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UN NGOs Charge “Women Deliver” Conference with Promoting Abortion at Expense of Women’s Real Needs
(NEW YORK — C-FAM) A group of nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) from the United States, Europe and Latin America today delivered a letter to the UN and the organizers of the just concluded Women Deliver conference complaining that the conference was more about promoting abortion than caring for the real needs of women.
The joint letter was issued by the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), United Families International (US), Concerned Women for America (US), World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations, Institute for Family Policy (Spain), Instituto Mujer y Vida (Spain), Comite Nacional Provida de Mexico, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (UK), and many others.
The letter said, “We wish to express our profound disappointment and dismay that the Women Deliver conference has failed to meet its stated objective of addressing Millennium Development Goal 5, which is to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. Delegates were invited to attend a global conference on the causes, prevention and treatment of the complications of pregnancy and childbirth which lead to the deaths of so many mothers, particularly in developing countries, and to consider effective solutions. Regrettably, the conference agenda was so preoccupied with promoting the ideology and practice of abortion that the genuine healthcare needs of women and children were virtually ignored in the plenary sessions and overwhelmed in the panel discussions.”
Roughly 1700 people attended the three day conference in London that was sponsored by a number of pro-abortion groups such as International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, along with such UN agencies as UNICEF, the UN Population Fund, and the World Health Organization. According to C-FAM’s Friday Fax, the opening plenary set the tone as the confernce organizers and speakers announced that abortion rights were the number one solution to the global problem of maternal mortality -- even before skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetric care. The Friday Fax also reported that a third of the panels focussed on abortion or abortion advocacy and among the rest, only a few addressed serious problems such as malaria and obstetric fistula. Moreover, only two panels dealt with newborn health and basic issues such as clean water, shelter and nutrition were virtually absent from the agenda.
C-FAM Executive Vice President Susan Yoshihara said, “It was heart-breaking to see such in your face advocacy of abortion at a conference that cloaked itself in the language of maternal and newborn health. Even though there were promising discussions on the agenda, abortion talk overwhelmed them due to the overarching pro-choice agenda of the event. Anyone who reads or hears about this conference must understand that this conference was primarily about legalizing and funding abortion. I urge all our friends from around the world to get our letter to as many people as possible.”
An English version of letter can be found below and also HERE <http://secure.grasswave.com/stats/linkstats.php?PersonID=858737&MBlastID=1670&MailingPanelID=1207&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c-fam.org%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26amp%3Btask%3Dview%26amp%3Bid%3D706> . A Spanish version can be found HERE <http://secure.grasswave.com/stats/linkstats.php?PersonID=858737&MBlastID=1670&MailingPanelID=1207&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c-fam.org%2Findex.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26amp%3Btask%3Dview%26amp%3Bid%3D708> .
For further information contact:
Susan Yoshihara w: 212-754-5948 m: 202-213-8951
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C-FAM is a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy group that monitors and reports on UN social policy activity.
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_______________________________________________
Letter to the Organizing Committee
of the Conference "Women Deliver"
London, 20 October 2007
DELIVERED TO:
Jill Sheffield, President, Family Care International and the Organizing Committee
CC: Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Conference Honorary Co-Chair
CC: Hon. Mary Robinson, President of Realizing Rights and Conference Honorary Co-Chair
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED ORGANIZATIONS, wish to express our profound disappointment and dismay that the Women Deliver conference has failed to meet its stated objective of addressing Millennium Development Goal 5, which is to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity.
Delegates were invited to attend a global conference on the causes, prevention and treatment of the complications of pregnancy and childbirth which lead to the deaths of so many mothers, particularly in developing countries, and to consider effective solutions.
Regrettably, the conference agenda was so preoccupied with promoting the ideology and practice of abortion that the genuine healthcare needs of women and children were virtually ignored in the plenary sessions and overwhelmed in the panel discussions.
Numerous UN reports, such as The World’s Women 2005: Progress in Statistics, have concluded that accurate data about maternal mortality, including abortion, are not available, especially for the developing world. Therefore, the presentation of unsubstantiated and unreliable data on illegal abortion as fact can only be seen as a deliberate attempt to mislead the conferees and the international community.
To assert that ¨unsafe abortions¨ are only those that are illegal, and to subsequently imply that legal abortion is therefore safe, is both disingenuous and scientifically flawed. The fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) will not be collecting information on the morbidity and mortality related to legal abortion is unconscionable if there is truly a commitment to accurate and meaningful data collection on morbidity and mortality statistics.
The consistent assertions that improvements in the maternal mortality rate are dependent on the promotion of legal abortion not only diverts attention from the urgent need for basic heath care, skilled birth attendants and emergency obstetrics, it threatens to undermine the field of obstetrics and gynecology if implemented on a wide scale.
Furthermore, we oppose the fact that:
- Members of the organizing committee, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and Marie Stopes International, who have financial interests in the provision of abortion, have used the conference to promote a private agenda to spread abortion throughout the developing world;
- The organizing committee has attempted to manufacture a false consensus by ensuring that only the views which reinforced its pre-conceived ideas were represented during the conference;
- The conference has sidelined the main issues related to maternal mortality (basic health conditions based on vaccine availability, clean water, sanitation, basic nutritional supplementation, primary medical post-natal and peri-natal care, fistula, female genital mutilation, hemorrhage, sepsis, obstructed labor, eclampsia). Such sidelining is a serious act of negligence which leads not only to continuing, but increasing, the risks associated with maternal health.
We call upon the conference partners to focus on basic health care, skilled attendants and emergency obstetrics, which have been the key to decreasing maternal mortality in the developed world, instead of exploiting the tragedy of maternal mortality to promote abortion rights.
• Instituto De Política Familiar (IPF), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• Concerned Women for America (CWA), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• MaterCare International (MCI), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations (FIAMC), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• United Families International (UFI), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• Society For the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations (WUCWO), ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• Federación Española de Asociaciones Provida, ECOSOC consultative status with the UN
• Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM)
• American Association of Prolife Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG)
• Instituto Mujer y Vida, Spain
• Comité Nacional Provida de México, A.C.
• Salud Sexual y Reproductiva De México, A.C.
• Asociación Mexicana “Cultura de la Vida"
Copyright 2007 Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.
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