Posted on 12/08/2003 2:24:04 AM PST by Got a right to Life? . . Huh?
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CFAM) announced Thursday that it has obtained internal memos from the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) detailing the strategy to develop international pro-abortion laws that can be imposed and enforced throughout the world -- ultimately government financed abortion on demand worldwide.
"The memos appear to confirm long-standing fears of some legal scholars that international negotiations on human rights laws are no longer conducted in good faith, and that national sovereignty is jeopardized by such negotiations," wrote Douglas Sylvia, Vice President of CFAM, in the first of a series of three regarding the memos released Thursday.
In an interview with LifeNews.com, Austin Ruse, President of CFAM, called the CRR a "very radical and very powerful" pro-abortion law firm located in New York, and said the document, which summarizes the conclusions of strategic planning meetings held by CRR in late October, is "vitally important" and should be read by all policy makers.
CFAM plans to unveil more on the CRR memos over the next two weeks. In addition, CFAM has provided the document to select organizations, and sometime next week it will be make it generally available to the public.
Ruse told LifeNews.com that while the strategy disclosed in the document is "nothing new" to his organization, it is a "smoking gun" belying the tactics pro-abortion groups have denied for years -- tactics that he called "primarily deception."
"Most of their work is getting governments to accept language that will change meanings later," said Ruse. "For instance, they like the phrase ‘reproductive health’ instead of ‘abortion’ -- if they used ‘abortion’ they'd likely lose. When it comes to enforcement, that term can be used to refer to abortion."
Such is the strategy summarized in the 60-page document that was sent to CFAM from an anonymous source.
The document states that CRR’s "overarching goal is to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are bound to do so." This goal includes the international establishment of the "inalienable nature" of "sexual rights," including "sexual autonomy" for girls, specifically "reproductive information and services, such as abortion, without parental notification or consent," according to Sylvia. Such policies and international laws could be enforced on governments, nullifying their sovereignty over such issues.
CRR plans to employ a three-step strategy to achieve their goal.
First, they hope to take advantage of accepted international rights, referred to as "hard norms," and expand the interpretations to embody elements of the pro-abortion agenda.
"Thus, CRR claims to have found, or "grounded," a right to abortion in the right to life, the right to health, even the right to enjoy scientific progress," noted Sylvia.
In the documents, CRR states that this technique is preferred because "There is a stealth quality to the work: we are achieving incremental recognition of values without a huge amount of scrutiny from the opposition."
The next step in the plan is to create new international laws, termed "soft norms," that mention abortion and sexual autonomy. If presented and repeated enough, such laws may become hard norms – ones that can be considered binding for nations.
"Soft norms accumulate in a host of international and regional settings, including through the European Court of Human Rights and UN compliance committees," CFAM said in announcing the memos.
The final step in CRR’s strategy is to enforce the new laws on resisting nations – "supporting efforts to strengthen existing enforcement mechanisms, such as the campaign for the International Criminal Court and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. (CEDAW)"
According to the UN website, CEDAW, approved in 1979, "is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination."
CEDAW refers to abortion as a "medical procedure … needed by women" and states that "it is discriminatory for a country to refuse to legally provide for the performance of certain reproductive health services for women."
CEDAW has garnered support from many pro-abortion groups for this reason, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, who criticized President Bush for his lack of support, and called his refusal to sign it "a testament to his overall contempt for women and his steadfast refusal to respect their fundamental civil and human rights."
In November, nineteen pro-abortion organizations sent a letter to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte, calling the recent U.S. resolution to boost the role of women in national governments "lip service" to women's rights, simply because it failed to promote CEDAW.
"CEDAW offers not only words, but an enforcement mechanism for implementing steps towards equality," including "numerical and timebound" quotas, according to the NGO’s letter, meaning that the Convention, and its agenda to make abortion more readily available, has the same binding power of international law.
"[They] are all leaders in the struggle for an international right to abortion-on-demand for adolescents and women," said Sylvia. "They have been pleased that the CEDAW Committee, the committee that oversees nations' compliance with the Convention, has repeatedly told nations to legalize abortion."
Such previous actions by the pro-abortion groups are why Ruse isn't surprised by the strategy described in the document, but feels that the "blueprint" is crucial.
Recent developments, he added, make the international pro-abortion agenda a rising concern.
"We are in a post-Lawrence world," Rose said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, which declared laws banning sodomy to be unconstitutional – a decision based in part on foreign laws and decisions.
"This is Armageddon for Roe V. Wade," Rose told LifeNews.com. "If it were to go back to the Supreme Court now, other countries laws would be considered in the decision."
The Lawrence decision, now allows pro-abortion groups to "encourage out Court to accept foreign decisions."
Related Links: Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute - http://www.c-fam.org
My impressions of this article are that we need to be fighting for life with more urgency. Once a right to "reproductive health" becomes a hard norm in international law which our courts will defer to, pro-life vicories will become more difficult.
You are right. Women see men having unprotected sex and getting away without children. The liberal mind would ask for the same for women. Allowing women to kill children as means of achieving equality seems patently corrupt to me.
The law should seek equality by giving social & financial responsibility to both men and women when a child is conceived.
You might try subscribing to www.LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report. They send a daily or weekly pro-life news letter out via e-mail. I read it every day for information on current life issues from around the world. Subscription is easy and free. Just enter your e-mail address on the left side of the page.
I agree that many are in denial about what abortion is and about the personhood of the pre-born children they never see.
There is a pro-life group that is actively trying draw people out of their denial with pictures of the truth.
http//www.abortionno.org
As disturbing as it is, I believe that the visual facts will be a necessary part of winning this war for our children.
Our local Right to Life Chapter marched in a parade a few days ago. I met two Catholics from Nigeria who are here to study in the seminary. Their society has no legal abortions. One of them told me that anyone who would consider such a thing would be widely viewed as insane in their country.
He shared with me a number of his impressions about our country, our media, etc. It was the first time I felt real shame for how far we have let our country degenerate. After talking with him for some time, my impression was that he saw America as a country in need of outside assistance and his dedicated missionary efforts.
To think that an international body may someday try to force legal, government financed abortions in Nigeria and countries like them, makes me a little crazy.
Yes!
And we need to start talking about what we'll do minimize Dimwit voter fraud.
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