NEW YORK, September 12, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The United Nations’ 2005 World Summit, to be held from 14 to 16 September at United Nations Headquarters in New York, is expected to bring together more than 170 Heads of State and Government: the largest gathering of world leaders in history. At this august assembly the noble goal of eliminating poverty will be a centerpiece. In 2000, all 191 UN Member States pledged to meet eight goals – the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – to eradicate poverty by the year 2015 and to promote a Make Poverty History campaign.
The Millennium Development Goals:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
However, pro-life analysts on the international scene warn that this laudable initiative is being hijacked by pro-abortion groups which are using the event to universalize abortion as a supposedlyÂacceptable way to eradicate poverty. Euro-fam, a pro-life groups which monitors the European parliament, notes that in order to do this, abortion advocates are aggressively lobbying to introduce a ‘right’ to sexual and reproductive health (a euphemism for abortion and fertility regulation, according to the World Health Organisation) in several of the goals.
Last April 12th, the European Parliament recommended, through the Kinnock report, that the EU should strive to promote reproductive health ‘rights’ in the MDGs. The report clearly outlines a need to provide a broad range of family planning services, including ‘safe abortions’, where it is legal. During the negotiations in preparation of the MDG summit, European pro-abortion groups have done little to conceal their strategy to combat poverty through population control.
United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) unabashedly argues that abortion should be included in the MDGs and attempts to demonstrate how it would help poverty reduction on a goal by goal reflection of the MDGs (https://www.unfpa.org/icpd/goalbygoal.htm ):
MDG1: Lower population growth, smaller families would bring higher income and would reduce poverty.
MDG2: Fewer children would mean better access to education.
MDG3: ‘Childbearing decisions’, i. e. abortion, empowers women.
MDG4: If the child is killed in the womb, he or she will not grow or live in poverty.
Abortion means better parenting skills.
MDG5: Fertility regulation means fewer births and would decrease maternal mortality
MDG6: Abortion would help to combat HIV/AIDS and would stop the transmission of the virus from the mother to the unborn child.
MDG7: A smaller population would lead to a better use of land and space, improving the environment.¸
For their part, pro-life advocates have produced a highly referenced document noting that the MDGs can only be fulfilled by a loving approach to motherhood and the family, noting the devastation abortion causes not only for the child, but also for the mother and the society as a whole.Â
Euro-fam’s document called Millennium Development Goals: A Case Against Abortion
Available here:
https://www.euro-fam.org/documents/partaged/pub2005/Actions/mdgsthecaseagainstabortion.doc
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