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Tony Blair Organizing World's Faiths to Stump for Abortion Via UN Millenium Development Goals

By John Jalsevac

TORONTO, December 10, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tony Blair, former U.K. prime minister, has teamed up with one of Canada’s most well-known pro-abortion politicians, Belinda Stronach, in a combined effort to promote the U.N’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Blair and Stronach met last week in Toronto with representatives of 30 different faiths to discuss their plan to support the Faith Acts Fellowship, a program of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. In its first stage the program involves selecting 30 youth and educating them in how to promote the MDGs. The pair has also established a “steering committee” to determine what direction the joint effort will take in the future.   

Critics of Blair’s Faith Foundation have observed, however, that during Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister, his government interpreted the Millennium Development Goals as including a universal right to abortion. While the MDG’s, as stated, make no mention of abortion, pro-abortion forces have insistently interpreted goal #3 (“promote gender equality and empower women”) as implicitly including the universal right to abortion.

One of the most prominent of these forces was Blair’s own government, which in 2004 issued a “position paper” outlining how the MDGs included access to “safe comprehensive abortion services.” (See: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/sexualreprohealthrights.pdf)

Despite Blair’s purported conversion to Catholicism after stepping down as PM, to date he has not renounced any of his anti-life views, leading to concerns that his work in promoting the MDG’s still retains the pro-abortion stamp. These concerns appear to have been confirmed in a strong way by his choice to team up with Stronach, an unlikely candidate for a “faith” initiative due to her anti-life, anti-family and anti-religious views.

Stronach is the well-connected daughter of Magna International founder Frank Stronach, and is known in part for her personal friendship with former president Bill Clinton – a man whose post-political career has resembled that of Blair, particularly in its global scope (Clinton’s current initiative is called the “Clinton Global Initiative”) and emphasis on “one world” government and religion.

Speaking in 2006 of government funding for women's groups such as REAL Women of Canada, which are pro-life, Stronach said, "They should be rejected because they're anti-choice and they're also anti-equal rights. They don't support equality." Describing REAL Women Stronach said, "This is a group that is anti-choice, anti-gay, does not support equality for women …”.

Stronach has also been a passionate defender of same-sex "marriage," and has been one of the handful of Canadian politicians to march in Toronto's "gay pride" parade.

Also of concern to pro-life advocates is that the Blair/Stronach initiative is being undertaken in conjunction with the Interfaith Youth Core, a group which is financed by a bevy of pro-abortion organizations, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, Ashoka, and others.

One of Blair’s most vocal critics is John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and one of Europe’s most prominent pro-life and pro-family activists.

Speaking of the Blair/Stronach tag-team, Smeaton said, “How much more evidence do religious leaders need about the close-knit ties of Mr & Mrs Blair to the culture of death before they realise they must act to block the Blairs' infiltration of faith communities?”

Following Blair’s reception into the Catholic Church, Smeaton repeatedly wrote to the former Prime Minister, asking him if he in any way renounced or regretted his pro-abortion activism.

Smeaton observed in his letter to Blair that during his tenure as a U.K. politician he: in 1990 voted for abortion up to birth three times during Parliamentary debates; personally endorsed his government’s policy of supplying abortion and birth control drugs and devices to schoolgirls as young as 11 without parental knowledge or consent; introduced legislation which has led to a law which allows doctors to starve and dehydrate to death vulnerable patients; and personally championed destructive experiments on human embryos.

Smeaton eventually received a response from Blair’s office saying that Blair would not comment on his views on the life issues.  

The news about Tony Blair and Stronach’s joint initiative comes at the same time that Blair’s wife, Cherie Blair, is creating a furor due to her invitation to speak on women’s rights at a prominent Pontifical University in Rome, despite her pro-abortion and pro-contraception views (To find out more, see: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08120906.html).

Despite having received hundreds of complaints from concerned Catholics, the organizers of the conference at the Angelicum in Rome have stood by the invitation of Blair.

See more at John Smeaton’s blog: http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Pro-Abortion/Same-Sex "Marriage" Belinda Stronach to be Keynote Speaker at Catholic College in Western Canada
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08081803.html

Blair Championing Religion in Westminster Cathedral Leaves Catholics Outraged
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040311.html

Blair Formally Refuses to Respond to Abortion and Embryo Research Questions after "Conversion" to Catholicism
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08041406.html

“No Question” of Cancelling Cherie Blair: Angelicum Conference Organiser Adds Fuel to Fire
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08120906.html

Pro-Abortion Cherie Blair to Speak at Prominent Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/dec/08120205.html

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