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NEW UN POLICY EXCLUDES THE PRO-LIFE VOICE
The UN claims that its operations are transparent
and it is open to all perspectives.
This was the situation when the UN began,
but is no longer the case, especially with regard to the Non
Government Organizations (NGOs). The latter began to play
an influential role at the UN, starting in 1992, when Canada's
notorious gadabout, Maurice Strong, was General Secretary
of the first large international conference that was held
in Rio de Janeiro on the environment. It was Mr. Strong's
idea to invite NGOs to his conference in order to move his
agenda along.
At that time, all NGOs were pro-abortion feminists
who operated at the UN conferences without interference. Commencing
in 1994, however, pro-life NGOs, such as REAL Women of Canada,
began to show up at the UN's international conferences and
significantly interfered with the feminists' control of the
agenda, despite the fact that we were only among a handful
of the 1,561 NGOs at the UN. We were very successful as we
were knowledgeable, skilled, and smart enough to build alliances
with sympathetic delegations, especially from Latin American
and Muslim countries. Consequently, we prevented many, many
anti-family, pro-abortion provisions from being included in
UN documents. The feminist NGOs continued on, however, considerably
subdued but, still aided and sheltered by the strong triumvirate
of western powers consisting of the U.S., the European Union
and Canada, all of which were determined that their anti-life
/ anti-family values would be imposed on and dominate the
world by way of the machinery of the UN. The battles at that
time at the UN were unbelievable.
The pro-abortion feminists' hold on the UN,
however, was further loosened in 2000 by the election of George
Bush as President of the U.S. This led to the U.S. delegation
at the UN becoming an enemy of the feminist NGOs, leaving
Canada and the European Union alone to struggle against the
non-negotiable position of the U.S. in support of family and
life issues.
The strategy of the feminist NGOs, as well as that of the
Canadian and European delegation to this increased influence
of the pro-family voice, was to "wait out" Mr. Bush's
term in office and to postpone any major attempts to ensure
"reproductive health and rights" (abortion) in UN
documents until Mr. Bush was defeated. They fully expected
his defeat in the 2004 election after which they planned to
resume with renewed vigour, aided by a sympathetic U.S. delegation,
their work of using the UN as a tool to bring about abortion-on-demand
as a world-wide human right. This didn't happen, of course,
as Mr. Bush, to their horror, was re-elected President for
another four years during which their "progressive"
agenda was again stalled.
It was determined, therefore, by UN officials
and feminist NGOs that a new strategy had to be developed
to bring about global access to abortion.
New UN Strategy to Exclude Pro-Life NGOs
The new strategy became all too apparent in June, when senior
governmental ministers and heads of state convened at the
UN, a preparatory meeting, prior to the all important UN Millennium
Summit +5 Conference to be held in New York in September.
This Summit will be the largest gathering of world leaders
in history. UN agencies (all of which are pro-abortion) and
some western delegations seized the occasion of this preparatory
meeting, to exert new pressure for abortion rights, by way
of deliberately excluding pro-life NGOs from participating
in the preparatory meeting.
Instead, at this preparatory meeting for the Millennium Summit,
over 200 pro-abortion NGOs were hand selected to take part
in "informal hearings" with the UN General Assembly
in preparation for the Summit. These select NGOs provided
25 to 30 speakers to present their concerns and suggestions
to the delegations regarding the Summit and openly dialogued
with them. The delegates were informed by these hand-picked
NGOs that it was absolutely necessary to include "reproductive
rights" in the Millennium Summit +5. Not a word of dissent
was allowed. These recommendations were then officially presented
to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Since NGOs will not be permitted
to participate at the actual Summit meeting, the preparatory
meeting was the only opportunity for the NGOs to have input
into its outcome.
U.S. Ambassador to UN Issues Formal Complaint
The exclusion of pro-family, pro-life groups from this all
important preparatory meeting for the Summit is of grave concern
since it was the first attempt to try a new format, that is,
to exclude pro-life NGOs at the UN. This precedent, to systematically
exclude pro-life from having an impact on UN debates, is highly
dangerous, not to mention highly undemocratic.
Because of the seriousness of this development,
the U.S. Ambassador to the UN sent a letter of complaint to
the President of the UN General Assembly expressing the U.S.
government's strong concerns about this discriminatory new
practice of the UN.
No reply to this letter of complaint has,
as yet, been received.
You can be assured, however, that this new
format will not be allowed to continue.
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