By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent
MEXICO CITY, May 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-abortion organization funded by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace (CCODP) has removed statements from its website expressing enthusiastic support for Mexico City's law permitting abortion on demand for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The statements were originally reported by LifeSiteNews (LSN) in March of this year as part of ongoing coverage of CCODP's support for pro-abortion organizations worldwide (see links following article). The CCODP is an arm of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and claims to oppose the legalization of abortion.
Although the organization, the All Rights for Everyone Network (Red Todos los Derechos para Todos – TDT) has eliminated the material from its website, LSN has saved copies of the web pages, which also remain in the cache of the world's largest search engine, Google. LSN is also obtaining signed affadavits from witnesses who attest that they have viewed and printed out the pages in question from the internet.
Anticipating a similar move on the part of other CCODP-funded pro-abortion organizations previously exposed by LSN, this news agency is also obtaining notarized affadavits from persons who attest the same regarding numerous other pro-abortion webpages on the groups' sites that they have viewed and printed.
The documents removed include a statement by TDT that was issued on April 24, 2008 on behalf of all of its members, which praises Mexico City's new abortion law. The law, passed in 2007, allows women to obtain abortions free of charge in public hospitals for any reason during the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.
“The law that permits the legal interruption of pregnancy in the Federal District [Mexico City] represents an advance for the human rights of women,” declared the group.
“The law that permits the legal interruption of pregnancy up to twelve weeks of gestation, which establishes preventative measures in the area of sexual and reproductive health, approved by the Legislative Assembly of the Federal District on the 24th of April, 2007, is a moderate and integral law that has contributed significantly to the exercise of human rights in women, both in the City of Mexico and in some other states,” TDT adds.
“We exhort the organs of government, particularly the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, to consolidate the advancement that this law represents and avoid retrogressive actions in prejudice of the human rights of women.”
Although the statement has been removed, it can still be found in Google's cache system, which saves copies of webpages that the search engine lists (see statement in Spanish in cache). **JUNE 22 LSN NOTE: The cached version of the statement has also been removed from the Internet.
Members of TDT, on whose behalf the statement was made, include another CCODP grant recipient, the Agustin Pro Juarez Center for Human Rights (Centro de Derechos Humanos Agustín Pro Juárez – PRODH), which has published several pro-abortion statements of its own.
TDT also includes “Catholics for the Right to Decide” (Católicas por el Derecho de Decidir), an organization that advocates abortion as a “right” and falsely claims to be Catholic, as well as LGBT Agenda, a homosexualist organization (see membership list).
The group has also removed its own pro-abortion “agenda” from its website, which previously appeared as a .pdf file. In the document, the group proclaims its support for making abortion available in cases of rape (page 11 of pdf, page 29 of original).
The removal of the material follows the publication of a recent memo leaked to LifeSiteNews indicating that CCODP officials intend to continue to claim that media coverage of pro-abortion CCODP funding (which has been primarily carried out by LifeSiteNews and the weblog SoCon or Bust) is “false” (see LifeSiteNews coverage).
The memo, which refers to the recent visitation by Canadian bishops and CCODP officials to five of the groups in Mexico, suggests that the report issued by the visitation committee may seek to deny the charges, despite the evidence available to anyone with internet access.
TDT received $40,000 Canadian dollars from CCODP in the 2007-2008 year.
Previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Group Funded by Development and Peace Supports Mexico City's Abortion on Demand Law
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032313.html
Hundreds of Thousands in Canadian Lent Collection Money Funding Pro-Abortion Groups in Mexico
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031210.html
Leaked Development & Peace Memo: Social Justice Group Still Denies Wrongdoing with Deceptive Tactics
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052213.html
Summary of LSN's coverage of Development and Peace Scandal
https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/DevelopmentPeace/