thousands of forced abortion and sterilisation cases he had uncovered. Whilst under house arrest he was repeatedly beaten, as were lawyers who tried to talk with him. He was then formally arrested, his lawyers were detained shortly before his trial and he was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment during a trial that lasted under two hours. In January 2007, Chen’s final appeal was thrown out.


Mao Hengfeng
Mao Hengfeng speaks for a generation of women in China who have been abused and silenced in the name of the one-child policy. A mother of twin girls, Mao refused an abortion when she became pregnant with her third child, was detained in a psychiatric hospital and dismissed from her job. When pregnant with her fourth child she was coerced into an abortion and, as a result, began campaigning for justice for herself and others.

Her outspoken protests led to her being sentenced to eighteen months ‘re-education through labour’ without trial. During that time she was denied medical treatment and subjected to torture because she refused to acknowledge wrongdoing. Following her release, Mao and her husband continued campaigning and were repeatedly beaten, harassed, abused and detained by the authorities. In 2006, Mao was sentenced to two and a half years' imprisonment for allegedly breaking lamps in the guesthouse where she was being detained.

Congressman Chris Smith, Vice Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations, warned: “Her [Mao’s] case is among the most egregious examples of China’s mistreatment of women who do not comply with China’s draconian policies, but in addition to Mao, there are thousands more.”

UNFPA and China
In 2004, the Director of UNFPA’s Asia and Pacific Division, Sultana Aziz, wrote to the US Department of State and made the following claims:

“UNFPA does not support China’s one-child policy and has proactively engaged in serious dialogue with the Chinese government on this issue.”

This claim lacks any credibility in the face of the facts. Not only has UNFPA provided Chinese Family Planning officials with the technical and medical equipment necessary to facilitate the one-child policy, but Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the executive director of UNFPA has publicly praised China’s population control policy, claiming that “China, having adopted practical measures in accordance with her current situation, has scored remarkable achievements in population control.” Earlier in 2001, the UNFPA representative in China, Sven Burmester, told British reporters: "For all the bad press, China has achieved the impossible. The country has solved its population problem." This was in the same year one county in China was ordered to perform 20,000 abortions and sterilisations before the end of the year, many of them performed by force to meet the quota.

Mr Aziz also claims:

“China is committed to the ICPD [International Conference on Population and Development] and is steadily, incrementally and firmly moving beyond demographic targets towards a voluntary and client-oriented FP [family planning] approach. UNFPA has been catalytic in fostering, supporting and guiding the transition.”

As the Congress report in which these claims are cited goes on to state, UNFPA’s efforts simply “miss the mark” as “they are narrowly tailored to expand access to reproductive health information and to allow couples and individuals to select their contraceptive methods in compliance with the national and provincial regulations. Their end result is not that couples and individuals may freely make decisions as to the number and spacing of their children. Rather in counties where the UNFPA operates, China continues to implement its coercive laws and practices.” Moreover, whereas the UNFPA-China agreement requires counties involved with the scheme to end targets and quotas, it “does not require them to eliminate coercive ‘administrative’ or ‘disciplinary’ punishments – thus continuing to reflect UNFPA’s support for China’s coercive program.”

Four years on, with activists still being imprisoned and terrorised for exposing cases of forced abortion and sterilisation, it is difficult to see any evidence of the steady, incremental and firm move towards ‘a voluntary and client-oriented FP approach’ the UNFPA speaks of with such determination.

In the words of Harry Wu, a human rights campaigner who spent 12 years in China’s labour camps before seeking refuge in the United States:

“To give birth is a basic human right. No government, organisation, or individual should, based on political, economic, cultural, religious and racial reasons, deprive a human being's right to give birth. To give birth is also an act of nature, and try as we might, we cannot always control a human being's reproductive system. To violently punish a woman and her unborn child for natural consequences often beyond their control is the epitome of cruelty. And, to hold such power in the hands of a central totalitarian regime invites far too many human rights abuses to terrify the masses.”

US refuses to fund UNFPA over Forced Abortions

The United States has refused the UN Population Fund nearly $40 million for the 7th year running. The US began withholding funding from the agency after the Population Research Institute uncovered evidence that the UNFPA was involved in forced abortion and sterilisation in China as part of the country’s one-child policy. As PRI president Steven Mosher stated in a news report: “The evidence demonstrates that the UNFPA continues to aid and abet China’s barbaric one-child policy. It doesn’t deserve one penny of US money.”

A UN agency that is involved in such an appalling abuse of human rights does not deserve a penny of any country’s money, but it is still being funded by Ireland, a country that protects its own unborn citizens but does not seem to mind funding the forcible killing of babies abroad. Ireland is in fact listed as one of the top 20 donors of 2006. Other countries that offer partial or total protection for the unborn but fund the UNFPA include every country in Latin America, virtually every country in the Middle East, Malta, Poland and the Philippines.

Pro-life and human rights groups in these countries need to call their governments to account for the evil they are funding and to call on them to follow the US government’s lead. To continue to fund an agency that colludes in the abuse of women and the killing of unborn babies is inhumane and hypocritical.