New Page 0

June 16, 2006 | Volume 9, Number 26

Dear Colleague,

We report again today on ongoing attempts to use the largely non-controversial Millennium Development Goals to force countries to change their laws on abortion. We reported last week on the World Bank doing this. We report today on a UN-related advisory body making the same call.

Sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President

UN Advisory Body Pushing For 'Sexual and Reproductive Health' in New Report

By Samantha Singson

     (NEW YORK — C-FAM) The UN Millennium Project, a UN advisory body, has just released a report asserting that "sexual and reproductive health" is essential to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Entitled "Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals", the report is the latest attempt by UN abortion supporters to inextricably link the "sexual and reproductive health" agenda to the largely non-controversial MDGs.

     Abortion proponents were outraged after the Millennium Summit in 2000 because "reproductive health" was excluded from both from the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. Prior to the Millennium +5 Summit last summer, activists campaigned hard for the creation of a new, separate goal regarding sexual and reproductive health. The Summit of national leaders decided not to issue new MDGs and instead issued a non-binding political declaration that did endorse "reproductive health" but this is merely aspirational and has no force in law. When the attempt to issue a new Millennium Development Goal on "reproductive health" failed, abortion-friendly groups have tried to attach "reproductive health" to the existing MDGs.

     The new report describes the ongoing "reproductive health" battle stating, "The morality-driven politicization of many of the behaviors and desires associated with sex and reproduction polarizes discussion and promotes a judgmental rather than an outcome-oriented public health approach."

     The report goes on to say, "The international agreement on abortion is direct and clear. The legal status of abortion is supposed to be a matter decided in national legislation. In no circumstances is abortion to be promoted as a method of family planning. When abortion is not against the law, it is to be safe. Additionally when it is legal it should also be accessible."

     However, the terms "reproductive health" and "sexual and reproductive health" have never been equivocally defined to exclude abortion within the text of any negotiated UN document. While the report tries to maintain that abortion laws are under the jurisdiction of sovereign states, "reproductive health" has been used to promote abortion. Both the CEDAW committee and Human Rights Committee have issued recommendations to sovereign states regarding their abortion laws under the guise of promoting "reproductive health. Far from leaving it up to the national governments, outside groups and UN documents and agencies campaign for abortion liberalization.