Friday Fax
Volume 8, Number 43 | October 14, 2005

Dear Colleague,

The UN Population Fund seems not to care about the wishes of the UN General Assembly. In the recent Millennium Summit the GA rejected the notion that "reproductive rights" would be a new Millennium Development Goal. Yet, in their new annual report, UNFPA insists on such a connection.

Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President
UN General Assembly Already Rejects New UNFPA Report
 

     The UN General Assembly recently rejected the notion that "reproductive health" or "reproductive rights" should be a part of the Millennium Development Goals. One of the biggest cheerleaders for this was the UN Population Fund, one of the world's loudest proponents of abortion. Even though their efforts were rejected, in their just released annual report, "State of the World Population," UNPFA opposes the General Assembly.

     At a press conference in Washington announcing the launch of the report, Sarah Craven said "we will not make poverty history until we make gender discrimination history." Despite a UNFPA official citing several components to achieving gender equity like education and economic opportunity, references to reproductive health and reproductive rights dominate the 119-page report and may give the impression to readers that the authors view gender equity and reproductive health as synonymous terms. The report's opening chapter declares, "Gender equality and reproductive health are indispensable to the realization" of ending poverty.

     UNFPA understands reproductive health services to include access to a wide variety of contraceptives. At a more theoretical level they define it as the ability of woman to decide the timing, spacing and number of children. Nevertheless, the phrase "reproductive health" is used by some UN agencies and powerful non-governmental organizations (NGO) as including a right to abortion, though the UN General Assembly has never agreed to such an interpretation.

     UNFPA calls its approach to helping underdeveloped countries "rights based" which, the report says, "marks a shift away from an earlier development focus on meeting basic needs, which relied on charity or good will." Some have questioned whether a rights based approach is effective. In the 10 years since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing UNFPA has taken a rights-based approach to reducing maternal mortality has failed miserably. Critics charge that UNFPA would be more effective in this area if they would "focus on meeting basic needs" by providing pre-natal care, obstetrics and post-natal care. However, more than 60 percent of UNFPA's procurement budget goes to contraceptives leading one observer to say, "Their only strategy is to keep women from getting pregnant and if a woman does get pregnant she's on her own."

     The report does criticize coerced abortions and calls attention to the increasing problem of aborting babies based on their sex. Critics will find this hard to accept since UNFPA has been a longtime funder and cheerleader for the Chinese one-child policy which has been shown abundantly to be coercive and directly responsible for their boy-girl imbalance.
Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

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