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Calls for Radical Autonomy for Youth Ahead of Mexico Conference; By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

      NEW YORK, July 15 (C-FAM)  Two recently released documents prepared in anticipation of an upcoming youth conference make unprecedented claims for new “rights” for youth that experts say directly conflict with traditional norms and international law.

      The draft declaration which will be considered by governmental participants at the World Youth Conference, to be held at the end of August in Leon, Mexico, calls for a “comprehensive development of young people that includes: a humanist education to face ethical challenges” and “sexuality education.”  There is also a call to “guarantee the highest level of physical and mental health of the youth population taking into account diverse … gender contexts,” and for providing “universal access to reproductive health, including through family planning as a method of reducing maternal mortality in adolescent girls and young women.”    Read More.

UN Secretary General Announce New "Superhero" Advocacy Team for MDGs; By Samantha Singson

     NEW YORK, July 15 (C-FAM)  For months, the international community has been preparing for the September review summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  As part of the preparations, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently announced the formation of an MDG advocacy team composed of prominent politicos and philanthropists who will "build political will and mobilize action on the eight Goals." The list, which includes noted population control supporters and abortion advocates, is causing concern.  Read More.

U.S. Attacks Egypt Over Homosexual Rights at UN; By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

     NEW YORK, July 8 (C-FAM)  At the United Nations (UN) last month, several U.S. representatives attacked Egypt for asking for further investigation into a  homosexual advocacy organization which has applied for special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. These attacks culminated in a sharp rebuke delivered last week by U.S. ambassador Susan Rice. The actions seem to contravene President Obama’s strategy of engaging Egypt and other Muslim societies in key foreign policy aims such as Middle East peace.  Read More.

UN Creates What May Become a Billion Dollar Agency for Radical Feminism; By Samantha Singson and Amanda Pawloski            

     NEW YORK, July 8 (C-FAM)  Last Friday the General Assembly voted to consolidate four separate United Nations (UN) bodies dedicated to women’s issues into one new gender equality entity called “UN Women.” The resolution capped a victory for radical feminists who lobbied for years for the new entity and is the latest in an overall push to bring women’s issues even more onto the UN agenda. 

After four years of sometimes harsh negotiations, member states agreed on simplifying the disjointed efforts of four UN offices dedicated to women’s issues; the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and the Office of the Special Advisor on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women (OSAGI).  Read More.

UN Office of Human Rights Continues Drum Beat for New Human Right to Maternal Health; By Samantha Singson

GENEVA, June 24th (C-FAM)  The Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) has presented a new report to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council on "Preventable Maternal Mortality and Morbidity and Human Rights" that calls for a new “right” to maternal health.

     The pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) heralded the new report and boasted of having a "leading role" in getting maternal mortality put on the human rights agenda. CRR organized three panels on implanting a “human rights-based approach” to reducing maternal mortality at the recent Women Deliver 2 conference.  Read more.

US Administration Launches All-Out International Homosexual “Rights” Offensive; By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.                         

WASHINGTON DC, June 24th (C-FAM)  United States (US) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed a reception at the State Department, proclaiming that “human rights are gay rights and gay rights are human rights, once and for all.”  The reception celebrated “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month,” as was officially proclaimed by President Barack Obama for the month of June, and follows a recent incident at the United Nations (UN) where U.S. representatives made loud demands for immediate action on accrediting a homosexual “rights” group to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).   Read more.

Abortion Activists Claim New “Right” to Maternal Health; By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. ; co-authored by Catherine Glenn Foster

    

(WASHINGTON DC – C-FAM) At the United Nations (UN)-backed Women Deliver conference in Washington DC last week, abortion activists announced the achievement of a new international human right to maternal health just three years after launching a campaign to establish it.  Advocates said that the new right requires nations to liberalize abortion laws and create numerous new bureaucracies, procedures and programs.

     In a paper entitled, “Preventing Maternal Mortality and Ensuring Safe Pregnancy," the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) asserted,  “[W]omen’s rights to life, health, and non-discrimination entitle them” to maternal health and that “governments must ensure women’s access to high-quality, appropriate reproductive health care, abolish discriminatory laws and social practices … and allow women to make autonomous decisions regarding their reproductive lives.” Read more.

IPPF Leads Push for Abortion Rights as UN Prepares for High-Level MDG Review; By Samantha Singson                                

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) launched a new campaign this week called "A Promise is A Promise," demanding that states implement policies and programs to achieve the controversial Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target 5b on "universal access to reproductive health by 2015."  Read more.

Women Deliver 2 Fails to Deliver, Ends With A Whimper; By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Three thousand abortion advocates packed into the Washington, DC Convention Center this week for the Women Deliver 2 conference, a meeting aimed at increasing funding and government accountability for maternal mortality reduction strategies, including access to "safe abortion." While organizers closed the conference amid applause and cheers from a half-empty auditorium, outcomes fell far short of the ambitious funding goals set by organizers in the months leading up to the conference.  Read More

UN Leadership in Disarray as Scientific Dispute Shatters Consensus on Maternal Health; By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.                    

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Deep divisions with top United Nations (UN) officials and abortion activists on one side and maternal health researchers on the other became public this week during the Women Deliver 2 conference in Washington DC. The dispute threatens to derail hopes of raising $30B for family planning at international development conferences in the coming months. These include the Group of Eight summit this month and the UN High Level Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Review in September.  Read More

Researchers Asked to Hide Scientific Debate over Maternal Deaths; By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.; Co-authored by Catherine Foster

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  At a meeting on maternal and child health research in Washington last week, United Nations (UN) staff and abortion advocates told scientists they should “harmonize” their findings or discuss them “in a locked room” so that the press could not report maternal death numbers that conflicted with the ones they use to lobby policy makers and major international donors.  Read More

IPPF Report Calls for Youth Sex Rights and Reveals New UN Funding; By Samantha Singson and Terrence McKeegan, J.D.            

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  The abortion giant, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), has just released its latest financial statement. The report boasts of increased spending on youth programs and a significant increase in funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with an overall 20% boost in income as compared to 2008.  Read More

UN Takes Aim at Youth with Conferences in Mexico City and Tunisia; By Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  The United Nations (UN) is now preparing to kick off the International Year of Youth.  The Government of Mexico will host a world conference on youth in August that will produce a ministerial declaration on youth and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  Conference organizers hope that the document will influence the high-level review on the Millennium Development Goals that takes place in September at the UN General Assembly.   Read More

Human Rights Activists Call for a Super-Treaty Monitoring Body at UN; By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.                         

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  A new law review article by Professor Michael O’Flaherty, rapporteur of the Yogyakarta Principles, calls for the melding of all UN human rights treaty-monitoring bodies into something like a single entity. He calls for the adoption of this reform without the required consent of the Member States that are parties to those treaties.  Read More

Portugal Legalizes Homosexual Marriage, Visiting Pope Condemns It; By Samantha Singson   Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

(NEW YORK - C-FAM)  This week, the president of Portugal announced his decision to ratify a law allowing gay marriage in the small European country. The same-sex marriage bill first passed in the Portuguese parliament in January, but was subject to a presidential veto. The president's decision to sign the bill into law makes Portugal the sixth European country allowing same-sex couples to wed.



     The ratification by President Anibal Cavaco Silva, described as a practicing Catholic, comes just days after a papal visit to the predominantly Catholic country where Pope Benedict spoke out against the legislation. Read More

Gender-bending Yogyakarta Principles Brought to Council of Europe; By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.; Co-authored by Emanuele Rizzardi  

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Two recent initiatives out of the Council of Europe (CoE) on sexual orientation and gender identity are seen as the first major step to codify the radical Yogyakarta Principles into the framework of international institutions. 

     The Yogyakarta Principles (Principles) is a 2007 document adopted by a group of human rights “experts” including several United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs and members of UN treaty monitoring bodies.  The Principles list human rights that already exist in binding international law, and reinterprets each one to include homosexual “rights.”   Read More                                                                       

UNFPA and Abortion Advocates to Push "Reproductive Rights" on UN Treaty Bodies; by Samantha Singson

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  This week, abortion advocates the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and Amnesty International (AI) are teaming up with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to host the "first-ever" briefings on "reproductive rights" for the committees responsible for monitoring compliance with the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

According to the CRR website, the briefing with the UN Committee against Torture (CAT) will focus on "reproductive rights violations" such  "denial of reproductive healthcare services, including abortion and post-abortion care."  Read More

G8 Battle Breaks Out Over International Abortion Funding; By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.                                         

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  The campaign to insert abortion funding into maternal health initiatives has dominated the media coverage leading up to the 36th annual G8 Summit, which will be held in Huntsville, Canada in late June.  The host government, Canada, has come under considerable criticism from the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), pro-abortion NGOs and the Canadian media for refusing to bring abortion into the debate.  Read More

New US House Bill Would Overturn Last Meaningful Restrictions on International Abortion Funding; by Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Last Friday, a Congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York introduced a bill in the United States (US) House of Representatives that would greatly expand international funding for abortion, contraception, and sex education, and would effectively eliminate the long-standing Helms Amendment prohibiting the use of US foreign assistance funds for abortion.

The Global Sexual and Reproductive Health Act of 2010, sponsored by Representative Yvette Clarke and co-sponsored by at least 17 other House members, appears to be linked to the US statement at the recently concluded United Nations (UN) Commission on Population and Development (CPD).  That statement touted that “President Obama has requested $715.7 million for bilateral and multilateral reproductive health, including family planning, in 2011.  If approved later this year by Congress, this amount will represent the single largest U.S. contribution in history for international reproductive health programs.”  Read More.

New Push to Extend Controversial Maputo Plan of Action in Africa; By Samantha Singson                                      

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Last week, the African Union (AU) held a continental conference on maternal and child health in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss the possibility of extending the non-binding Maputo Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (Maputo PoA), which was scheduled to expire this year.   Read More.

April 22, 2010

Last Minute Backroom Negotiations Leave Witnesses Baffled at UN Commission on Population and Development; By Samantha Singson Terrence McKeegan, J.D.

(NEW YORK – C –FAM)  Observers were left scratching their heads trying to figure out what went wrong in the final few hours of the United Nations (UN) Commission Population and Development (CPD), which ended last Friday at UN headquarters in New York. After three days of marathon negotiating sessions, the UN Commission on Population and Development came together in the final plenary to adopt an eight-page text on "Health, Morbidity, Mortality and Development." Despite reassurances from governments that controversial language regarding "sexuality education" and "reproductive rights" would not be included in the final document, in the final few hours of the conference, behind closed doors, the controversial language came back into the document.   Read more.

Top Abortion Law Firm Says Government Funded Abortion is a Human Right; By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.                    

(NEW YORK – C-FAM)  A top abortion-rights law firm recently released its conclusion that the last decade of international legal trends indicate that abortion is not only an international human right, but that government funding is part of that right. They claim that the “vicious” health care debate in the United States over abortion funding shows that the U.S. is flouting international law.  Read more.

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