News

NEW YORK, February 23, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The effectiveness of the pro-life and pro-family lobbyists at the United Nations is starting to worry some groups. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) reports that the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) has convened a meeting to help pro-abortion groups at the UN counter the charge that the UN promotes abortion.

At the meeting, Gillian Sorensen, a senior adviser at Ted Turner’s UN Foundation, and former UN Assistant Secretary General for External Affairs, instructed those present to lie about the UN activities in “reproductive health services.” C-Fam’s Friday Fax news service reports that, “she told the audience members that whenever the issue of abortion is raised, they should respond by saying that the UN only supports such uncontroversial components of sexual and reproductive health services as safe delivery and healthy motherhood initiatives.”

Such an attempt at deception seems futile however since the UN’s promotion of abortion and sterilization has become so widely known. In June 2001, Andras Vamos-Goldman, a Canadian delegate to the UN publicly admitted that “reproductive health services” means abortion to UN organizations such as UNICEF and the UNFPA.  In an astonishing revelation of contempt for those US citizens whom various groups at the UN purport to represent, Sorensen said that in the United States, “there is a huge reservoir of ignorance and apathy, a great vacuum in this country that has been seized by the hard right.” The president of the UN Association of the USA, and a former US ambassador, William Luers, said, “that an American knows nothing about this organization.” He suggested that direct questions be answered using “sports metaphors.”  Said Samantha Singson, the International Affairs Officer of Campaign Life Coalition and a long-time UN pro-life lobbyist, “This report re-confirms something that pro-life lobbyists at the UN have known for years. The use of vague language and euphemism has enabled United Nations officials to deny involvement in abortion activities while quietly funding programs and services that are indeed abortion-inclusive.”  To read the Friday Fax from C-Fam:  https://www.c-fam.org/