Posted on 12/12/2003 12:46:49 PM PST by nickcarraway
Helena, MT (LifeNews.com) -- The Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion law firm, has sent a letter to LifeNews.com threatening legal action against it. The letter complains about a LifeNews.com story regarding a pro-life organization that received internal documents written by the firm detailing its strategy to develop international pro-abortion laws that can be imposed and enforced throughout the world.
The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CFAM), a pro-life group that lobbies at the United Nations, announced earlier this month that an anonymous source sent it a copy of a 60-page document summarizing the conclusions of strategic planning meetings held by CRR in late October.
In a story published by LifeNews.com, an independent news agency specifically devoted to reporting news that affects the pro-life community, the documents were called a "smoking gun" belying the tactics pro-abortion groups have denied for years.
The story prompted CRR President Nancy Northup to fire off a cease and desist letter to LifeNews.com asking the pro-life news outlet to return copies of the internal memos and to pull the story from the www.LifeNews.com web site.
"[T]he Center demands that you immediately ... cease and desist from any further dissemination, by whatever means, including written, email, fax, oral, or electronic, of the CRR Confidential Documents, or any information derived from, or in any way based on, the CRR Confidential Documents," Northup's letter said.
Steven Ertelt, Editor and CEO of LifeNews.com, says the news service has no intention of complying.
"At the heart of the first amendment right to free speech is the ability of the media to report the truth," Ertelt said. "It's about time that the radial pro-abortion, anti-woman agenda of groups like this be exposed and brought to light. It's not our problem if abortion advocates are embarrassed by their words or actions."
Northup claims the distribution of the memos by CFAM and LifeNews.com's story on them "has caused, and further disclosure will cause, CRR irreparable harm."
The pro-abortion firm's memo also asks LifeNews.com to disclose its entire list of subscribers to its email news services that received the story.
"This pro-abortion group will not have access to our subscriber lists at any time or for any reason," Ertelt explained. "For more than 10 years we have provided the strictest confidentiality to our subscribers to prevent them from receiving unwanted emails. We have never loaned our email lists to anyone -- including pro-life organizations -- and that privacy policy will always remain in place."
The internal documents state that CRRs "overarching goal is to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are bound to do so."
CRR lobbies diplomats to include phrases such as "reproductive health" in treaties and other international documents. Later they define such innocuous phrase to include an unfettered right to abortion.
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."
In an effort to stop further dissemination of its top-secret strategy to produce an international right to abortion-on-demand, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) has threatened legal action against the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), which broke the story of this international law strategy in its December 5 Friday Fax.
In a letter faxed to C-FAMs New York office, Nancy Northup, president of CRR, claims that disclosure of this material has caused, and further disclosure will cause, CRR irreparable harm. Therefore, Northup makes a number of demands upon C-FAM, including that C-FAM must return all copies of the memos, must cease and desist from any further dissemination, by whatever means, including written, email, fax, oral, or electronic, of the Centers internal memos, and even that C-FAM must identify to the Center all persons and organizations, including email addresses, to whom C-FAM disseminated the Centers proprietary information.
However, no legal maneuvering against C-FAM can now protect this strategy from further public scrutiny, since the internal CRR memos, which describe the strategy were this week introduced into the permanent US Congressional Record by Congressman Christopher Smith (R-NJ).
In a statement explaining his submission of the documents into the Congressional Record, Smith said that It is critical that both the American and foreign public are made aware of these documents because they shed new light on the schemes of those who want to promote abortion here and abroad .These documents are important for the public to see because they expose the wolf donning sheeps clothing in an attempt to sanitize violence against children. These papers reveal a Trojan Horse of deceit. In their own words, these documents demonstrate how abortion promotion groups are planning to push abortion not by direct argument, but by twisting words and definitions.
Smith appeared particularly troubled by some of the admissions made in the memos, such as the CRR statement that there is a stealth quality to the work: we are achieving incremental recognition of values without a huge amount of scrutiny from the opposition. These lower profile victories will gradually put us in a strong position to assert a broad consensus around our assertions. Smith also highlighted a statement from a CRR trustee, who asserted that We have to fight harder, be a little dirtier.
Through this stealth campaign to produce new international laws, another trustee hopes that CRR will become the midwife to the global choice movement.
[The Friday Fax is reported and written by Douglas A. Sylva, C-FAM Vice-President.]
I would hope to shout! And rightly so
Facist litigaton. "You WILL be silenced! You WILL accept the laws we force on you!"
Good. That's the point.
I'm sure Northup agrees too that Daniel Elsberg should have returned The Pentagon Papers to the Defense Dept.
The forces working to impose gay marriage are using exactly the same tactics. Marx and Lenin would be proud.
I thought the point of the latest decision from the Supremes was that the amendment now protects only profanity and naked dancing . . . and specifically prohibits abortion foes from speaking up.
If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.
Here are the memos:
Secret Memos Reveal Worldwide Pro-Abortion Legal Strategy
CRR Threatens Legal Action/Documents Read into Congressional Record
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
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