Published: 9/1/10 09:36 AM - By Seana Cranston, J.D.
UNFPA Executive Director Departs
UNFPA's website reports that its departing Executive Director, Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, delivered her final speech to UNFPA's executive board on August 30th. A link to a video of her entire speech is provided. The website states that under Obaid's leadership, UNFPA has almost doubled its funding, from approximately $400 million to almost $700 million.
Obaid states that "UNFPA has played a critical role in highlighting the power of culture to change social norms and gender dynamics for equality between men and women by engaging communities and local leaders." Obaid declares that her work for UNFPA "is far more than a job, but a commitment, a mindset and a way of life."
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Filed Under : UN Agencies |
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Published: 9/1/10 08:51 AM - By Seana Cranston, J.D.
"The Future of the European Union"
Ilya Somin, Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University, speculates at the Volokh Conspiracy regarding the EU's future. Somin considers the European Union "one of the most interesting experiments in federalism of the post-World War II era," and ultimately concludes that the EU is likely to survive, despite the current economic crisis and "nationalist backlash." Somin states toward the conclusion of his post that he is "not sure that the superstate project is as dead as [he] hope[s]."
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Filed Under : EU Institutions, Sovereignty |
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Published: 8/31/10 10:56 AM - By Seana Cranston, J.D.
Independent Audit Panel Finds Flaws in UN Climate Reports
FoxNews reports in an article entitled, "Independent Audit Panel Slams U.N.'s Climate Group," that the InterAcademy Council, which is an independent group of scientists from various agencies throughout the world, presented the findings of its five-month investigation regarding climate change before the United Nations on Monday. FoxNews reveals that the group found "plenty of problems," and "took issue with the structure, methods and leadership of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the group responsible for a 2007 report that erroneously forecast the imminent melting of Himalayan glaciers, the rate of melt of polar ice caps and dwindling Amazon rainforests."
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Filed Under : UN Agencies |
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Published: 8/31/10 06:56 AM - By Gudrun Kugler, Mts, Ph.D.
Conscientious Objection Objected to by European Politicians
The European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics is worried about a “rather extensive use of the right to conscientious objection on religious grounds in order to refuse legal medical interventions [which have] to do with sexual and reproductive health right (mainly abortion) and assisted dying.”
Ms. McCafferty of the Council of Europe is the drafter of a resolution to be discussed in October on "Women's access to lawful medical care [and] the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection". This draft resolution sees “a need to balance the right of conscientious objection of an individual not to perform a certain medical procedure with the responsibility of the profession and the right of each patient to access lawful medical care in a timely manner.”
Her version of “balance” includes the obligation of the health care provider to “provide information to patients about all treatment options available (regardless of whether such information may induce the patient to pursue treatment to which the healthcare provider objects)”; to “refer patients to another healthcare provider in that case” and to “ensure that patients receive appropriate treatment from the healthcare provider to whom they have been referred”. In case of abortion or assisted suicide, none of these requirements could be fulfilled by a faithful Christian.
Ms. McCafferty’s right to “access lawful medical care in a timely manner” would trump freedom of conscience - one of the greatest achievements of human rights thought: The “Parliamentary Assembly is deeply concerned about the increasing and largely unregulated occurrence of this Practice [namely conscientious objection(!)]” -Should they not be concerned about abuses of human rights instead of attempting to curb those rights themselves? The adoption of this report would turn human rights upside down – in the name of some alleged “human rights”. It would wound Europe’s identity at its roots. It would deliver to the legislator to decide what is “lawful medical care” and what in consequence we ought to treat as right or as wrong. And to top everything, in this Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly draft resolution, freedom of conscience is only granted to individuals.
Faith-based organisations and hospitals would – according to the draft – be required to deliver all medical procedures which are legal. The draft resolution is formulated in general terms – but it hits mainly Christian communities and faithful Christians and will be a first step of closing them off one of their main branch of occupation throughout the last 1500 years.
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Filed Under : Abortion, Council of Europe, EU Institutions, Human Rights |
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Published: 8/30/10 04:29 PM - By Amanda Pawloski
Emergency Food, Water, Soap, and... Condoms?
U.S. Ambassador Susan E. Rice, addressed the UNFPA Executive Board Meeting at the United Nations today, praising UNFPA's response in providing emergency reproductive health service to people in disaster areas. Ambassador Rice stated,
The United States strongly supports UNFPA’s efforts to improve access to reproductive health services in crisis settings. We want to work together with UNFPA and other stakeholders to strengthen this initiative and to make certain that UNFPA has the appropriate resources and capacity to move forward. In recognition of UNFPA’s important work in this area, the United States recently provided UNFPA with additional resources specifically for this purpose in Haiti and Kyrgyzstan, where the needs for reproductive health services are critical.
The United States also commends the work that UNFPA and other UN agencies are doing to help Pakistan respond to the ongoing crisis stemming from the recent devastating floods. We urge donors around the world to support the efforts of the UN system and others to help the people of Pakistan cope with and recover from this terrible ordeal.
UNFPA provides essential kits for clean, safe delivery to pregnant women in areas that have been hit by natural disasters or civil unrest. These kits undoubtably save lives. But, in an emergency situation, it seems that UNFPA has other priorities in mind. For example,
Access to a secure supply of condoms and contraceptives is difficult enough in normal times in many countries. Disaster compounds the difficulty, at a time when pregnancy is most likely to be unwanted or dangerous. Free condoms are among the first reproductive health supplies to reach people caught in a crisis situation. They are in demand to prevent both unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS.
Condoms are also the first step towards restoring family planning services. UNFPA provides both male and female condoms in emergencies.
My heart goes out to the people in Pakistan who have lost their homes and family members. It would be shameful if these people were met in a refugee camp, not with much needed medical supplies, but with a "priority" package of condoms.
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Filed Under : UN Agencies |
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Published: 8/30/10 02:01 PM - By Tyler Ament
European Parliament Development Committee voting on SRHR
Today the European Parliament (EP) Development Committee is voting on sexual and reproductive health rights. In particular, the Committee is voting on Belgian MEP Veronique Dekeyser’s report ‘Health care systems in Sub-Saharan Africa.’ EuroNGOs - the European NGOs for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, Population and Development - states in their e-zine that “of particular importance” is paragraph F5 because “it takes a firm position and contains strong language regarding sexual and reproductive health rights.”
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Filed Under : Abortion, EU Institutions, Human Rights |
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Published: 8/30/10 01:19 PM - By Seana Cranston, J.D.
CEDAW Concluding Observations
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) recently released "Concluding Observations" from CEDAW's 46th session that criticize various countries around the world for failing to provide sufficient "reproductive health" services to their citizens.
CEDAW's forty-sixth session was held from July 12th through the 30th of 2010. Concluding observations were released in their English translation for Albania, Argentina, Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Russian Federation, and Turkey. With the exception of Australia, CEDAW's Observations encourage each country to provide increased reproductive and sexual health services, as well as to expand efforts to provide full access to family-planning information and services.
In its Observations regarding the Russian Federation, for example, CEDAW states that it is "concerned at the limited access to reproductive and sexual health services, especially in rural areas," as well as that "only 27 per cent of women of childbearing age make use of modern methods of contraception." CEDAW expresses concern that "family planning programs are not included in school curriculums" in the Russian Federation, and therefore additionally "recommends that sex education be widely promoted and targeted at adolescent girls and boys."
In its Observations regarding Papua New Guinea, CEDAW expresses concern that abortion is illegal in Papua New Guinea, and states--without citation or documentation to any source or study--that "this prohibition leads women to seek unsafe, illegal abortions, with consequent risks to their life and health." CEDAW requests that Papua New Guinea "strengthen and expand its efforts aimed at the prevention of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections by increasing knowledge about family planning," which, according to CEDAW, "should include the provision of comprehensive, youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health-care services," as well as "age-appropriate sex education as part of the formal and informal education curricula targeted at girls and boys."
However, as reported by a previous Friday Fax, CEDAW was particularly harsh in regard to Argentina, urging that Argentina "ensure women's and teenage girls' access to health services, including sexual and reproductive health services," and "see to it that education on sexual and reproductive health is undertaken in all schools at all levels, as relevant." CEDAW urges Argentina to "review existing legislation that criminalizes abortion," and ensure that "there is equal and effective access to health services to interrupt pregnancies." CEDAW additionally urges Argentina to "ensure that the rights of older women, women migrants, women with disabilities as well as lesbians, bisexual and transgendered women, among others, are fully protected," and "enjoy all their rights," particularly "sexual and reproductive rights."
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Filed Under : Abortion, UN Committees |
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Published: 8/27/10 08:14 PM - By Samantha Singson
LIVE BLOGGING From the World Youth Conference in Leon, Mexico
Government representatives at the WYC were just as confused as the conference drew to a close as they have been throughout the week. The Declaration of Guanajuato was adopted earlier today but the question of whether the controversial NGO recommendations would be appended to the declaration was not definitively answered.
Earlier this week, an elite group of youth delegates - many of whom were chosen and paid for by UNFPA - submitted their "recommendations" to the governments convened for the WYC. These included demands for: a redefinition of gender to include the "spectrum of gender identities," "comprehensive sexuality education" and "safe abortion."
C-FAM's Terry McKeegan spoke with one of the conference chairmen after the declaration was adopted. According to him, the NGO recommendations would NOT be attached or appended to the declaration when it is presented to the UN next month.
After the chaos of the last week, where no clear procedures were followed for drafting, negotiating or passing documents, I'd take that information with a big grain of salt.
Macedo said that governments would have until the end of September to register any written reservations to the declaration through their foreign ministries.
As one of the many WYC participants whose credentials mysteriously went "missing," I would urge any government delegation wishing to make a reservation against the NGO recommendations to get them in well before the end of September as you never know when things might get "lost" in the mail.
The Declaration of Guanajuato will be presented at the United Nations during the MDG review from September 22 - 25.
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Filed Under : Abortion, NGOs, UN Agencies, Youth |
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Published: 8/27/10 09:31 AM - By J.C. von Krempach, J.D.
European "Humanists": Lobbying for Anti-Values
What is posted below is a paper by David Pollock, President of the "European Humanist Federation" (EHF), in which he expands on the aims and strategy of his organisation.
As one can learn from this piece, the self-proclaimed "humanists" have not sought the opportunity for "dialogue" the EU is offering them. Instead, they are concerned over the fact that Article 17 of the EU Treaty recognises the Churches as partners for a structured dialogue.
Much in the same vein, it is clearly visible that the EHF has no positive contribution to make, and no values to promote. Their sole purpose is to fight against the values of others - and especially against the Catholic Church, which, as clearly can be seen, is their enemy number one. They have no values, but anti-values. How can they contribute to the common good???
Once more, one simply cannot help seeing that atheism (which is falsely called "humanism" by the EHF), is the one and only philosophical position that is by its very nature intolerant. While Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc. can either be tolerant or intolerant, atheists can only be intolerant: they always fight against the beliefs, the values, and the freedom of others.
Thanks God, those militant "humanists" are only a marginally small group: as they themselves must recognise, their organisations are "obscure bodies" that are "weak in numbers".
This begs the question: should the EU really have regular meetings with these atheist militants? Or are these groupings not too marginal, too intolerant, and too destructive to merit any consideration? What would one say if the EU held regular meetings with organisations whose single issue is to fight "against the influence of Jews", "against the influence of Homosexuals", "against Islam" or "against immigrants"? And if such organisations are not considered suitable interlocutors, why is the Commission speaking to the EHF?
Maybe some of my readers want to ask this question to Commission President Barroso. His e-mail address is:
Jose-Manuel.Barroso@ec.europa.eu
THE EHF AND THE LISBON TREATY
How to respond to the offer of dialogue?
by David Pollock, President of the European Humanist Federation
Europe has been distracted for most of a decade by the arguments about its constitution,but finally in December the Lisbon Treaty came into effect. What does that mean for the humanist and secularist movement?
First, it marks the formal end of the EHF's major campaign over many years, in which westruggled in vain to prevent the churches gaining a special place in the EU. Maybe we weretoo late from the start: it was back in 1997 that by backstairs lobbying the Vatican got adeclaration written into the Amsterdam Treaty that
The Union respects and does not prejudice the status under national law ofthe churches and religious associations or communities in the MemberStates
- an unwarranted surrender of influence over the privileged status of churches in most states that embodies some of the worst examples of discrimination and human rights abusein Europe. At least the EU's formally secular position added an equal recognition of‘philosophical and non-confessional organisations' - though these obscure bodies of course had no special ‘status under national law' in any member state.
So when the EU began its protracted constitutional wrangle we had already lost a key battle. Amidst sound and fury we won a symbolic victory by keeping out Christianity of the preamble to the proposed Constitution, but we lost the important argument over expanding 1997's mere recognition of the churches into a commitment to ‘regular, open and transparent dialogue' in the Lisbon Treaty. The story is told in detail on the EHF's website, including the unpublished joint submission by all the churches asking for advance consultation about proposed legislation, for regular dialogue with the EU officials, for working sessions on issues of particular concern, for personal meetings with the Commission President and for a liaison office within Commission offices - all of which except the last were delivered to them by President Barroso well before the Treaty inserted the infamous Article 17 into the old Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Where does that leave us? First, with a need for continuing vigilance: the conference of Catholic bishops (COMECE) is on record that they do not consider their present privileges adequate to fulfil the Lisbon treaty. At this moment they may well be working behind thescenes to create a new reality of even greater influence ready for eventual formal recognition at some future date. After all, politics rather than principles count here, and the great majority of Europe's politicians owe at least formal allegiance to religion while far too many for our comfort are heavily committed to maximising the power of the church, especially in its most reactionary causes.
Even without that threat, we have to deal with Article 17. The treaty gives us a formal position of equality with the churches and other religious organisations. The inequality lies not in the Treaty but in the reality of our situation. The churches have all the advantages: historical power and privilege, wealth, and a belief system that requires organisational commitment and self-sacrifice from its adherents. Our belief system advocates free thought and individuality, with no incentive to collective action. Our organisations are therefore lacking in resources and weak in numbers. As a result, although maybe 1 in 3 Europeans has no religion and far more live their lives effectively without religion, we are always open to the challenge that we represent only our formal membership - even while the churches lay claim to everyone else by default!
There are those - many of them ideologically opposed to the European Union itself - who maintain that we should turn our backs on the invitation to dialogue. They remind us that we argued against the Article on the grounds of principle, saying that privileged access for ourselves no less than for the religions to the highest levels in the EU was illegitimate: to take advantage of the offer now would be a betrayal of our principles. The EHF has decided that such a stand would be futile. We should be alone, glorying in our purity while the world went on - and in particular the churches would go on building their influence in the EU. As the competence of the Union shows every sign of expanding into areas much more vital to us than markets and trade - into education, fundamental rights and therefore matters of family life and morality - such a surrender of even a puny means of exerting some influence would indeed be not just futile but unprincipled.
But what use should we make of the opportunity? Plainly we must not be seduced by the trappings of proximity to power - there is no room for self-congratulation at being received in the plushest offices of the Berlaymont and filmed and photographed for the official record. Nor should we simply be satisfied with the occasional offer of facilities for a conference such as the successful one on human rights that we organised in 2008.
There are two ways of using our unsought status as partners for dialogue with the EU that the EHF considers valuable. One we have already implemented, the other we have yet to apply in any serious manner.The first is to maximise awareness among politicians and officials of the non-religious population and its interests. We can do this by ensuring that we have complete parity with the religious organisations in the EU's implementation of Article 17. At present this is far from the case: the churches have six-monthly meetings with the incoming national presidency of the Council, whereas when we wrote to Nicolas Sarkozy to protest at theFrench presidency's unwarranted involvement of the religions in official EU functions wedid not receive even the courtesy of an acknowledgement. And even though Article 17 mandates ‘a dialogue' - not ‘dialogues' - with the ‘these churches and organisations', we are excluded from the annual ‘summit' meeting that the presidents of the Commission and Parliament hold with numerous representatives of the major religions. We have asked for an invitation for the past three years and have been either refused or ignored.
What, some ask, is the point of being at such a meeting? Would we not merely be ignored -or worse? Not so. Our very presence would be an acknowledgement huge significance of the parity of non-religious lifestances and religion - the equal status in EU terms of the European Humanist Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. That without doubt is the reason we are excluded and reason enough for insisting that we should not be palmed off with inferior treatment. It would certainly make further EU concessions to Vatican lobbying more difficult. On top of that it would provide us with a platform on which to proclaim the secular provenance of moral and social values against constant claims that without religion we have no basis for morality. It would be equally valuable to be able to agree with the religions on the need (for example) to care for the planet or to increase aid to the developing world - but to do so on human, not religious grounds - and to be able to take issue with religious imperialism when the churches seek to impose their disputed values on everyone.
The second way we should use our privileged access is to ensure that when the churches make representations on secular matters on which their claimed expertise may well be compromised by their religious beliefs, we can offer the true experts in the relevant international NGOs a route by which they also can provide information and advice at the highest levels in the EU. Civil society organisations have their own channels within the EU but a partnership with us, by which we can include their experts among our representatives, would offer them a way to combat directly the damage done by religious claims on (for example) AIDS, euthanasia, abortion or family planning. We developedvaluable relationships with bodies such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation during the campaign over the EU constitution and we now need to renew such partnerships. For that purpose ideally we need to find committed humanists or secularists who are active in such organisations to form the bridge between us.
Article 17 remains a threat to us, as the ambitions of COMECE make all too clear. But for that very reason we need to respond to its invitation to dialogue, and it may ultimately produce a net benefit for us.
January 18, 2010
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Filed Under : EU Institutions, EU Treaties, NGOs |
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Published: 8/26/10 09:08 PM - By Terrence McKeegan, J.D.
LIVE BLOGGING From the World Youth Conference in Leon, Mexico
Documenting the Sexual Exploitation of Youth
So what do UNFPA and all of their friends in the "Sexual and Reproductive Health" racket really mean when they talk about "age-appropriate" sexual education? Let's look at a few examples from the Interactive Global Forum here at the World Youth Conference. Just remember, this conference is for youth as young as 10 years old.
Booth: International Planned Parenthood Federation (the largest abortion business in the world) - the brochure: "Healthy, Happy, and Hot", made famous by its distribution at a girl scouts side event at the UN this March!
Booth: RECREA - The table featured a bowl of condoms and a wooden phallus. The walls of the exhibit booth were covered with pornographic and sexually suggestive photos. Nearby there were two glass cases featuring rubber models of a penis and vagina, as well as a bright assortment of condoms.
Booth: Fundacion Collectivo de Mujeres Jovenes - Their presentation consisted almost entirely of a collection of thongs hung up around the booth.
Booth: Quilombolas e Gays - Highlight: UNAIDS flyers promoting the unrestricted right for youth to condoms, sexual and reproductive health services to name a few.
Booth: Unknown - Highlight: A live demonstration showing how to put a condom onto a phallus.
Booth: Unknown - Highlights: Virtually the only "literature" on the table were pornographic post cards.
The clincher - this was the exact scene at the time that the First Lady of Mexico toured the expo, guided by the Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA. For UNFPA, giving this tour must have felt like a victory lap, as their vision of "comprehensive sexual education" for youth has been fully realized at this conference.
Note: For those who wish to dispute these accounts, we have the photographic evidence, but most of it is too explicit to post here.
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Filed Under : Homosexuality, NGOs, UN Agencies, Youth |
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