"The State of World Population 2012," a new report by the United Nations Population Fund, has attracted criticism from pro-life advocates because of its emphasis on contraception as a human right.
The report calls upon nations to "promote family planning as a right, the exercise of which enables the attainment of a whole range of other rights."
"All human beings—regardless of age, sex, race or income—are equal in dignity and rights," the report adds. "Yet 222 million women in developing countries are unable to exercise the human right to voluntary family planning."
"The UN doesn't have the authority to declare contraception a human right, but particularly an agency of the UN doesn't have the right to declare something a human right; it debases the entire concept of human rights, to declare a commodity or a product a human right," said Wendy Wright of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute.
The new UN Population Fund report is riddled with problems which undercut its call for $8.1B a year for ever more contraception in developing countries. The evidence for this ambitious claim is so thin that it should not be hard for critics to refute it, but here are 11 problems that jumped off the very first pages:
1. The report is based upon the claim that there is a "huge unmet need for family planning." To the contrary, the term "unmet need" has been debunked by the very development experts who coined it. Particularly because the "huge" number–now claimed to be about 222 million–includes women who have specifically said they do not want the commodities.
2. The report says, "The power and means to determine the size of their families are scarce or inadequate." In fact, studies confirm that development experts have found family programs ineffective precisely because couples do not use contraception when are already using other means to freely decide the number and spacing of children.
3. The report claims contraception is an "intrinsic right," that is, a natural right that cannot be trumped by such rights as freedom of religion or conscience. Similarly, the executive director of UNFPA said in a letter to US UN ambassador Susan Rice last week that it was an "inalienable right." This claim asserts that condoms are somehow on par with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
4. The report claims that this right is affirmed in human rights treaties. This too is unsubstantiated.
5. The report emphasizes the "forces" of "negative social pressure" which prohibit the use of contraception. Translation: religion and culture. The author of the report is in fact an activist whose organization specifically seeks to change social mores to promote this agenda.
6. The report promotes the elimination of "child marriage," ostensibly any marriage under the age of 18, while at the same time promoting sex education for youth. While forced child marriage is nearly universally opposed at the UN, the report does not make that distinction, and does not sufficiently account for the benefits of marriage, and particularly sex inside marriage for women at the age of consent.
7. The report claims that "studies have shown that investing in family planning helps reduce poverty, improve health…enable adolescents to finish schooling and increase labor force participation." In fact, studies also show that the opposite is true: schooling and better health care lead to lower fertility rates.
8. Additionally, authors of the study that is cited, the 1977 Matlab, Bangladesh study, have noted that it is incorrect to say that family planning was the sole reason for better life outcomes such as higher wages. There were many other subsidies such as health care and housing which contributed to the study's results.
9. The report claims that "where family planning supplies, information and services are widely available, abortion rates are lower." But the opposite has been shown to be true. In just one example, the CEDAW committee, which is by no means an opponent of widespread family planning and which has promoted abortion as a right over the years, has found just the opposite. In one instance, they admonished the government of France that where contraception rates rose among youth, unintended pregnancies and abortion rates also increased.
10. The bottom line of the report is the claim that nations which are struggling with the global economic downturn in their countries should pour another $8.1 billion dollars–every year–into already-well funded international family planning programs. This without any conclusive evidence that family planning programs reduce poverty or improve economies.
11. Most problematic of all, perhaps, is the troubling premise of the entire report, presented in its opening pages: "An unintended pregnancy can endanger a woman's health, undermine her opportunities to earn a living and trap her and her entire family in a cycle of poverty and exclusion."
Such a dark view of pregnancy–in which an innocent child, just because she is conceived unexpectedly, is a force for terrible evil– is radically out of step with the view of women all over the world who love their children, no matter whether they were expecting them or not.
Contact: Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. Source: Turtle Bay and Beyond
As Ireland awaits the results of an official inquiry into the death of Savita Halappanavar, staff members at the Galway hospital where she died report that they are "mystified" by her death and by the reports that she was denied an abortion.
Galway University Hospital staff members say that there is no record of a request for an abortion in the Halappanavar case. And the hospital's Catholic chaplain reports that doctors there were clearly committed to saving the life of any mother in a difficult pregnancy. "The only ethos I have ever witnessed in the labor unit of Galway hospital is that the mother's life always comes first," said Father David Cribbin.
The death of Savita Halappanavar has roused new calls for legal abortion in Ireland. The official panel investigating the incident is reportedly weighing its own recommendation that Ireland should end its ban on abortion. But the cause of the young woman's death has not yet been established.
Savita Halappanavar, a 17-week pregnant woman who died in a Galway hospital on Oct. 28.
For the international abortion lobby, the whole story was just too convenient to be true: at the very moment when the Irish government is discussing controversial plans to liberalize abortion, a pregnant woman dies in an Irish hospital because she was denied an abortion that would have saved her life. "This is a Catholic country", the doctors callously told her, so there was no other solution for her than to die at age 31. Upon learning this, thousands of enraged citizens flock to "spontaneous" demonstrations all over the country, shouting their anger at the country's "retrograde legislation that puts the lives of young women at risk" and (of course!) against the Catholic Church and its nefarious influence in Irish politics.
But what are the facts?
Firstly, Ireland has one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality in the World. While in Ireland only 6 in 100.000 women die of complications related to pregnancy, in the UK the figure is 12 and in the US 21. In both countrie, abortion is legal (and one is tempted to wonder whether that is not one of the reason for many pregnancy related deaths).
Secondly, it now appears that the young woman did not at all die of a complication related to pregnancy. Her autopsy has revealed that she died of blood poisoning and E. coli ESBL, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the bacterium. E. coli ESBL has recently spread throughout the U.K., causing urinary tract infections which can develop into blood poisoning.
One again, the abortion lobby has erected a monument to its own disingenuity. Sometimes it would be good to simply get the facts before launching an emotional debate that could potentially cost the lives of many women and children…
Contact: J.C. von Krempach, J.D. Source: Turtle Bay and Beyond
David Green, founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby with his wife Barbara. Credit: Becket Fund.
The retailer Hobby Lobby will appeal a federal court's refusal of its request for an injunction against a Health and Human Services rule that requires the Christian-owned business to cover abortion-causing drugs in its health insurance plans or face millions of dollars in fines.
"We disagree with this decision and we will immediately appeal it," said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
The religious freedom group is representing the Oklahoma City-based company, which is owned by Founder and CEO David Green and his family. Hobby Lobby's sister company Mardel, Inc. is also a plaintiff in the case.
Green and his family object to providing abortion-inducing drugs.
"Every American, including family business owners like the Greens, should be free to live and do business according to their religious beliefs. The Green family needs relief now and we will seek it immediately," Duncan said Nov. 19.
The case is the latest in the controversy over the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring insurance coverage for sterilization and contraception, including some abortion-causing drugs. Its narrow religious exemption applies only to non-profit organizations which aim to spread religious values and which employ and serve primarily people of their religion.
Employees who violate the mandate risk fines of $100 per employee per day. Hobby Lobby, which employs over 13,000 full-time employees, said it faces a daily $1.3 million fine beginning Jan. 1, 2013 if it ignores the law.
A lawyer for the federal government said the drugs do not cause abortions and the U.S. has a compelling interest in mandating insurance coverage for them, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton of the Western District of Oklahoma on Monday ruled that Hobby Lobby and Mardel "are not religious organizations." The judge also noted that the plaintiff's lawyers did not cite any case and the court did not find any case concluding that "secular, for-profit corporations" such as Hobby Lobby have "a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion." He said the mandate only "indirectly" burdens the Greens' religious beliefs.
Judge Heaton wrote that the court is "not unsympathetic" to the company's dilemma. He said the 2010 health care law's expansion of employer obligations has caused "concerns and issues not previously confronted by companies or their owners."
The question of whether restrictions on business corporations violate the religious freedom of their owners is one of "largely uncharted waters," he said.
Meanwhile, David Green said the legal action was necessary because of Hobby Lobby's dedication to God.
"It is by God's grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured," he said. "Therefore we seek to honor God by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles."
Hobby Lobby has 500 stores in 41 states. It is the largest business to file a legal challenge against the HHS mandate. It is also the first business not owned by Catholics to do so.
The company is one of the few national retailers that continues to close its stores on Sunday "in order to allow our employees and customers more time for worship and family," its website says.
The mandate is causing significant anxiety among Catholic and other employers with religious and moral objections to providing the mandated coverage. It could affect many Catholic colleges, charities, health care systems and even some dioceses which must provide the coverage or face crippling fines.
There are currently 40 lawsuits with over 110 plaintiffs challenging the mandate.
While the Obama administration has proposed an accommodation to expand religious freedom protections, its details and effectiveness are still unclear. The administration has opposed congressional efforts to broaden the exemption and President Obama criticized Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for supporting a broader religious exemption.
A federal judge has ruled that Hobby Lobby and Mardel stores must cover abortion-causing drugs for their employees as required by the Obama administration because the companies -- despite having faith as a central element of their operations -- are not religious enough to warrant a court intervention.
Represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Hobby Lobby and Mardel had argued that requiring them to pay for the drugs, which come under brand names such as Plan B and ella, would violate the faith of their owners, not to mention the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of freedom of religion. Judge Joe Heaton, nominated by President George W. Bush, disagreed, saying the law was not unconstitutional.
Hobby Lobby is an arts and crafts store chain, while Mardel is a Christian bookstore chain. Both are owned by the Green family. The companies are self-insured, and their health care plans take effect Jan. 1. They had requested a temporary injunction.
"Churches and other religious organizations or religious corporations have been accorded protection under the free exercise clause," Heaton, of the U.S. District Court in western Oklahoma, wrote. "... However, Hobby Lobby and Mardel are not religious organizations. Plaintiffs have not cited, and the court has not found, any case concluding that secular, for-profit corporations such as Hobby Lobby and Mardel have a constitutional right to the free exercise of religion ..."
The ruling Monday (Nov. 19) came three days after another federal judge reached a different conclusion in siding with Bible publisher Tyndale in its suit against what has become known as the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That judge also was nominated by Bush. Including the Tyndale case, three federal judges this year have ruled against the mandate. At least 40 lawsuits have been filed against the mandate. The Supreme Court eventually may get involved.
The Becket Fund says it will file an appeal on behalf of Hobby Lobby and Mardel.
"Every American, including family business owners like the Greens, should be free to live and do business according to their religious beliefs," said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund. "The Green family needs relief now and we will seek it immediately from the federal appeals court in Denver."
With more than 500 stores in 41 states, Hobby Lobby's owners always have made their faith a central part of their business. Their stores play Christian instrumental music and are closed on Sundays. Hobby Lobby contributes to Christian organizations and runs full-page ads in newspapers during the Easter and Christmas seasons with Gospel-centered messages.
"These abortion-causing drugs go against our faith, and our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful," David Green, Hobby Lobby's founder and CEO, said in September. "... We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate."
In his ruling, Heaton said Hobby Lobby and Mardel "do not have constitutional free exercise rights as corporations." He cited a Supreme Court case and said the "plain import is that there must be more than some burden on religious exercise. The burden must be substantial."
Green said religious liberty is at stake.
"Hobby Lobby has always been a tool for the Lord's work," he said. "... For me and my family, charity equals ministry, which equals the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ... But now our faith is being challenged by the federal government."
The mandate was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in August 2011 as part of the health care law championed by President Obama. Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law in June of this year, the justices' ruling did not deal with the religious liberty issues surrounding the abortion/contraceptive mandate. That means the nation's highest court could yet strike down what has been for religious groups the most controversial part of the law.
After being named the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, Jeanne F. Monahan says she plans to increase the annual pro-life march's appeal to young people.
Monahan said in a Nov. 20 interview with CNA that her "immediate goal is to do the best job possible to commemorate this somber 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which is rapidly hitting us here in January; to do what we can to make the rally very youth accessible and interesting and to make the March as fruitful as possible."
The fund organizes and runs the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., which will be held Jan. 25, 2013 on the National Mall.
Monahan, who was unanimously approved by the fund's board on Nov. 16, said her ultimate goal is to work herself "out of a job."
She sees her position as more than just running "the largest pro-life event in the world, but to be making a difference in terms of impacting a culture of life every single day, not only around the anniversary of Roe."
"My long term goal … is to utilize the education piece of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund."
Monahan joined the March for Life board in June "with every intention of staying" at her job with the Family Research Council, but when the organization's founder Nellie Gray died in August, Monahan was made the interim president.
Monahan previously served as director of the Center for Human Dignity at the Family Research Council, and before that worked in various capacities at the Department of Health and Human Services. She holds a Master of Theological Studies from Catholic University of America.
"Jeanne is a strong pro-life advocate who will continue the strong leadership of Nellie Gray and bring us closer to a culture of life," said Patrick E. Kelly, Chairman of the Board of Directors. "The Board and I are very much looking forward to working with Jeanne in this new, full-time capacity and are looking forward to our largest March in history this January."
She said that January's event will utilize jumbotrons and will be succinct, lasting roughly an hour. A handful of legislators will speak, and they will be "leaders on both sides of the political aisle who are pro-life."
Monahan also intends to have a celebrity speaker, as well as music that will be "interesting and engaging" for young people.
"One major goal I have … is to get all of the participants to do some kind of act of lobbying on the Hill while they're here; not only to peacefully protest, but to make an appointment with their legislators and to go and talk to them about the necessity of pro-life legislation, and to do so in a positive and compelling way."
The new president also wants to focus specifically on helping young people lobby their legislators.
"We'll do everything we can to engage media in a positive way and to raise as much awareness about the fact that abortion is the human rights issue of today," she said.
Monahan noted the Fund is launching a more "savvy" social media campaign by updating their Facebook page, better utilizing Twitter and reaching out to youth with new media.
Monahan sees a great deal of hope for the pro-life movement going forward, because "young people are overwhelmingly pro-life … they have their finger on the pulse that this truly does destroy a human life."
Asked about the future of the pro-life movement, she said that "one thing I think is critical moving forward is that we show abortion is bad for women … that we use truth and technology and science, all to our advantage. All we need to do with the abortion issue is bring it into the light."
She cited advances in ultrasound technology and understanding of fetal pain as factors which have enlightened young people about the truth behind abortion.
Monahan emphasized that she plans to "do everything I can to show the fallacy" of the slogans that abortion is a "so-called right for women and good for women's health."
"Abortion is not good for women, and obviously not good for the babies who aren't allowed a right to life."
As she looks ahead to January, Monahan gets "the sense that the way providence has played out, that this is going to be a very important year for the March for Life, for people peacefully protesting."
A federal court has handed a leading Bible publisher a major victory over the Obama administration's abortion/contraceptive mandate, preventing its enforcement against the publisher and ruling the company is likely to succeed as the case proceeds.
A federal district court Friday (Nov. 16) issued a temporary injunction preventing the administration from requiring Tyndale House Publishers to cover contraceptives that can cause chemical abortions. The drugs often are called "emergency contraceptives" and can act after conception and implantation, and come under brand names such as Plan B and ella.
Obeying the mandate would force Tyndale to violate its religious beliefs, the publisher argued through its attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Judge Reggie B. Walton agreed.
"The contraceptive coverage mandate ... places the plaintiffs in the untenable position of choosing either to violate their religious beliefs by providing coverage of the contraceptives at issue or to subject their business to the continual risk of the imposition of enormous penalties for its noncompliance," Walton wrote. "... Government action that creates such a Hobson's choice for the plaintiffs amply shows that the contraceptive coverage mandate substantially burdens the plaintiffs' religious exercise."
It is the third ruling this year against the mandate, which was implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services after President Obama signed the 2010 health care law (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). The law itself does not include the mandate language, although it does give the federal government the power to decide what should and should not be covered under the law. Churches and religious conventions are exempt from the mandate, but many religious organizations are not.
Walton's ruling currently applies only to Tyndale but could have a much wider impact if Tyndale continues winning in court. Tyndale's new insurance plan year began Oct. 1 and it is self-insured -- meaning it would have been forced to pay for the controversial drugs.
There is "undoubtedly" a "public interest in ensuring that the rights secured under the First Amendment" are protected, Walton ruled. He used most of his 38-page opinion to show how the mandate violates a 1993 law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Walton was nominated by President George W. Bush.
Matt Bowman, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, applauded the judge's ruling.
"Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish," said Bowman, who took part in oral arguments before the judge. "The court has done the right thing in halting the mandate while our lawsuit moves forward. For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is startling. It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution's protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes."
Although the Supreme Court upheld the health care law this summer, it did not address the issues in the Tyndale case. There have been 40 suits filed seeking to overturn the mandate, according to a tally by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Tyndale -- which has 260 full-time employees -- functions as a thoroughly Christian organization, the ADF suit states. For instance:
-- One of its corporate goals is to "honor God."
-- It holds a weekly chapel service for employees.
-- It opens business meetings with prayer.
-- It sends employees on mission projects to support Christian mission organizations, paid for by the company.
-- It contributes 10 percent of its profits each year to Christian organizations.
-- Its trustees must affirm a statement of faith that proclaims, for instance, "there is one God, eternally existent in three persons."
The mandate provides an exemption for churches and church-like bodies provided they are non-profit and meet all four of the following criteria: 1) "The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the organization"; 2) "The organization primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization"; 3) "The organization serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization"; and 4) The organization is a church, an integrated auxiliary of a church, a convention or association of churches, or is an exclusively religious activity of a religious order, under Internal Revenue Code 6033(a)(1) and (a)(3)(A)."
The "Abortion Gang," a blog by "unapologetic activists for reproductive justice," is beating the drum for repeal of the Hyde Amendment.
In a Nov. 7 post, a writer for the Abortion Gang urged President Obama to act to put an end to Hyde, which has prohibited Medicaid coverage of most abortions since 1976. Obama "must take a stand this January and strike restrictions on Medicaid coverage of abortion when he presents his budget to Congress," according to the post.
The Hyde Amendment not only bars Medicaid funds for abortions but acts as a model for restrictions on abortion funding in other federal programs.
For the Abortion Gang and other abortion rights advocates, reproductive rights do not fully exist unless the government pays for the abortions of those who cannot afford them.
Contact: Tom Strode, Erin Roach and Diana Chandler Source: Baptist Press
Apparently, Planned Parenthood is no longer content exploiting just women and children–so they've moved on to the federal government. Over the past several years, it seems the country's biggest abortion provider has also been running one of the country's biggest scams: a Medicaid racket that's ripped off millions of taxpayer dollars.
Today, it appears that at least six states have been targeted by Cecile Richards's scheme, which reportedly conned the government with hundreds of thousands of bogus reimbursement claims.
One of those states–Texas–will be hearing its first arguments on the issue this week in U.S. District Court, thanks to former Planned Parenthood director-turned-whistleblower Abby Johnson. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), she plans to expose at least 87,000 instances of fraud during her time as a clinic manager in Southeast Texas.
Based on her testimony and supporting documents, Planned Parenthood routinely submitted ineligible claims on everything from pap smears to STD and pregnancy tests. In fact, Johnson says her bosses at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast were under so much financial pressure that they would repeatedly tell staff, "We must turn every call and visit into a revenue-generating client."
A ring of at least 10 clinics were falsifying patient charts, which they would "fix" and "cover up" before the auditors and inspectors came.
"People may hold different views about abortion," Johnson says, "but everyone can agree that Planned Parenthood should play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn't entitled to any public funds, especially if it is defrauding Medicaid and the American taxpayer."
In states like Iowa, the plot was so sophisticated that clinics were getting $26.32 reimbursement checks for a $2.98 package of birth control. State and local governments have poured more than a billion dollars into Richards's group–and this is how she repays them? Twenty-eight million in stolen funds in Iowa, $6 million in Texas, $180 million in California, and similar allegations in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois.
And while we can't say exactly where the dollars went, evidence suggests President Obama's campaign was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Planned Parenthood's largesse. Thanks to this extra revenue from overbilling, Richards's group had the flexibility to spend a whopping $15 million to put Barack Obama back in the White House, where he can keep the money flowing to his favorite chain
Martin Cullen, an intensive care physician in Sydney, writes that the increasing acceptance of euthanasia has helped increase patients' distrust of doctors.
"I never cease to marvel how deeply some families of my patients distrust the medical profession," says Martin Cullen. "Between me and them is a wall of suspicion. I know how used car salesmen must feel."
"No longer do families assume that their loved one will be cared for," he continued. "Families feel they need to be advocates for their sick relative. They aggressively question all of my suggestions for care. I really can't blame them. In the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legalized, non-voluntary euthanasia, aka murder, is no longer unknown."
"Nowadays when I bring bad news to families and tell them that death is imminent and that we can do no more, I expect resistance and hostility," he added. "Just a few weeks ago I was treating an elderly woman who was very sick. Her family told me that they believed that their father had been euthanased years before. They weren't going to let us doctors take their mother, too. They looked at me as if I were a murderer. It was very unsettling for me."
In June of this past year, photos of a Chinese woman and her dead child flooded the Internet, accompanied by the account of how Feng Jianmei was abducted from her home and forced to undergo a late-term abortion by local family-planning officials. Mrs. Feng's story spread across international news headlines and provoked outrage by national governments. The European Parliament issued a terse statement calling the incident "unacceptable."
A recent article makes the case that any law which restricts abortion--such as waiting periods or parental consent--is the equivalent of China's brutal forced abortion policy that victimized Mrs. Feng. The article from the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the abortion group Planned Parenthood, says this because both represent "coercion in reproductive decision making." According to their analysis, "forcing a woman to terminate a pregnancy she wants or to continue a pregnancy that she does not want both violate the same human rights."
The article equates legal restrictions on abortion to enforced abortion by drawing false parallels with regard to both the nature and intent of the laws being compared. The article's author notably contrasts the continuation of a pregnancy, rather than conception, with its termination. No mention is made of any government policy which provides for the forced impregnation of women, only those which protect a pregnancy which has already been established. While this may be in part due to the fact that no country has a policy which allows for government-sanctioned rape, it also attempts to change the context of the debate.
A large portion of the article focuses on United States laws such as those requiring counseling prior to abortion and blocking taxpayer funds from subsidizing abortions. According to the author's thesis, these policies, like the Chinese family-planning regulations, force women "either to have or to not have children for the greater good of those other than themselves." While the article provides examples of national policies providing incentives or deterrents to childbearing enacted in response to fears of population explosion or implosion, no mention is made of the good of the child itself. The Guttmacher article fails to acknowledge any possible motivations for restricting abortion outside of "pronatalist" efforts by leaders to increase national birth rates.
However, government policies intended to increase childbearing typically focus on factors existing prior to the conception of a child, such as increased maternity leave, tax incentives, and housing benefits, such as those introduced in Russia in the 1980s. While abortion rates in Russia have been declining since the 1970s, the pronatalist policies instituted by the government have been incentives to childbearing, not restrictions on abortion. However, while the Guttmacher article fails to explicitly define which policies encouraging larger families it deems coercive, it provides only the most extreme instances of forced abortion and sterilization as counter-examples.
In their attempt to characterize restrictions on abortion in the United States as human rights violations comparable to forced abortion in China, the author completely ignores the argument that abortion itself is a violation of the human rights of the child, despite the fact that many Americans believe that life begins at conception.
A new report from the United Nations Population Fund declares that family planning is a global "right" for women, and calls for the removal of any social and financial obstacles to it.
"Every adult, adolescent and young person everywhere, regardless of sex, social status, income, ethnicity, religion or place of residence must be empowered to decide freely and responsibly how many children to have and when to have them," the document said.
On Nov. 14, the United Nations Population Fund released the report, titled "The State of World Population 2012." It is subtitled "By Choice, Not By Chance" and links family planning to international development.
In its analysis, the UNFPA called the July 2012 London Summit on Family Planning a "sign of progress."
The event, which the population fund hosted with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, secured $2.6 billion in pledges from countries and foundations to provide family planning to 120 million women. It said $4.1 billion is needed to provide family planning to 222 million women who reportedly would use it but lack access to it.
The summit drew intense backlash, however, from critics ranging from the Vatican daily L'Osservatore Romano to global pro-life advocates.
Meghan Grizzle, research and policy specialist at the World Youth Alliance, and Greg Pfundstein – executive director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation – said the figure of 222 million women in need of family planning is "misleading" and likely overstated.
"Many women have access to contraception and choose not to use it. Social scientists and public policy experts identify women as having an unmet need for contraception even when those women have not expressed a desire to use contraception," Pfundstein and Grizzle said in a July essay published in Public Discourse.
Wendy Wright, interim executive director of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, in July charged that the summit marks "a new chapter in the population control movement." She said the summit would use the goal of helping poor women to secure permanent funding for abortion-promoting and population control groups.
Wright said that resources used for family planning could be better directed to providing access to basic health care and maternal health care.
In its new report, UNFPA included some population control advocacy and depicted access to family planning as a "sound economic investment."
It attributed the growth of some Asian economies to a family planning-driven demographic shift which caused the numbers of income-generating adults to be higher than those dependent upon them for support. The report predicted a $30 billion growth in the Nigerian economy if its fertility rate falls by one child per woman in the next 20 years.
The UNFPA report summary said family planning is "almost universally recognized as an intrinsic right" that should be "available to all." It said family planning should be promoted as "a right" which enables "a whole range of other rights."
The report does, however, include a favorable mention of family planning methods the Catholic Church does not recognize as sinful.
"Fertility awareness-related methods are also quite effective if used correctly," it said, citing Guttmacher Institute statistics indicating that these methods are only slightly more likely to result in pregnancy in the first year of use than condoms and are much less likely to result in pregnancy than no family planning method.
People with pro-abortion and pro-life views aren't necessarily rigid or consistent in their views.
In direct contrast to common assumptions, not all evangelicals and conservatives believe abortion should be outlawed in every situation, and many liberals do not want abortion available in all circumstances. Ron Sellers of Grey Matter Research conducted a survey that found evidence of this.
"Only 28 percent of all Americans believe that abortion should be legal in every situation," he indicates. "Only 18 percent believe abortion should be illegal in every situation. Thirty-eight percent said there are some cases where it should be legal; others said it should not. And then 16 percent frankly said, I honestly haven't decided how I feel on this issue. I just don't know."
So Sellers says the survey stresses that people may lean in a particular direction but are not totally one-sided. Sellers is not surprised that 30 percent of those surveyed support sex-selective abortions.
"The attitude among some of the folks who believe that abortion should be legal is that it is not a life, it is not a baby -- it is simply a mass of cells," he explains. "I mean, from a moral standpoint, [they believe] it's really no different than the mother having a growth or a tumor removed from her body."
What did surprise Sellers, "in a sense, is the lack of constancy from those on both sides of the debate."
Scientists continue to communicate with people thought to be oblivious and without awareness. From the BBC story:
A Canadian man who was believed to have been in a vegetative state for more than a decade, has been able to tell scientists that he is not in any pain. It's the first time an uncommunicative, severely brain-injured patient has been able to give answers clinically relevant to their care. Scott Routley, 39, was asked questions while having his brain activity scanned in an fMRI machine. His doctor says the discovery means medical textbooks will need rewriting…
And here's something that is fairly typical:
Scott Routley's parents say they always thought he was conscious and could communicate by lifting a thumb or moving his eyes. But this has never been accepted by medical staff.
Time to start listening more to families!
People such as Routley are dehydrated to death every day in all fifty states and in many countries around the world by having their tube-supplied sustenance withdrawn–supposedly based on their lack of personhood. But don't expect this to stop the dehydration imperative. Bioethicists will merely say this is even more reason to kill them since they are aware of their profound disabilities and suffering. Indeed, that argument has already started.
And of course, the media will insist–as they do nearly every time such stories hit the news–that it has nothing to do with Terri Schiavo. No, I will never let it go!
The professional fate of Phill Kline, Kansas's former attorney general, is now in the hands of the Kansas Supreme Court. A complaint was filed against him for trying to prosecute abortion providers.
A hearing was held yesterday before the state Supreme Court in the continuing effort to disbar Kline for alleged ethics violations. Dana Cody of the Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) tells OneNewsNow Disciplinary Administrator Stanton Haslett has recommended that Kline's license be revoked.
"The disciplinary administrator and his deputy took things out of context, made conclusions inferring things like … they could get inside Phil Kline's head," Cody details. "There was really no evidence that he violated any ethical directive in his role as the state attorney general, or later on as the Johnson County district attorney."
In fact, the LLDF spokesperson tells OneNewsNow Kline did an excellent job as a prosecutor.
"He went after Planned Parenthood and George Tiller's clinic for not reporting statutory rape, for not protecting young girls who were victims," she reports. "It just appears to be a totally politically-motivated prosecution" that came about because the state was under the control of then-Governor Kathleeen Sebelius (D), a strong supporter of abortion and Planned Parenthood.
Sebelius is now U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, and her appointees dominate the disciplinary administrators and the Kansas Supreme Court.
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