TORONTO, Canada, March 17, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com)
By Campaign Life Coalition UN Representative
2nd Meeting of the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) African Steering Group held in New York:
On March 10th, the UN Secretary General chaired the 2nd meeting of the MDGs African Steering Group. The African continent is often the focus of many talks, especially when it comes to the ability of its various countries to meet the MDGs.
At the close of the meeting, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at a press conference. In his address to the media, he reminded the press that “The facts on the ground in Africa speak very clearly: with the exception of maternal mortality, each individual MDG will be reached in several African countries.”
Reducing maternal mortality is very important to improving the conditions of many children in developing countries who would grow up in a much healthier environment if they were surrounded by a mother and a father. However, many UN leaders and agencies have been constructing pregnancy as a problem and using the need to reduce maternal mortality to promote access to what they call ‘safe abortion’.
Abortion, far from reducing the risks of maternal death, in fact increases them. It is vital that the true health needs of women are met. For example, the Secretary General recommended that African Governments, with support from the international community, should focus on ensuring access to emergency obstetric care for all women by 2015. Unfortunately, this positive statement was counterbalanced with another recommendation: providing family planning services for all by 2015.
African countries are often very dependant on foreign aid. Some donor countries have been known to attempt to convince developing countries to soften their abortion laws if they wish to continue receiving funding.
Small Victory for Pro-lifers at the 52nd Commission on the Status of Women (CSW):
In her latest Friday Fax, Samantha Singson from Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) reports that pro-lifers, through two weeks of hard work, enjoyed a small victory when a few delegations supported the pro-life/pro-family coalition’ demands that the terms “sexual and reproductive health and rights” be kept out of the outcome document of the CSW.
The Delegation of Malta, on two occasions, distanced itself from the general position of the European Union by taking a pro-life stand. The United States were also amongst the few delegations that fought to stop the inclusion of negative terminology in the final document.
The issue of sex-selective abortion, which was mentioned by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his opening remarks, remains one of the central issues that the pro-life/ pro-family coalition spoke to delegations about. It is a severe form of violence against women and girls which has some dramatic social and economical impacts for countries who chose to practice it, as well as for the rest of the world.
For example, the practice can lead to human trafficking when, a few decades after a country practices prenatal sex selection, the young men are unable to find wives. No abortion is right, but it is important that delegates and the general public gain knowledge about the negative impacts linked specifically with sex- selective abortion.