We reported last week on an Irish Times article relating to a report “Your Rights Right Now” prepared by a group of pro abortion non governmental organizations (NGO’s) in respect of Ireland’s upcoming Universal Periodic Review and which was lauded and placed in the public sphere by Labour Minister for State Kathleen Lynch.
We subsequently found that the UPR website on which the report had been placed, and which listed the organizations which were claimed to have endorsed it, included names like Trocaire and Crosscare both of which are part of the social services network of the Irish Catholic bishops’,
When contacted by European Life Network, Trócaire representatives said they had not endorsed the report and that they were taking steps to have their name removed from the list. Similarly Crosscare, announced after the weekend that they would be pulling out of the group and removing their endorsement of the report because of its promotion of legalized abortion.
A spokesman for Trócaire which focuses on aid to the developing world said his organization had never been asked to endorse the report specifically, and suggested that since Trocaire is a member of a group called Dochas which had given assent to one small part of the report, that the names of all members of that group were then inserted on the website as supporting the entire. He also said that they had now asked for their name to be removed from the website.
A Crosscare spokesman said, “To avoid any further link between Crosscare and a call for the legalisation of abortion ... Crosscare Migrant Project asked for its endorsement of this report to be removed from the ‘Your rights right now’ website.”
Two other organization the Vincentian Refugee Centre and the Mercy Justice Office an outreach of the sisters of Mercy were also included in the list of those who purportedly endorsed the document. It is understood that the Vincentian Refugee Centre have since requested that its endorsement of the report be removed from the website.
The report was falsely portrayed as having the support of Catholic organizations whose good names and reputations were being used to further the pro-abortion agenda.”
The report, which was prepared by a group of pro-abortion NGOs including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Irish Family Planning Association, (an affiliate of Planned Parenthood International) in addition to its pro-abortion and anti family measures covered a wide range of genuine human rights issues supported by many organizations and while they were prepared to endorse aspects of the report such as the Right to housing, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, social security etc., many could not support the anti life and family aspects of the report.
It was clear that many of the organizations contacted had no idea their endorsement of a single aspect of the report was being abused in this way.
