Even Pro-Abort UNICEF Says Stop Pushing Abortion in Canada's G8 Plan
Liberal MP Bob Rae Usurps Maternal Aid Event With Abortion Push
At the same time as a pro-abortion Conservative senator’s advice to women’s groups to “shut the f--- up” about abortion in the Canadian government’s G8 maternal health plan is making headlines in Canada, a coalition of international aid groups, including the pro-abortion UNICEF, have also called for an end to debate over the issue. The groups are pleading for all parties to cease the politicization of the plan over abortion so it can move forward and save the lives of mothers and children in the developing world.
Only one week after they issued this plea however, Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae usurped a mother's day event the aid groups hosted on Parliament Hill by calling for abortion in the plan, reports journalist Deborah Gyapong on her blog.
The coalition of six foreign aid groups, including CARE Canada, Plan Canada, RESULTS Canada, Save the Children Canada, UNICEF Canada, and World Vision Canada issued a statement April 27th, following the government's announcement that abortion would not be included in the health initiative.
“Every year nine million women around the world watch as their children die from painful, preventable illnesses that often cost dimes, not dollars, to treat,” they wrote. “Hundreds of thousands more women die in childbirth because they lack access to dependable health care close to home.”
The upcoming G8 summit in June, they continue, “provides an historic opportunity to chart a course out of this desperate terrain.” Yet, they bemoan that the initiative, which “could benefit millions,” is being “swallowed up by a political debate about abortion that is stifling the potential for progress.”
“We don’t want disagreement about whether or not the Canadian government funds abortion to put at jeopardy the entire initiative,” says UNICEF Canada’s director of international programs, Meg French, according to Tandem.
The call to cease the wrangling over abortion in the plan is significant coming from UNICEF, who, though they maintain otherwise, have clearly shown a determined support for abortion.
For example, in 2007, they took part in a global initiative that called for legalized abortion as part of an effort to promote maternal and child health in the developing world. In 2004, they opposed a proposal in New Zealand that sought to require parental consent for underage girls seeking abortion. In 2009, they lobbied in the Dominican Republic against a new constitution seeking to protect life "from conception until death," asking legislators to liberalize abortion laws so women would not be subjected to "unsafe procedures."
The aid groups' statement continued: “We know from recent polls that abortion is a sensitive issue for Canadians and debating abortion in the context of this initiative will not resolve the domestic debate. … It's time to measure success in lives saved, not political points scored.”
The groups’ concerns were echoed in an unusally emphatic fashion this week by Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth. “We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f--- up on this issue (abortion),” she reportedly told a number of pro-abortion groups gathered on Parliament Hill on Monday, saying that she feared further backlash from the Harper government if they continued to push the issue. “This is now a political football. This is not about women’s health in this country.”
The Conservatives have insisted repeatedly that they do not want to open a debate on abortion, but the opposition parties, particularly the Liberals, have sought to use the maternal and child health initiative as an opportunity to divide the Conservative caucus over abortion.
Within days of the initiative's January announcement, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stated, “We want to make sure that women have access to all the contraceptive methods available to control their fertility because we don’t want to have women dying because of botched procedures, we don’t want to have women dying in misery.”
Then in March the Liberals pushed a motion, proposed by Rae, calling for abortion in the plan. Though they had the support of the opposition parties, it was defeated in a vote of 144-138, because 13 Liberals were absent or abstained and three – Dan McTeague, John McKay, and Paul Szabo – opposed it on principle.
On Tuesday, one week after issuing their statement, the foreign aid groups and some others held an event on Parliament Hill to kick off what they call 'A Week to Save Moms and Their Kids', in order to support the G8 initiative.
A press release states that they gathered “to call for all-party support” on the initiative. MPs from all parties were present, including Minister of International Cooperation Bev Oda, Bob Rae, Johanne Deschamps of the Bloc Quebecois, and John Rafferty of the NDP. Each of the MPs was presented with a Mother's Day basket that included chocolates and flowers, as well as home birthing kits and nutritional supplements.
But according to journalist Deborah Gyapong, who was present at the event, Bob Rae used it as a further opportunity to promote abortion in the initiative, despite the stated wish of his hosts the week before.
Rae spent the first three quarters of his address praising the initiative for offering such things as improved health care, nutrition, and inoculations, Gyapong explains. “But then, he cut loose,” she writes. “Though he avoided the 'A' word, he didn't just talk about reproductive rights but a woman's right to choose.”
She then relates how all of the journalists flocked to Rae. “Talk about upstaging! Talk about stepping on someone else's event,” she writes. “When the NGO reps opened up their event for questions and answers, all the journalists were over by Rae.”
Detailed coverage of UNICEF's anti-life history is available here.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/waronfamily/unicef/
Contact: Patrick B. Craine
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Publish Date: May 6, 2010
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