Reprinted with permission from - Vivant!
Pro-abortion NGO renews attack on Holy See’s UN status
Western Nations Oppose Beijing+5 ‘Family’ References
Beijing Platform For Action Serves Only West’s Interest
Beijing+5 Delegates Battle Again Over Abortion References
Western Nations Rethink Population Control, Family
————————————————————————————————————————
Pro-abortion NGO renews attack on Holy See’s UN status
By Theresa Bell
NEW YORK - “Catholics For a Free Choice” (CFFC), the UN-accredited pro-abortion NGO that has
been lobbying for revocation of the Holy See’s UN status as a Permanent Observer delegation,
placed a full-page ad in the March 16 issue of the Earth Times that was distributed at UN
headquarters on Thursday. The ad, entitled “Let’s make a ‘See Change’ for women” requests
that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan undertake “an official review” of the Holy See’s UN
status. That status permits the Holy See to participate in all UN fora on an equal basis with
the delegations of UN Member States. The CFFC’s appeal to Annan is flanked by a list of pro-
abortion, radical-feminist and population control organizations from around the world. CFFC
claims it has obtained over 400 endorsers since the start of its “See Change” lobby last
March 25.
In the wake of the ad’s distribution, NGO and delegate supporters of the Holy See who are
participating in the Beijing+5 negotiations suggested that CFFC’s conduct could result in the
revocation of its own accreditation status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECO-
SOC). CFFC’s critics note that each member state to the UN pledges support of the principles
and purposes set out in its Charter. Among those purposes is to promote friendly relations
among nations, a basic principle that extends, at least while on UN property, to the actions
of organizations and institutions granted official status within the UN system.
The Holy See, whose legitimacy as an entity with the territorial and legal attributes of a
sovereign state is well established in international law, joined the UN as a non-Member State
Permanent Observer in 1964, under an agreement reached between then-Secretary General U Thant
and Pope Paul VI. CFFC obtained its ECO-SOC status in 1998.
“The UN has rules against direct attacks on its member states on UN property and so we will
be asking ECOSOC to do something about it,” Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and
Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), said on Friday.
According to the CFFC’s opponents, it is even more improper for an organization whose own
legitimacy is so doubtful to continually challenge the Holy See’s diplomatic status, which is
accepted without dispute by the vast majority of the world’s sovereign national governments.
For instance, the CFFC’s single-minded promotion of abortion induced the U.S. National
Conference of Catholic Bishops to formally denounce the pro-abortion lobby group’s claim to
be a “Catholic” organization.
Other criticism of CFFC, which is headed by former abortion clinic director Frances Kissling,
is directed at its heavy reliance on funding from various pro-abortion groups and private
foundations rather than on support from practicing Catholics. CFFC was originally
headquartered in the New York offices of Planned Parenthood, the US affiliate of
International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world’s largest and wealthiest abortion
provider.
Another prominent backer is the Playboy Foundation, set up by pornographic magazine publisher
Hugh Hefner, which has given thousands of dollars to CFFC under Kissling’s tenure. Other
private donors include the Ford, Rockefeller, Sunnen, MacArthur, Gund, Packard, General
Service, Public Welfare, Clark, Educational, Huber and John Merck foundations and funds. CFFC
critics also point out that the group consistently refuses to disclose what membership base,
if any, it actually has. They also note that the extent of grassroots civil-society support
for many of the 400 supporters of the “See Change” ad campaign is equally doubtful. For
example, scores of the signatories of the Earth Times ad are affiliates of a single group,
International Planned Parenthood.
Others are local affiliates of CFFC itself. Most of the rest are comprised of other
population-control and pro-abortion organizations, feminist fringe groups, and obscure
Catholic splinter groups that back ordination of women and other heterodox causes.
The CFFC has been under investigation since last year by the NGO section of ECOSOC in regard
to a pair of incidents that occurred at the Hague Forum in February 1999 and at the Cairo+5
PrepCom the following month. In both cases, the same CFFC member allegedly jostled a pro-
family representative. Depending on the outcome of ECOSOC’s investigation of the allegations,
CFFC could face sanctions ranging up to the suspension or permanent withdrawal of its ECOSOC
NGO status.
C-FAM’s Ruse filed a third complaint last month with ECOSOC with respect to an e-mail message
circulated by CFFC employee David Nolan. The e-mail claimed that “Vatican and conservative
Catholic groups are planning to disrupt the Beijing+5 conference.” In his letter to ECOSOC,
Ruse characterized that unsubstantiated assertion as “defamatory and incendiary.” The
complaint regarding the e-mail has been added to the ECOSOC’s existing investigation of
CFFC’s conduct as a UN NGO.
————————————————————————————————————————
Western nations oppose Beijing+5 ‘family’ references
By Vivant! staff
NEW YORK - As negotiations wound down on the first week of the Beijing+5 PrepCom, Western
delegations resisted efforts by the G-77 nations and the Holy See to include affirmations of
the “family” in the Beijing+5 review document. The Western delegations are also persisting
with efforts they began early in the week to insert additional references to “sexual and
reproductive health services,” a phrase which radical-feminists lobbyists interpret as
including access to abortion services.
Late Thursday evening, the Holy See proposed the addition of language to Paragraph 4 in
Section II of the Beijing+5 document, dealing with “achievements” in the area of “Women and
poverty.” The Holy See language asserts that, “Policies and programmes have been implemented
to strengthen the family in performing its societal and developmental roles.”
The EU delegation immediately demanded the sentence be deleted, on the grounds that the
sentence was not “gender-specific.” The Holy See responded by proposing the addition of the
phrase, “with particular recognition of the vital role of women in the family,” to its
initial language. Unmollified, the EU continued to demand the deletion of the sentence.
Eventually, negotiators were forced to move to another paragraph, with the language still in
dispute.
A similar impasse occurred Saturday morning, during debate over Paragraph 51(bis) in Section
IV of the draft review document. It addresses “Actions and initiatives to overcome obstacles
and to achieve the full and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.”
Both the Holy See and the G-77 introduced proposals to acknowledge “the family” in the
context of 51 (bis), only to meet resistance from JUSCANZ (speaking on behalf of Japan, the
U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand). As with Paragraph 4, no resolution could be
achieved, adding to the negotiating backlog confronting delegates when they reconvene today.
Earlier, on Friday, still more negotiating gridlock arose courtesy of a joint EU/ JUSCANZ
effort to add language specifying “universal” access to “sexual and reproductive healthcare
and services” to Paragraph 46(bis). The Holy See initially moved to have the entire reference
stricken, but subsequently agreed to the inclusion of “universal” and “sexual and
reproductive healthcare,” so long as “services” was deleted. This would provide some
protection against interpretation of the paragraph in question as mandating access to
abortion services.
However, JUSCANZ refused to accept deletion of “services,” meaning the paragraph will have to
be renegotiated this week.
————————————————————————————————————————
Beijing Platform for Action serves only West’s interest
By C. Gwendolyn Landolt
The UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and the follow-up Beijing+5
review now in session in New York represent the triumph of western demands over the needs of
the developing nations. The Beijing Platform for Action was written by and for the well-
educated, well-fed and healthy women of the West. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the
needs and concerns of the women of the developing world.
For example, instead of providing for the genuine health care needs of the developing world,
such as the control of malaria, typhoid and cholera, or clean water or famine relief
(nutrition is mentioned only three times in the entire Platform for Action) or respect for
the differing cultures and religions of the nations, the Beijing document provides for female
quotas in all levels of government and society, the elimination of “traditional stereotypes”
and “reproductive rights.” What do women in Africa care about female quotas when their
children are starving?
The Beijing document makes no sense. It only serves the purposes of the western nations who
manipulated its provisions to promote their own agendas. UN agencies and Western delegations
claim that the Beijing Platform for Action was achieved by consensus. In reality, there were
69 reservations placed against the document - more than were placed against any other UN
document. These reservations were nearly all directed to “reproductive rights” and other
radical elements of the document.
The West is pushing these agendas because of its obsession with the issue of population
control. The West believes that its population, which is now beginning to go into steep
decline, is threatened by population growth in the developing world, which will lead to the
undermining of the West’s global domination.
The West further believes that unless the population of the developing world is curbed
through “reproductive rights” (UN code for abortion, contraception and sterilization) and
adolescent access to abortion and contraception free from parental supervision, the West will
lose its “rightful” place in the world order.“Reproductive rights” and unrestricted adolescent sexuality are, of course, repugnant to the
Muslim and Catholic countries of the developing world because of their religious and cultural
values. As a result, these nations have strongly resisted the population policies of the
West.
To overcome this resistance, the western powers have devised a new tactic of promoting the
status of women and the empowerment of women as a guise to instigate population control
policies in the developing world.
That is, by promoting “gender equality” and the “empowerment” of women, the West anticipates
that women, once educated and economically independent, will voluntarily separate themselves
from the “liability” of religion and culture, family and children, which has allegedly
enslaved them for centuries. Such emancipation would supposedly then make the UN’s"reproductive rights” acceptable to women. Thus, the promotion of “empowerment” of women, has
become the major issue promoted by the UN in recent years.
The most prominent voice for the West in pushing this agenda is Canada, which serves at the
UN in this regard as the agent of the EU and the US. Canada has been selected for this role
because it is a non-threatening middle power with a relatively small population. It is thus
willing to advocate strenuously at these UN conferences for a feminist interpretation of
women’s empowerment, including reproductive rights, even though these policies are
objectionable to the majority of Canadians.
Moreover, Canada, as well as other wealthy western nations, is privately funding many of the
feminist NGOs that are heavily lobbying at this and other UN conferences. These NGOs pretend
that they represent “women,” when, in fact, they represent only the feminist ideology of
their own unelected, unrepresentative organizations and that of the Western powers who are
funding them.
It is alarming, too, that religious freedoms were downgraded at the Beijing conference and
religion is no longer treated as a fundamental right at the UN. Rather, thanks to the West’s
agenda, religion is now regarded as an obstacle to be overridden in order to achieve the
West’s objectives.
C. Gwendolyn Landolt is National Vice President of REAL Women of Canada. She served as an NGO
representative at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and was vice-chair of
the Women’s Caucus at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome.
————————————————————————————————————————
Beijing+5 delegates battle again over abortion references
By Celeste McGovern
NEW YORK - Negotiations on the Beijing + 5 review document slowed to a snail’s pace yesterday
morning as delegates debated a paragraph regarding “women and health” that contained
controversial language including “reproductive rights” and “sexual health.” Such language is
at the heart of the dispute between pro-family lobbyists and radical feminists at the
Beijing+5 negotiations, and at other UN social-policy discussions.
The working paragraph under debate on “women and health,” which was drafted by the EU,
included the phrase “increased attention to reproductive health and sexual and reproductive
rights of women.” Feminist activists interpret that language as including access to on-demand
abortion.
To protect against such an interpretation being imposed on nations against their will, the
Holy See delegation re-quested “reproductive rights” be defined as in the Report of the 1994
International Con-ference on Population and Development. This would preserve the reservations
made by numerous countries at that conference to the “reproductive rights” terminology. That
phrase is already a “clear compromise,” the Holy See noted, adding that individual countries’
specific interpretations and objections to the phrase would be improperly lost if the report
wasn’t mentioned.
The Algerian delegation echoed the Holy See’s concerns, asking that both reproductive rights
and sexual health remain bracketed (and therefore not yet unanimously approved) “because
there are a great many reservations made at both the Cairo conference and the Beijing
conference.” Algeria also asked for a reference to the reports of both conferences, in order
that individual countries’ concerns about the “reproductive rights” language will be properly
reflected in the Beijing+5 document.
One EU delegate asked for specific mention of “sexual rights,” which the Holy See objected on
grounds that, “There is no agreed wording in any United Nations document thus far on an
accepted definition for sexual rights.” The EU countered with a reference to paragraph 90 of
the Platform for Action, in which there is reference to “human rights of women” including"sexual and reproductive health.”
A number of delegates supported a motion to have contraceptive methods referred to in the
contest of a broader phrase referring to “increased knowledge and use of family planning.”
However, the EU delegation objected vigorously to the combination, asserting that the “two
concepts are very important to us.” Family planning refers to contraception within a family,
a EU delegate explained, whereas in the EU’s view contraception can refer to relationships
outside of families, such as between teenagers.
There was no reference during the negotiation session to Canada’s earlier proposal to include
in the paragraph a reference to “emergency contraception.” Pro-life medical authorities
assert “emergency contraception” inevitably encompasses early-term abortions, as it refers to
chemical interventions that can take effect after fertilization has occurred. “We’re still
negotiating,” a Canadian delegation said when asked about the missing phrase, implying that
Western delegations intend to introduce more controversial language into the “women and
health” paragraph.
Outside the conference hall, a grandmother caring for an infant boy while her daughter
attended the sessions said she faced discrimination against women with babies for the second
time during the Beijing+5 negotiations. The woman reported she was standing with the baby,
who was playing happily in a near-empty hallway, when a security guard told her she had to
“clear him out.”“He’s just been harassing me,” said the 68-year-old woman. She added that
the same guard also refused to let her attend the International Women’s Day celebrations with
the baby. “I finally asked him today, ‘What do you have against this baby?’ and he said,
‘Well, this isn’t a day care’.”
Negotiations on “women and health” were suspended after yesterday’s morning negotiation
session to allow the G-77 coalition of developing countries to canvass among themselves on
the issues of contention.
At an afternoon briefing of NGOs by the American delegation, the first clear indication
emerged that the slow pace of negotiations will result in additional Beijing+5 sessions.
According to U.S. delegation spokesperson Linda Tarr-Whelan, two intersessional meetings will
likely be necessary to complete the review document in time for next June’s Beijing+5 Special
Session of the UN General Assembly.
————————————————————————————————————————
Western nations rethink population control, family
By Mary Jo Anderson
Last week, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan advocated relaxing US visa quotas to
permit more workers to enter the US. His comments were just the latest to highlight a
groundswell of economic concern over population control and social stability. Most recently,
both Norway and England have initiated policies designed to redress the failing philosophy of
the last thirty years.
The industrialized nations are wealthy now, but they are aging rapidly. The political fears
and social pressures that spring from these demographic realities have forced some
theoreticians and public policy experts to rethink the Malthusian formula.
A Wall Street Journal analysis reports that towns “will be bereft of children, and schools
will be closed for lack of students. If the human face of this population implosion is
melancholy, do understand the economic consequences are nothing short of grim. Labor
shortages will cramp production. Housing markets will grow moribund. This in turn will create
a drag on real estate and other sectors.”
As the industrial democracies age, the economic chaos outlined by the Wall Street Journal
becomes inevitable. A penchant for material goods that led Western consumers to choose three
TVs and two cars but only 1.6 children has led to a sterile society, and the bill is due.
The Beijing+5 Conference began with a presentation by some of the world’s leading
demographers offering a critical reappraisal of the earth’s demographic future. They warned
of rapidly diminishing populations and a continued decline in fertility. Some 35 nations are
dying in both Eastern and Western Europe. In fifteen European countries, graves are dug more
often than babies are delivered. According to a New York Times account, the Italian
government predicts “empty classrooms and thousands of unemployed teachers, with shortages
of service industry workers and health care personnel to care for older people.”
The social implications of depopulation and loss of family life are equally grim. Japan,
suffers from population depletion - whole villages have no one but the elderly.
The New York Times reported that by 2025, 73% of Japan’s income will be required for social
welfare programs for the elderly. Because baby girls are aborted in favor having only one
child - a son - deep societal tensions will arise when men are unable to find wives.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the family as the basic social unit.
After a generation of population control and the sterility of the sexual revolution, some
industrialized nations are awakening to that foundational truth given in the Declaration.
Norway’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Janne Haaland Matlary, has called for an
innovative government response to encourage family life. The Vice Minister, who holds degrees
in Political Science and European History, declared, “. certain problems cannot be resolved
by the market. To arrive at social stability it is fundamental to promote policies that
appreciate and help the family.”
Norway’s new program in aid to families, the “Cash Benefit Scheme,” employs an elegant
simplicity: It provides a cash benefit, equal the amount the state would have set aside
(about US$6,000) for kindergarten or daycare directly to parents. This strategy empowers the
parents - they may return to full time work, or, choose to be at home with their toddlers
during the critical early childhood years.
Some feminist groups opposed the “Cash Benefit” plan, charging that it was an attempt to
force women into domestic subservience, erasing years of “progress.” Feminists declined to
receive recognize the plan as a means of offering a real choice for those mothers who
preferred to be with their children. Matlary pointed out, “Their dogmatic view is that all
women should work outside the home, and that kindergartens are best for your child, better
than being cared for by one of the parents at home.” As in Norway, other nations are again
recognizing the family - not the village - as the primary unit of society. Just last week in
London, the BBC reported that the British government plans to initiate educational guides
for teachers that stress the importance of marriage and family life. Education laws will be
amended requiring schools to implement the guidelines. Scotland is considering adopting a
similar program. As the economists and social experts in industrialized nations awaken to the
perils of depopulation and societal pressures against the traditional family, powerful
feminist NGOs continue to pressure member nations to adopt lethal policies via
reinterpretation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Developing nations continue to resist
this control - in the guise of “international monitoring” - and preserve their sovereignty,
ensuring that issues of population, development and social stability remain the
responsibility of member states.
In the face of rising social instability and dire population forecasts in the industrialized
nations, it is curious that their delegations insist on an emphasis far removed from the
basic needs of most of the women in developing countries. Comprehensive medical care of the
whole woman is sacrificed to a narrow focus on reproductive anatomy.
Rising nations note with grave reservations the rapid aging of the more industrialized
countries - a costly lesson that developing nations may yet avoid. The lesson is stark:
Nations which promote extreme fertility regulation measures, including open access to
abortion, tax penalties for larger families, and the sterile lifestyles of the sexual
revolution pay an enormous price one generation later.
Greying nations are facing depletion of their greatest resource - human capital. These
nations are aging so rapidly that political fears, economic projections and social chaos are
forcing reconsideration of ill advised policies at all levels of society.
Reprinted with permission from - Vivant!
Pro-abortion NGO renews attack on Holy See’s UN status
Western Nations Oppose Beijing+5 ‘Family’ References
Beijing Platform For Action Serves Only West’s Interest
Beijing+5 Delegates Battle Again Over Abortion References
Western Nations Rethink Population Control, Family
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————————————————————————————————————————
Pro-abortion NGO renews attack on Holy See’s UN status
By Theresa Bell
NEW YORK - “Catholics For a Free Choice” (CFFC), the UN-accredited pro-abortion NGO that has
been lobbying for revocation of the Holy See’s UN status as a Permanent Observer delegation,
placed a full-page ad in the March 16 issue of the Earth Times that was distributed at UN
headquarters on Thursday. The ad, entitled “Let’s make a ‘See Change’ for women” requests
that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan undertake “an official review” of the Holy See’s UN
status. That status permits the Holy See to participate in all UN fora on an equal basis with
the delegations of UN Member States. The CFFC’s appeal to Annan is flanked by a list of pro-
abortion, radical-feminist and population control organizations from around the world. CFFC
claims it has obtained over 400 endorsers since the start of its “See Change” lobby last
March 25.
In the wake of the ad’s distribution, NGO and delegate supporters of the Holy See who are
participating in the Beijing+5 negotiations suggested that CFFC’s conduct could result in the
revocation of its own accreditation status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECO-
SOC). CFFC’s critics note that each member state to the UN pledges support of the principles
and purposes set out in its Charter. Among those purposes is to promote friendly relations
among nations, a basic principle that extends, at least while on UN property, to the actions
of organizations and institutions granted official status within the UN system.
The Holy See, whose legitimacy as an entity with the territorial and legal attributes of a
sovereign state is well established in international law, joined the UN as a non-Member State
Permanent Observer in 1964, under an agreement reached between then-Secretary General U Thant
and Pope Paul VI. CFFC obtained its ECO-SOC status in 1998.
“The UN has rules against direct attacks on its member states on UN property and so we will
be asking ECOSOC to do something about it,” Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and
Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), said on Friday.
According to the CFFC’s opponents, it is even more improper for an organization whose own
legitimacy is so doubtful to continually challenge the Holy See’s diplomatic status, which is
accepted without dispute by the vast majority of the world’s sovereign national governments.
For instance, the CFFC’s single-minded promotion of abortion induced the U.S. National
Conference of Catholic Bishops to formally denounce the pro-abortion lobby group’s claim to
be a “Catholic” organization.
Other criticism of CFFC, which is headed by former abortion clinic director Frances Kissling,
is directed at its heavy reliance on funding from various pro-abortion groups and private
foundations rather than on support from practicing Catholics. CFFC was originally
headquartered in the New York offices of Planned Parenthood, the US affiliate of
International Planned Parenthood Federation, the world’s largest and wealthiest abortion
provider.
Another prominent backer is the Playboy Foundation, set up by pornographic magazine publisher
Hugh Hefner, which has given thousands of dollars to CFFC under Kissling’s tenure. Other
private donors include the Ford, Rockefeller, Sunnen, MacArthur, Gund, Packard, General
Service, Public Welfare, Clark, Educational, Huber and John Merck foundations and funds. CFFC
critics also point out that the group consistently refuses to disclose what membership base,
if any, it actually has. They also note that the extent of grassroots civil-society support
for many of the 400 supporters of the “See Change” ad campaign is equally doubtful. For
example, scores of the signatories of the Earth Times ad are affiliates of a single group,
International Planned Parenthood.
Others are local affiliates of CFFC itself. Most of the rest are comprised of other
population-control and pro-abortion organizations, feminist fringe groups, and obscure
Catholic splinter groups that back ordination of women and other heterodox causes.
The CFFC has been under investigation since last year by the NGO section of ECOSOC in regard
to a pair of incidents that occurred at the Hague Forum in February 1999 and at the Cairo+5
PrepCom the following month. In both cases, the same CFFC member allegedly jostled a pro-
family representative. Depending on the outcome of ECOSOC’s investigation of the allegations,
CFFC could face sanctions ranging up to the suspension or permanent withdrawal of its ECOSOC
NGO status.
C-FAM’s Ruse filed a third complaint last month with ECOSOC with respect to an e-mail message
circulated by CFFC employee David Nolan. The e-mail claimed that “Vatican and conservative
Catholic groups are planning to disrupt the Beijing+5 conference.” In his letter to ECOSOC,
Ruse characterized that unsubstantiated assertion as “defamatory and incendiary.” The
complaint regarding the e-mail has been added to the ECOSOC’s existing investigation of
CFFC’s conduct as a UN NGO.
————————————————————————————————————————
Western nations oppose Beijing+5 ‘family’ references
By Vivant! staff
NEW YORK - As negotiations wound down on the first week of the Beijing+5 PrepCom, Western
delegations resisted efforts by the G-77 nations and the Holy See to include affirmations of
the “family” in the Beijing+5 review document. The Western delegations are also persisting
with efforts they began early in the week to insert additional references to “sexual and
reproductive health services,” a phrase which radical-feminists lobbyists interpret as
including access to abortion services.
Late Thursday evening, the Holy See proposed the addition of language to Paragraph 4 in
Section II of the Beijing+5 document, dealing with “achievements” in the area of “Women and
poverty.” The Holy See language asserts that, “Policies and programmes have been implemented
to strengthen the family in performing its societal and developmental roles.”
The EU delegation immediately demanded the sentence be deleted, on the grounds that the
sentence was not “gender-specific.” The Holy See responded by proposing the addition of the
phrase, “with particular recognition of the vital role of women in the family,” to its
initial language. Unmollified, the EU continued to demand the deletion of the sentence.
Eventually, negotiators were forced to move to another paragraph, with the language still in
dispute.
A similar impasse occurred Saturday morning, during debate over Paragraph 51(bis) in Section
IV of the draft review document. It addresses “Actions and initiatives to overcome obstacles
and to achieve the full and accelerated implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.”
Both the Holy See and the G-77 introduced proposals to acknowledge “the family” in the
context of 51 (bis), only to meet resistance from JUSCANZ (speaking on behalf of Japan, the
U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand). As with Paragraph 4, no resolution could be
achieved, adding to the negotiating backlog confronting delegates when they reconvene today.
Earlier, on Friday, still more negotiating gridlock arose courtesy of a joint EU/ JUSCANZ
effort to add language specifying “universal” access to “sexual and reproductive healthcare
and services” to Paragraph 46(bis). The Holy See initially moved to have the entire reference
stricken, but subsequently agreed to the inclusion of “universal” and “sexual and
reproductive healthcare,” so long as “services” was deleted. This would provide some
protection against interpretation of the paragraph in question as mandating access to
abortion services.
However, JUSCANZ refused to accept deletion of “services,” meaning the paragraph will have to
be renegotiated this week.
————————————————————————————————————————
Beijing Platform for Action serves only West’s interest
By C. Gwendolyn Landolt
The UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 and the follow-up Beijing+5
review now in session in New York represent the triumph of western demands over the needs of
the developing nations. The Beijing Platform for Action was written by and for the well-
educated, well-fed and healthy women of the West. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the
needs and concerns of the women of the developing world.
For example, instead of providing for the genuine health care needs of the developing world,
such as the control of malaria, typhoid and cholera, or clean water or famine relief
(nutrition is mentioned only three times in the entire Platform for Action) or respect for
the differing cultures and religions of the nations, the Beijing document provides for female
quotas in all levels of government and society, the elimination of “traditional stereotypes”
and “reproductive rights.” What do women in Africa care about female quotas when their
children are starving?
The Beijing document makes no sense. It only serves the purposes of the western nations who
manipulated its provisions to promote their own agendas. UN agencies and Western delegations
claim that the Beijing Platform for Action was achieved by consensus. In reality, there were
69 reservations placed against the document - more than were placed against any other UN
document. These reservations were nearly all directed to “reproductive rights” and other
radical elements of the document.
The West is pushing these agendas because of its obsession with the issue of population
control. The West believes that its population, which is now beginning to go into steep
decline, is threatened by population growth in the developing world, which will lead to the
undermining of the West’s global domination.
The West further believes that unless the population of the developing world is curbed
through “reproductive rights” (UN code for abortion, contraception and sterilization) and
adolescent access to abortion and contraception free from parental supervision, the West will
lose its “rightful” place in the world order.“Reproductive rights” and unrestricted adolescent sexuality are, of course, repugnant to the
Muslim and Catholic countries of the developing world because of their religious and cultural
values. As a result, these nations have strongly resisted the population policies of the
West.
To overcome this resistance, the western powers have devised a new tactic of promoting the
status of women and the empowerment of women as a guise to instigate population control
policies in the developing world.
That is, by promoting “gender equality” and the “empowerment” of women, the West anticipates
that women, once educated and economically independent, will voluntarily separate themselves
from the “liability” of religion and culture, family and children, which has allegedly
enslaved them for centuries. Such emancipation would supposedly then make the UN’s"reproductive rights” acceptable to women. Thus, the promotion of “empowerment” of women, has
become the major issue promoted by the UN in recent years.
The most prominent voice for the West in pushing this agenda is Canada, which serves at the
UN in this regard as the agent of the EU and the US. Canada has been selected for this role
because it is a non-threatening middle power with a relatively small population. It is thus
willing to advocate strenuously at these UN conferences for a feminist interpretation of
women’s empowerment, including reproductive rights, even though these policies are
objectionable to the majority of Canadians.
Moreover, Canada, as well as other wealthy western nations, is privately funding many of the
feminist NGOs that are heavily lobbying at this and other UN conferences. These NGOs pretend
that they represent “women,” when, in fact, they represent only the feminist ideology of
their own unelected, unrepresentative organizations and that of the Western powers who are
funding them.
It is alarming, too, that religious freedoms were downgraded at the Beijing conference and
religion is no longer treated as a fundamental right at the UN. Rather, thanks to the West’s
agenda, religion is now regarded as an obstacle to be overridden in order to achieve the
West’s objectives.
C. Gwendolyn Landolt is National Vice President of REAL Women of Canada. She served as an NGO
representative at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and was vice-chair of
the Women’s Caucus at the 1996 World Food Summit in Rome.
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Beijing+5 delegates battle again over abortion references
By Celeste McGovern
NEW YORK - Negotiations on the Beijing + 5 review document slowed to a snail’s pace yesterday
morning as delegates debated a paragraph regarding “women and health” that contained
controversial language including “reproductive rights” and “sexual health.” Such language is
at the heart of the dispute between pro-family lobbyists and radical feminists at the
Beijing+5 negotiations, and at other UN social-policy discussions.
The working paragraph under debate on “women and health,” which was drafted by the EU,
included the phrase “increased attention to reproductive health and sexual and reproductive
rights of women.” Feminist activists interpret that language as including access to on-demand
abortion.
To protect against such an interpretation being imposed on nations against their will, the
Holy See delegation re-quested “reproductive rights” be defined as in the Report of the 1994
International Con-ference on Population and Development. This would preserve the reservations
made by numerous countries at that conference to the “reproductive rights” terminology. That
phrase is already a “clear compromise,” the Holy See noted, adding that individual countries’
specific interpretations and objections to the phrase would be improperly lost if the report
wasn’t mentioned.
The Algerian delegation echoed the Holy See’s concerns, asking that both reproductive rights
and sexual health remain bracketed (and therefore not yet unanimously approved) “because
there are a great many reservations made at both the Cairo conference and the Beijing
conference.” Algeria also asked for a reference to the reports of both conferences, in order
that individual countries’ concerns about the “reproductive rights” language will be properly
reflected in the Beijing+5 document.
One EU delegate asked for specific mention of “sexual rights,” which the Holy See objected on
grounds that, “There is no agreed wording in any United Nations document thus far on an
accepted definition for sexual rights.” The EU countered with a reference to paragraph 90 of
the Platform for Action, in which there is reference to “human rights of women” including"sexual and reproductive health.”
A number of delegates supported a motion to have contraceptive methods referred to in the
contest of a broader phrase referring to “increased knowledge and use of family planning.”
However, the EU delegation objected vigorously to the combination, asserting that the “two
concepts are very important to us.” Family planning refers to contraception within a family,
a EU delegate explained, whereas in the EU’s view contraception can refer to relationships
outside of families, such as between teenagers.
There was no reference during the negotiation session to Canada’s earlier proposal to include
in the paragraph a reference to “emergency contraception.” Pro-life medical authorities
assert “emergency contraception” inevitably encompasses early-term abortions, as it refers to
chemical interventions that can take effect after fertilization has occurred. “We’re still
negotiating,” a Canadian delegation said when asked about the missing phrase, implying that
Western delegations intend to introduce more controversial language into the “women and
health” paragraph.
Outside the conference hall, a grandmother caring for an infant boy while her daughter
attended the sessions said she faced discrimination against women with babies for the second
time during the Beijing+5 negotiations. The woman reported she was standing with the baby,
who was playing happily in a near-empty hallway, when a security guard told her she had to
“clear him out.”“He’s just been harassing me,” said the 68-year-old woman. She added that
the same guard also refused to let her attend the International Women’s Day celebrations with
the baby. “I finally asked him today, ‘What do you have against this baby?’ and he said,
‘Well, this isn’t a day care’.”
Negotiations on “women and health” were suspended after yesterday’s morning negotiation
session to allow the G-77 coalition of developing countries to canvass among themselves on
the issues of contention.
At an afternoon briefing of NGOs by the American delegation, the first clear indication
emerged that the slow pace of negotiations will result in additional Beijing+5 sessions.
According to U.S. delegation spokesperson Linda Tarr-Whelan, two intersessional meetings will
likely be necessary to complete the review document in time for next June’s Beijing+5 Special
Session of the UN General Assembly.
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Western nations rethink population control, family
By Mary Jo Anderson
Last week, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan advocated relaxing US visa quotas to
permit more workers to enter the US. His comments were just the latest to highlight a
groundswell of economic concern over population control and social stability. Most recently,
both Norway and England have initiated policies designed to redress the failing philosophy of
the last thirty years.
The industrialized nations are wealthy now, but they are aging rapidly. The political fears
and social pressures that spring from these demographic realities have forced some
theoreticians and public policy experts to rethink the Malthusian formula.
A Wall Street Journal analysis reports that towns “will be bereft of children, and schools
will be closed for lack of students. If the human face of this population implosion is
melancholy, do understand the economic consequences are nothing short of grim. Labor
shortages will cramp production. Housing markets will grow moribund. This in turn will create
a drag on real estate and other sectors.”
As the industrial democracies age, the economic chaos outlined by the Wall Street Journal
becomes inevitable. A penchant for material goods that led Western consumers to choose three
TVs and two cars but only 1.6 children has led to a sterile society, and the bill is due.
The Beijing+5 Conference began with a presentation by some of the world’s leading
demographers offering a critical reappraisal of the earth’s demographic future. They warned
of rapidly diminishing populations and a continued decline in fertility. Some 35 nations are
dying in both Eastern and Western Europe. In fifteen European countries, graves are dug more
often than babies are delivered. According to a New York Times account, the Italian
government predicts “empty classrooms and thousands of unemployed teachers, with shortages
of service industry workers and health care personnel to care for older people.”
The social implications of depopulation and loss of family life are equally grim. Japan,
suffers from population depletion - whole villages have no one but the elderly.
The New York Times reported that by 2025, 73% of Japan’s income will be required for social
welfare programs for the elderly. Because baby girls are aborted in favor having only one
child - a son - deep societal tensions will arise when men are unable to find wives.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed the family as the basic social unit.
After a generation of population control and the sterility of the sexual revolution, some
industrialized nations are awakening to that foundational truth given in the Declaration.
Norway’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Janne Haaland Matlary, has called for an
innovative government response to encourage family life. The Vice Minister, who holds degrees
in Political Science and European History, declared, “. certain problems cannot be resolved
by the market. To arrive at social stability it is fundamental to promote policies that
appreciate and help the family.”
Norway’s new program in aid to families, the “Cash Benefit Scheme,” employs an elegant
simplicity: It provides a cash benefit, equal the amount the state would have set aside
(about US$6,000) for kindergarten or daycare directly to parents. This strategy empowers the
parents - they may return to full time work, or, choose to be at home with their toddlers
during the critical early childhood years.
Some feminist groups opposed the “Cash Benefit” plan, charging that it was an attempt to
force women into domestic subservience, erasing years of “progress.” Feminists declined to
receive recognize the plan as a means of offering a real choice for those mothers who
preferred to be with their children. Matlary pointed out, “Their dogmatic view is that all
women should work outside the home, and that kindergartens are best for your child, better
than being cared for by one of the parents at home.” As in Norway, other nations are again
recognizing the family - not the village - as the primary unit of society. Just last week in
London, the BBC reported that the British government plans to initiate educational guides
for teachers that stress the importance of marriage and family life. Education laws will be
amended requiring schools to implement the guidelines. Scotland is considering adopting a
similar program. As the economists and social experts in industrialized nations awaken to the
perils of depopulation and societal pressures against the traditional family, powerful
feminist NGOs continue to pressure member nations to adopt lethal policies via
reinterpretation of the Beijing Platform for Action. Developing nations continue to resist
this control - in the guise of “international monitoring” - and preserve their sovereignty,
ensuring that issues of population, development and social stability remain the
responsibility of member states.
In the face of rising social instability and dire population forecasts in the industrialized
nations, it is curious that their delegations insist on an emphasis far removed from the
basic needs of most of the women in developing countries. Comprehensive medical care of the
whole woman is sacrificed to a narrow focus on reproductive anatomy.
Rising nations note with grave reservations the rapid aging of the more industrialized
countries - a costly lesson that developing nations may yet avoid. The lesson is stark:
Nations which promote extreme fertility regulation measures, including open access to
abortion, tax penalties for larger families, and the sterile lifestyles of the sexual
revolution pay an enormous price one generation later.
Greying nations are facing depletion of their greatest resource - human capital. These
nations are aging so rapidly that political fears, economic projections and social chaos are
forcing reconsideration of ill advised policies at all levels of society.