CARACAS, Venezuela, May 21, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court of Venezuala has instituted a ban on pornographic and other sexual content in the nation's media.

In a May 9 ruling, the court's constitutional branch in Caracas ordered "the elimination of all images of explicit or implicit sexual content in advertisements in print media of open access to girls, boys and teens."

The ruling applies to ads that promote services "linked to the exploitation of sex," such as phone sex lines placed in general access media, newspapers, and billboards.

The ruling comes as the result of a case brought by Venezuelan citizen Gilberto Rua in 2009. Rua petitioned the court to order a daily newspaper, Diario Meridiano CA, to “cease the publishing of pornographic classified ads in newspapers and magazines for the general public."  Mr. Rua stated he was bringing the case on behalf of his own underage children and all "boys, girls and adolescents."

Mr. Rua argues that when "soft porn" is offered in the general access media regularly, children are likely to be exposed to it, encouraging the sexualization of children and teens and leading to promiscuity, acceptance of unbiblical and unhealthy morals, and early pregnancy. 

The ruling also encourages the nation's Telecommunications Commission to monitor song lyrics and ensure that songs with questionable lyrics are reserved for hours when children will not be likely to be exposed to them.

The opinion of the court reiterates the Venezuelan Constitution's provision for freedom of expression, but also maintains that such freedom must be limited by opportunity, proportionality and reason, depending on the circumstances and the facts.  The court affirmed that respecting the rights of boys, girls, and adolescents is one of the "intrinsic limits of freedom of expression" and that the media must use its right to free expression in a way that contributes to the culture and the developmental rights of the general population as established by the Venezuelan Constitution.

LINCOLN, Nebraska, April 4, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – According to the state auditor, taxpayers may have spent more than $19,000 on illegal abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities in Nebraska in the last fiscal year alone.

More than 98 percent of all family planning dollars the office inspected lacked proper substantiation, according to a 341-page report issued by Nebraska State Auditor Charlie Janssen on March 24.

The auditor's office investigated all agencies that receive at least $500,000 a year from the federal government.

His investigative team found that the state Planned Parenthood affiliate had illegally billed federal Title X family planning services – which is supposed to pay for contraception, STDs, and breast and cervical cancer screenings – for performing abortions, instead.

At the outset, the office estimated that $1,787,608 of a total of $1,815,199 of taxpayer dollars were “at risk” for misuse due to incomplete record keeping or lack of compliance with the law.

State officers examined the expenditures reported by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland during one bimonthly period, comparing its account with records on file at three state Planned Parenthood offices.

Of 10 program income expenditures, one included $1,970 physician's fee for performing one or more abortions.

Of 10 pathology expenditures, two were related to abortion. Planned Parenthood admitted the $1,260 in charges related to “products of conception” from abortion, not miscarriage services.

“Three of eleven employees tested had travel reimbursements that were not consistent with timesheets and appeared related to abortion services, resulting in questioned costs of $255,” the report states. The three employees charged family planning services for their travel time to perform abortions at least eight separate times.

A clinic manager also charged for two hours of on-call time for performing an abortion.

“Total expenditures reviewed for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland were $54,572, of which $3,537 we noted related to abortion services,” they found.

That means more than six percent of the Title X funds Planned Parenthood received had illegally been used to pay for abortion.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland received $297,976 in family planning funding in 2015. If the same rate of misappropriations held throughout the year, taxpayers would have paid $19,308.84 for illegal abortion procedures in Nebraska in 2015 alone.

However, the statutory language of Title X – a federal program passed in 1970 aimed at “Population Research and Voluntary Family Planning” – states that “none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

The report found additional issues, as well. For instance, 38 percent of Planned Parenthood customers were not charged properly.

“None of the three [Planned Parenthood] subrecipients had adequate documentation to support the amounts reported to the Agency,” the report said.

These alleged misrepresentations amount to only one state in one year.

In 2012, the Alliance Defending Freedom released a 23-page report that found Planned Parenthood could be guilty of up to $99 million in waste or fraud, including the illegal taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion-related procedures.

In 2013 Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which is based in Texas, settled a lawsuit over defrauding Medicaid for $4.3 million.

In 2014, a Texas whistleblower accused Planned Parenthood of defrauding taxpayers by performing unnecessary medical procedures on incarcerated teenagers, who were disproportionately minorities.

Last year, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin reported that one in seven of Planned Parenthood's charges to the state “are inaccurately coded or insufficiently documented.”

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland told the Omaha World-Herald these were private funds that had been “miscoded,” and spokeswoman Angie Remington said the report is “very clear this is targeting Planned Parenthood.”

The section discussing Planned Parenthood takes up only a handful of pages in the auditor's comprehensive statewide report.

A spokesman for Gov. Pete Ricketts said the report “dovetails exactly with the governor’s concerns from almost a year ago about Planned Parenthood’s abortion activities,” when he ordered Planned Parenthood investigated in relation to undercover videos concerning the sale of aborted human organs and tissue. It uncovered unrelated violations.

Janssen's office presented its conclusions to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Kansas City, which told the World-Herald it agrees with its findings. But the Obama administration has not said whether it will impose any sanctions against Planned Parenthood for illegally funding abortion.

Janssen, a Republican, said that he merely wanted to account for federal funds administered locally by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

While federal abortion funding is “a very passionate topic for people,” Janssen said he did not “think this should rise to the level of the federal government withholding funds” from Planned Parenthood.

But Michael J. Norton, an ADF senior counsel, disagrees.

“Compliance with the law should not be sacrificed for the sake of Planned Parenthood's bottom line,” he said. “They have taken advantage of the American taxpayer for too long."

We call upon all people of good will to listen to the call of the Mother of God and to join with great love and devotion the defense of the civilization of life and love, which is under serious threat globally.

So reads, in part, the “Universal Declaration in Defense of the Civilization of Life—Mexico 2016”, a landmark statement from a collection of Catholic and Orthodox pro-life organizations from around the world. Released on Divine Mercy Sunday during what Pope Francis has designated as the Jubilee Year of Mercy, the statement is both a resounding indictment of secular cultures where innocent life is under attack, and an expression of hope in the mother of God as intercessor for faithful who are doing everything in their power to defeat the Culture of Death.

“As we continue to fight for life and family, we must place our trust entirely in God and His divine mercy,” said Lech Kowalewski, who collaborated in the writing of the Declaration. “The only substantial change in cultures where the Culture of Death had reigned has come where the people turned explicitly to the Theotokos, the Mother of God, and asked for her help and intercession with her Son.”

Kowalewski refers to historical examples, also referenced in the Declaration, of the defeat of Communism that began in Poland after the visit of Saint Pope John Paul II, and the conversion of barbarous pagan cultures in Mexico that followed the apparition of Guadalupe. In Poland, the Solidarity Movement regularly invoked the intercession of Our Lady of Czestochowa in their peaceful and victorious rebellion against Communist occupation. Nearly five centuries earlier, an apparition witnessed by a poor Indian peasant named Juan Diego was the occasion for the appearance of a miraculous image, Our Lady of Guadalupe, leading to the conversion of millions throughout Mexico in only a few years.

“This is why Ewa and I reached out to friends from around the world several years ago, and together we came up with the idea for the From Ocean to Ocean Campaign in Defense of Life,” added Kowalewski. “The ancient Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant into battle, and this tradition was renewed by Christians who brought traditional images of the Mother of God, the new Ark of the Covenant, into battle as well. With the level of moral and social decay we see around the world, it is time for a miracle again, and Our Lady has delivered in the past as she points all the faithful to her Son, Jesus Christ.”

The From Ocean to Ocean Campaign, in which an Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa is carried throughout nations by the faithful, currently continues in Mexico, where she has visited 140 communities since November 2014. Since it began in Vladivostok, Russia in 2012, the pilgrim Icon of Czestochowa has traveled over 103,000 miles through 27 nations, and has been seen by over 5 million people.

“It has been a tremendous blessing to see our Mexican brothers and sisters in the faith embrace the Mother of God under her Czestochowa Icon, as the miraculous Icon of Guadalupe remains so central to Mexican culture,” said Ewa Kowalewska, who wrote the Universal Declaration in collaboration with her husband and with Beatriz Gonzalez, coordinator of the Campaign in Mexico. “When this campaign began in Vladivostok over four years ago, we could not have foreseen all of her travels and the wonderful effects where she has visited.”

The Universal Declaration was initiated in Mexico. It was presented and read at a Holy Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, celebrated by the bishop of Valle del Chalco, Víctor René Rodríguez Gómez. The Icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa has been hosted at the Sanctuary of Mercy Shrine in Tenango del Aire, which is in the same diocese and has been the “home base” for the Ocean to Ocean Campaign as it has proceeded throughout Mexico. The Declaration was also presented on April 2^nd in Czestochowa, Poland, at the monastery that hosts the traditional icon.

“So many people have lost hope as they look around at sky high abortion rates, the embrace of euthanasia, terrorism and other attacks on vulnerable lives in modern societies,” added Kowalewska. “But such despair is not an option. Our hope amid such chaos comes from the Lord, who has defeated sin and death, and whose mother calls us again to turn to Him if we are to see a victory against this Culture of Death.”

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The Declaration will be published in Polish, English, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Czech, Slovak and more languages.

When asked what they expect the Universal Declaration to accomplish, the Kowalewskis point to past victories for life and faith when the Church places all its trust in God and asks for the intercession of the Mother of Jesus.

“God’s plans are so much better, more complicated, more beautiful than our own. Yet He has shown again and again that His Mercy is without bounds, that those who repent and turn to Him can see victory even in the darkest of times. He has chosen the Mother of Jesus many times as His means of reaching proud hearted people who have given up hope, but who recognize in her maternal love the Hope of Christ Our Savior. There is always hope. We do not tell God what to do, we try our best to listen to Him and follow without fear. History and faith tell us that He is our only hope. We have to act like we believe this.”

For more information on the "Universal Declaration in Defense of a Civilization of Life—Mexico 2016” and the From Ocean to Ocean Campaign in Defense of Life, visit www.fromoceantoocean.com. 

Below is the full text of the "Universal Declaration on Protection of the Civilization of Life - Mexico 2016":

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON PROTECTION

OF THE CIVILIZATION OF LIFE – MEXICO 2016

From the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Tenango del Aire, Mexico on Divine Mercy Sunday, in the Jubilee Year of Mercy, and the eve of the Sanctity of Life Day united with the feast of the Annunciation of the Lord

We, the defenders of life gathered in the International Coalition "From Ocean to Ocean", leading a historic pilgrimage of Our Lady of Czestochowa through the world in defense of life:

Respond to the great call of Mary, Mother of Christ, to protect the civilization of life and love in the contemporary world;

Stand in the presence of the Theotokos before Her living Guadalupe image on Tepeyac Hill with Our Lady of Czestochowa on a peregrination passing through Mexico and Latin America with a copy of the Divine Mercy painting Saint Faustina commissioned;

Trust that Mary, the Great Patroness of the Defense of Life, as She revealed Herself in Mexico to free people from the shackles of the culture of death, will also today protect the endangered civilization of life and love; and

Thank God for the presence of Mary, who in Her Czestochowa Icon has traveled over 165,000 km through 27 countries on three continents, awakening consciences and pointing to the only Way to save the modern world, Jesus Christ.

We call upon all people of good will to listen to the call of the Mother of God and to join with great love and devotion the defense of the civilization of life and love, which is under serious threat globally.

With you Mary, we will protect our family, our children and our faith. We will stand for the Church of Christ, for peace in the world, and for our future!

Most Holy Mother Mary,

We give thanks for your peregrination in defense of the civilization of life and love. In the Icon of Czestochowa, you have journeyed more than 4 times the distance around the world since 2012, spreading graces and life-giving love. You cause joy everywhere as you passed through 27 countries on three continents, showing the world that the faith in the hearts of people is still alive!

Now in Mexico, you have visited over 140 sites. We are living the mystery of the Visitation. We carry you into our homes, families and sanctuaries, but you carry us as true “Sentinels of life.” “Do not give up!” as Saint John Paul II encouraged us in the new millennium: “Duc in Altum!” Cast out into the deep!

Sailing through dark waters and torrents is difficult. This is why we are so grateful to have the Blessed Virgin Mary by our side. You are the radiant dawn and sure guide for our steps.

As you said on Tepeyac Hill in your apparition to Saint Juan Diego as Our Lady of Guadalupe: “Am I not here who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? (…) Do not fear (…)”

We also have the promise of your Son: “I am with you until the end of the world.” (Mt 28,20)

In the midst of so much confusion, pain and sorrow, you give us strength. Teach us to live as loving families with the model of your Holy Family ever before us. Increase our trust and our union with your Divine Son. We desperately need God’s abundant graces and mercy.

Mother of Mercy, we come to you for encouragement. The world needs beautiful witnesses to the sacredness and inviolability of every human life, especially the most precious and vulnerable children in their mother’s wombs. In a time where the true nature of marriage and family is attacked globally, we must show ever more clearly the marvel of a sacramental marriage serving as the “Cradle of Life” and “Domestic Church.”

With you, we can resist the despair and death that comes from the enemy of God. Inspire us to become a people of prayer, especially of the Most Holy Rosary. Help us to implore Divine Mercy continuously. May we proclaim with increasing fervor, “Jesus I Trust in You!” and invoke daily the beautiful words of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world!” 

Thank you, Mother!

Reprinted with permission from Human Life International.

April 4, 2016 (C-Fam) St. John Paul the Great is the man whom did more than anyone in history to promote the right to life of children in the womb. His legacy at the United Nations is under threat, more than ever.

For the first time in recent memory an annual UN agreement on women’s issues might have mentioned “sexual and reproductive health” and related terms untethered from the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development where St. John Paul the Great stopped the United Nations from declaring an international right to abortion.

Machinations that would have resulted in this possibility did not succeed this week as the annual UN Commission on the Status of Women once more fell back on the Cairo agreement to avoid prolonged contentious negotiations.

The story of the Cairo agreement is remarkable.

A UN declaration of a right to abortion seemed all but inevitable going into the Cairo negotiations in 1994. St. John Paul the Great launched a full court press on UN officials and governments all around the world to stop this, making public statements, and mobilizing the Catholic laity to action.

As a result, the Cairo agreement contains important caveats that have accompanied “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” language in UN policy ever since, most importantly at the Commission on the Status of Women each year. These caveats exclude the notion of abortion as an international right, and cast abortion in a negative light.

Ever since 1994 the caveats have been the fall back position of pro-life and pro-family groups and UN member states when it is not feasible to exclude or redefine language that includes abortion by definition in the Cairo agreement.

The caveats have become increasingly important as governments from the West have adopted progressive liberal social polices, most notably the Obama administration. Alongside the notion of an international right to abortion, the Cairo agreement blocked international recognition for homosexual rights, sexual rights, comprehensive sexuality education, a redefinition of the family, and other controversial issues.

While the caveats fall well short of the protections for the unborn that St. John Paul the Great aspired to, they constitute a formidable thorn in the side of abortion groups and their supporters at the United Nations, and effectively, if not by law, still prevent the development of an international right to abortion.

Perhaps most importantly, the caveats limit the mandate of UN agencies and the UN bureaucracy more widely. Though UN agencies and bureaucrats frequently promote abortion rights, sexual rights, homosexual rights, comprehensive sexuality education, and other harmful policies with impunity, they do so without a mandate. Such a mandate will never be forthcoming so long as countries fall back on the Cairo agreement.

Conversely, abortion groups and their supporters at UN headquarters have insistently and disingenuously sought to scrap the Cairo agreement in recent years and to replace it with UN resolutions that further the agenda of the sexual revolution. But every year their efforts have been rebuffed by the inclusion of the caveat “in accordance with” the Cairo agreement when sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights come up in a resolution.

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The predictable pattern of negotiations at the Commission on the Status of Women changed this year. The caveats almost did not make it in the final draft of the agreement, and even some pro-life delegations were willing to see this happen if the term “reproductive rights” did not make it in the draft. Even though the terms “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” are defined coextensively in UN policy, and the former includes abortion by definition, they argued it would be more significant to exclude the latter term than preserve the Cairo caveats.

Some pro-life groups, willing to attempt to sanitize these tainted UN terms, now argue that the broader context of the right to health would ameliorate a mention of sexual and reproductive health. This position is increasingly untenable for pro-life groups, especially in light of the efforts of the UN system to establish abortion as a right precisely as part of the right to health.

The Cairo agreement is not without problems, and the Holy See has never accepted it as a compromise because it de facto—even though not legally because it is not binding—strips children of the right to life in international law by legitimizing abortion as a component of sexual and reproductive health in UN policy.

The agreement represents a step back from the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the most widely ratified binding human rights treaty, and one of very few ratified by the Holy See, where children are acknowledged as deserving protection before birth.

This should in fact be considered more properly the legacy of St. John Paul the Great. But so long as powerful countries and abortion groups promote abortion as an international right, they will always remember him as the man who stopped an international right to abortion in 1994, and their greatest antagonist. Every time the Cairo caveats are included in an agreement it is a painful reminder of this. And so long as countries are not willing to roll-back the Cairo agreement, it will be the only position to fall back on for pro-life groups.

Reprinted with permission from C-Fam.