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DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE FORCED TO ABANDON MARCH OF WOMEN

OTTAWA, Feb. 12, 2001 (LSN.ca) - Nearly a year after LifeSite first broke the story of the $135,000 donation from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP) to the pro-abortion World March of Women (WMW), the CCODP has finally disassociated itself from the WMW. The reason given by CCODP for the move is the CCODP "has learned that the International Organizing Committee has responded to President Bush's funding cuts to international family planning projects by calling on national WMW organizing committees to rally in support of choice for abortion." The B.C. Catholic newspaper reveals further that the decision was made after consultations with the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), specifically Bishops Fred Henry of Calgary and Francois Thibodeau of Edmundston, N.B., who are the CCCB members on the National Council of the CCODP.

Early on in the controversy over the WMW pro-lifers pointed out repeatedly the overt and uncompromising pro-abortion and pro-homosexual stance of the WMW's top organizers. The WMW document itself, both the international and the Canadian version, demonstrated these concerns. However, these messages were often met with hostility from those organizations supporting the WMW including the CCODP, the CCCB, and the Catholic Women's League (CWL).

The current release by the CCODP announcing the split with the WMW tells a different story. The first two paragraphs of the release indicate how "proud" CCODP was "to have supported the World March of Women." The letter suggests that the action to support abortion is "new" and that withdrawal from the WMW is motivated by this recent action.

However the pro-abortion stand of the WMW was clearly demonstrated in dozens of articles published all over the world long before this most recent venture into pro-abortion activism on the part of the WMW. Early last year, Diane Matte, coordinator of the International Committee of the World March of Women, rejected a request by a pro-life group to participate in the march. She wrote that at the international WMW meeting held on January 28 it was "unanimously decided that the demand to have a 'pro-life' contingent at the World March is unacceptable to us since the anti-choice position defended by your organization is in clear contradiction with the objectives pursued by the march."

While there are no immediate actions on the part of the CCCB and CWL to officially withdraw from support of the WMW, an unofficial distancing is in effect. Bede Hubbard, spokesperson for the CCCB told LifeSite that the CCCB "never endorsed the World March of Women," only the objectives of the WMW which it agreed with.

See the CCODP press release at:
http://www.devp.org/testA/policy/declarationsi-e.htm

See the coverage in the BC Catholic at:
http://bcc.rcav.org/01-02-12/fp.htm

See all the coverage and documentation on the March of Women at:
http://www.lifesite.net/clc/womens_march/

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