UN Tries to Impose Gender/Sexuality Agenda on Catholic Church

The UN watchdog on children’s rights which recently hauled the Vatican over the coals for its handling of sex abuse has today released its recommendations. The report is not only ignorant and misguided, peddling myths for which there is no foundation, but betrays an extraordinary misunderstanding of the nature of the Church and the Holy See, while seeking to impose an ideology of gender and sexuality in violation of the UN’s own commitment to religious freedom.

Although the Holy See has responded diplomatically to the report (see below), promising to look at the recommendations, the Secretariat of State cannot possibly accept them without doing violation to the nature of the Church. By adopting the mythical framework peddled by victims’ advocacy groups and lawyers, and ignoring the evidence put to it by the Holy See on 16 January (see CV Comment here, and Archbishop Tomasi’s speech here), the Committee has shown itself to be a kangaroo court. The Holy See can only now consider withdrawing its signature to the Convention. The Committee has very seriously undermined both its own credibility and that of the UN as a whole.

The 16-page UN report is so full of crass errors and myths that it is impossible to tackle them all. But the principal faults can be gathered under the three headings of 1) ignorance about the Church’s record on abuse 2) misunderstanding about the Church 3) attempt to impose an ideology of sexuality and gender.

Read it all here. 

Big Money Backs Sterilization Camps

A government hospital in West Bengal's Malda district is facing an inquiry for conducting mass sterilization of women and relocating the women to a nearby open field.

Biswa Ranjan Satpathi, West Bengal's director of health services, was reported to have said, "This is inhuman and we have ordered a probe into the incident." 

Staff at a mass sterilization camp in West Bengal dumped 106 women in a field to recover after their painful surgeries.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the British government organized a family planning summit in London. Rich nations and NGOs pledged US$2.6 billion for population control/contraception in the developing world.

At the summit "sterilization camps" were not mentioned, but India's representatives spoke of a "paradigm shift" in their family planning. Likely, some of the $2.6 billion went into the pockets of the doctors who sterilized Indian women at the Manikchak Rural Hospital.

After the operation, women still under the effects of anesthesia, were dumped in an open field. According to the local media, "such frenzied sterilization camps are routine".

India no longer has centralized family planning quotas, but in practice state and district officials set targets, leading to disgraces like this.


Related reading: Australia Forced Sterilization Investigated; Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women; Judge Harms' Abortion-Sterilization Order Overruled

Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women

Years of rumours that Ethiopian women were pressured into having contraceptive injections by Israeli officials have finally been confirmed. The Health Ministry has ordered immigration officials in Ethiopia and health workers in Israel to stop coercing or coaxing women into accepting the long-lasting injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera.

The directive instructed doctors "not to renew prescriptions of Depo Provera to women of Ethiopian origin or any other women who, for whatever reason, may not understand the treatment's implications." They should also ask patients why they want to take the shot, using a translator if necessary. The Ministry did not confirm or acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Ethiopians who claim to be Jews are welcome to migrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but they face discrimination and have not always integrated well into Israeli society. Births among Ethiopian women have dropped by 50% in the last decade, according to a report by the "Vacuum" investigative news program on Israeli Educational Television. "This story reeks of racism, paternalism and arrogance. It's a story to be ashamed of," journalist Gal Gabai concluded.

Ethiopian women told the journalists stories of unsubtle coercion and misinformation. "They said, 'Come, there are vaccinations, gather everyone," one of them said. "We said we wouldn't receive it. They said, 'You won't move to Israel.'" Women said that they were told that it would be hard for them to work or find accommodation of they had large families.

This is not a new problem, but the government is finally facing up to the lack of informed consent on the part of a marginalised, poorly-educated minority. In 2008, Hedva Eyal, of the feminist group Isha L'Isha, wrote a report alleging that the medical profession had failed Ethiopian migrant women.

"The paternalistic attitude towards women of Ethiopian origin and the state's concern over high rates of birth among poor and black populations drove Israeli official bodies, such as The Jewish Agency and the medical establishment, to act, allegedly for the benefit of women's health, but in fact according to the concepts and wishes of the establishment regarding the desirable way to conduct family life. As a result, and as this paper shows, women did not get crucial medical information and their right of choice regarding their bodies, families and lives was severely curtailed."

From here.

Israel did offer an apology for the abuse of these women.

Philippines Debate Over Contraception

Unlike so many countries in the world (like say, Scotland or Cuba) the Philippines is not in danger of having to rely on immigration to prop up its demographic future. With a birth rate well in excess of 3 children per woman (down from 7.4 sixty years ago) the Philippines is still a growing population. It is in the position of being able to export workers to other countries who need the help (for example, Singapore).

However, at the moment the Philippines is debating whether its population growth is desirable or whether the Government needs to do something about it. When other countries are trying to get people to pair up and breed for the future, the Philippines President, Benigno Aquino has pushed forward a controversial health bill that subsidizes contraception. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The reproductive health bill – which would also mandate sex education and widen family planning offerings – passed an important hurdle Monday, when lawmakers decided to end long periods of debate on the issue so that a vote can be held, most likely in the next several weeks. If the bill passes in the Philippines House, backers would also need to get support from the Philippines Senate before the law can be enforced.”

The supporters of this bill are worried that if something is not done, then the Philippines will not be able to afford required infrastructure – roads, hospitals, schools etc – and will be unable to deal with poverty. In short, the Philippines must lower its population growth to become rich. As you may imagine, in a very Catholic country like the Philippines, there are vocal opponents to the bill. For example:

“Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a veteran Catholic leader, said on the online news portal rappler.com that the bill ‘hates life, wants to do away with life’ and questioned the economic value of efforts to rein in the country’s reproductive rates.”

But perhaps the hardest-hitting opponent of the bill is the Congressman representing the district of Sarangani, boxing icon Manny Pacquiao. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Pacquiao has “hit out” against the bill and has “com[e] out swinging”:

“God said, ‘Go out and multiply.’ He did not say, just have two or three kids,” [Pacquiao] said in an interview earlier this year with the Philippines’ GMA Network…Mr. Pacquiao has continued to reference contraception as one of his key political issues, arguing that lawmakers should instead focus on laws that would alleviate poverty, rather than using government funds to subsidize birth control.”

While it is unlikely that Pacquiao’s opposition will be a knock-out blow to the bill, it does give opponents a well-known figure to rally around and will undoubtedly help their message to get out to a wider audience. The debate has been raging on and off for ten years now in the Philippines, so it fair to say: watch this space; there are a few rounds to go before the final bell.

Related reading:  Vicente “Tito” Sotto Refutes Propaganda; Chile Study Exposes Lie of "Safe" Abortion; Clinton Talks Pro-Choice in the Philippines

65 Orthodox Bishops Resist Obama's Contraception Mandate

NEW YORK, NY, February 6, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – The 65 canonical bishops of the Orthodox Church have asked President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to repeal the mandate that religious institutions provide birth control, sterilization, and Plan B abortion drugs in their health care coverage.

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America – which represents 12 Orthodox jurisdictions and three million Orthodox Christians in the United States – issued a press release last Thursday calling the HHS ruling a violation of religious conscience.

“The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion,” the statement says. “This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for ‘contraceptive services’ including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions.”

“Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.”

The bishops urged the faithful to take action. The statement calls upon “all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.”

Influential leaders in the Orthodox Church expressed their appreciation that the bishops had spoken out. “The statement issued by the Orthodox bishops reflects a welcome voice in the public square that has too often been silent due to our unhappy divisions as American Orthodox Christians,” said Fr. Chad Hatfield, the president of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Yonkers, New York, in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com.

Fr. Peter-Michael Preble, an Orthodox priest and writer in Massachusetts agreed, “I don’t think we should shy about controversial topics.” Fr. Preble wrote an article in The Huffington Post asking the hierarchy of his church to publicly address the subject. “This seemed to be more of a national issue that the bishops as a whole had to say something about, and they weren’t, and I was afraid we were losing ground,” he told LifeSiteNews.com. “The Roman Catholic bishops were carrying the majority water on this issue and taking the brunt of the heat, and I just thought we had to do something.”

After reading the statement, Fr. Preble said, “I’m very pleased with the fact that [the bishops] did speak out, and I hope that this is the start of other statements that they will make about other issues, as well.”

The nation’s Orthodox Christians join a growing number of non-Catholics who had officially opposed the contraception mandate, which religious institutions will be required to observe by next August. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said on his daily podcast last Tuesday that any law requiring people of faith to violate their conscience “is not only a Catholic issue…our religious liberty is being similarly subverted and attacked.”

Late last year 60 religious leaders, mostly Protestants as well as two Orthodox Jewish spokesmen, signed a letter to President Obama, stating, “It is emphatically not only Catholics who deeply object to the requirement that health plans they purchase must provide coverage of contraceptives that include some that are abortifacients.”


The Orthodox Church is the second largest church in the world. The North American bishops posted their press release last Thursday, the date Orthodox Christians celebrate the presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple.

Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America was traveling and was not immediately available for comment.


The statement reads in full:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America, which is comprised of the 65 canonical Orthodox bishops in the United States, Canada and Mexico, join their voices with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and all those who adamantly protest the recent decision by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and call upon all the Orthodox Christian faithful to contact their elected representatives today to voice their concern in the face of this threat to the sanctity of the Church’s conscience.

In this ruling by HHS, religious hospitals, educational institutions, and other organizations will be required to pay for the full cost of contraceptives (including some abortion-inducing drugs) and sterilizations for their employees, regardless of the religious convictions of the employers.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. This freedom is transgressed when a religious institution is required to pay for “contraceptive services” including abortion-inducing drugs and sterilization services that directly violate their religious convictions. Providing such services should not be regarded as mandated medical care. We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.


Contact Information:

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America
 
Related reading:  Evangelicals and Jews Unite Against Obama's Birth Control Mandate

UN Considers Radical Proposal from Youth

The UN General Assembly is hearing some radical ideas this week, and not all of them are from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A youth-led NGO recruited and funded by International Planned Parenthood is asking the General Assembly to endorse the agenda they spelled out in a document presented last month at the World Conference on Youth in Mexico. Here’s a sample:

5. Fully recognize young people’s sexual and reproductive rights, particularly the right to choose, through achieving universal access to confidential, youth‐friendly sexual and reproductive health services, including access to evidence‐based comprehensive sexuality education, in formal and non‐formal settings. Implement key effective interventions in the continuum of care for maternal health, including access to a full range of contraceptives and safe abortion.

The International Youth Coalition released a counter-document raising the bar in its vision for a more humane and just future for the next generation. This pro-life, pro-family plan is being presented to friendly delegations at UN headquarters in these turbulent times. Here’s how it opens:

We — young people from all over the world — celebrate the fact that, as human beings, we are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore we possess inherent human dignity. We believe that the age of youth is the “sculptress that shapes the whole of life” and as such this is perhaps the most critical period in the development of the human person. Because we are the future of the human family, we strive for the common good and for a positive renewal of society. We seek the continued healthy flourishing of the human family. We hereby adopt the following principles that are of fundamental importance to young people and to the entire human family.

They’re urgently asking youth and young adults to sign on to those principles and add their voices to this declaration as it gets handed over to UN delegations. People over the age of 30 can sign and support it here.

We urge UN Member States and all governments of the world to listen to the authentic voice of young people as expressed in this important document.

It’s an exceptional statement. It needs and deserves worldwide attention and support.

(From here.)

Oral Contraceptives Increase HIV Risk

More than 50 medical studies, to date, have investigated the association of hormonal contraceptive use and HIV/AIDS infection. The studies show that hormonal contraceptives—the oral pill and Depo-Provera—increase almost all known risk factors for HIV, from upping a woman's risk of infection, to increasing the replication of the HIV virus, to speeding the debilitating and deadly progression of the disease.

A medical trial published in the journal AIDS in 2009—monitoring HIV progression by the need for antiretroviral drugs (ART)—saw “the risk of becoming eligible for ART was almost 70% higher in women taking the pills and more than 50% higher in women using DMPA [Depo-Provera] than in women using IUDS.”

Given that more than 100 million women worldwide use hormonal contraception, and that population control agencies and advocates insist that contraception is basic to the progress of developing countries, this is a very big problem.

To answer the questions above:

… sub-Saharan Africa has endured decades of contraception-focused population control programs and countless hormonal-contraceptive trials. “Among the six [African] countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic … two in three users in the six countries rely on the OC (oral contraceptives) or injectables,” said Iqbal Shah of the World Health Organization.

Likewise, Thailand, praised for a contraceptive prevalence of 79.2% in 2000 and upwards of 70% today, is a land where, “More than one-in-100 adults in this country of 65 million people is infected with HIV.” Among Thai women, “Oral contraception is the most popular method.”

On the other hand, Japan's HIV rate is, at 0.01%, one of the lowest in the world.10 In this context, it is important to note that the birth control pill was illegal in Japan until 1999, and even today only 1% of Japanese women use oral contraception. Similarly, the predominantly Catholic Philippines, with a longstanding popular resistance to contraception, boasts an HIV “prevalence rate of only 0.02%.”

Read it all here.

Child Trafficking in Haiti

Children, the most vulnerable members of Haiti’s population, are suffering terribly as a result of the disastrous earthquake, many losing parents, homes and health. As if that was not bad enough, they are now more likely than ever to be captured by traffickers who buy and sell children for sex and cheap labour, says an expert on the subject.

From her base in India, which has seen the same thing happen after natural disasters, Nicolette Grams of the International Justice Mission predicts that trafficking gangs will be moving in to seize their prey. She says human trafficking is a problem in Haiti at the best of times, affecting a quarter-million Haitian children each year.

These slaves, known as restavecs, are typically sold or given away to new families by their own impoverished parents. Physical and sexual abuse is common for restavecs. Many owners use the girls as in-house prostitutes, sending them to live on the street if they become pregnant.

Not all of these trafficked children end up as domestic slaves within Haiti—plenty of others are promised work in the Dominican Republic but are instead sold to work in agricultural fields or brothels across the border. Poor children who escape a life in bondage most often end up in street gangs; if they are fortunate, they may be accepted into overcrowded orphanages.

Given the life and death needs facing the authorities and aid workers, watching out for traffickers is most unlikely to be on their list of priorities. Some voices have been raised against whisking children overseas with a view to adoption, but at least those children are being cared for well and can always be reunited with relations if that seems best for them.

Better adoption than enslavement.

Meanwhile, an international organisation whose solution to the social problems of Haiti is to prevent children being born, also continues to ply its trade there. International Planned Parenthood is appealing for funds for “basic first aid, as well as obstetric care and family planning” in Haiti, where its two largest clinics have been destroyed.

Before the earthquake each of these clinics was dishing out condoms, chemical contraceptives and abortions to 200 Haitians a day through the local IPPF affiliate, Profamilia (sic), and has been doing that sort of thing since 1984. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Haiti has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world, and the highest in the Western hemisphere.

One hoped these people would keep quiet about birth control, for once, as they deal with women who have lost children or other family members. Basic first aid and obstetric care could easily consume all the funds they raise.

One organisation that you can be sure is focused on helping mothers is MaterCare International, which is also appealing for funds for its emergency effort in Haiti.

From here.

Hormonal Contraception: A Brief History

At the turn of the 20th century, there was growing confidence in the power of the medical sciences to finally understand human physiology and the patho-physiology of diseases. The source of this confidence was due in no small part to advances in the field of endocrinology: the study of hormones and the glands that produce them.

The term "hormone" was coined in 1905 by the British physiologist Ernest Starling, after the Greek word meaning "to incite to activity". In the early 20th century, a variety of chemicals were found to have "hormonal" effects in humans: they were produced in one tissue, entered the bloodstream and incited a specific effect on another distant and unrelated tissue. Insulin, thyroxine, testosterone and cortisone were discovered at this time and were found to have remarkable restorative properties when given to patients with a number of common diseases.

This enthusiasm for the therapeutic potential of "hormones" also extended to the area of human reproduction In the late 19th century, Professor Brown-Sequard, at the age of 72, injected himself with the extracts of guinea pig testicles and was astounded at their rejuvenating effects.

Between 1910 and 1930, the hormones estrogen and progesterone were found to play important roles in the physiology of female mammalian reproduction, and so by around 1940, it became apparent that in human females, fertility depended upon the complex interactions of a hierarchy of hormones which affected the ovaries first, and then the uterus. The ovaries were found to be the source of a "female factor" in human development (the ova or egg): complementary to and just as necessary for human reproduction as the"male factor". This picture -- which seems so clear today -- was in fact a dramatic insight, considering that even in the second half of the 19th century many scientists still believed that conception occurred when the male factor – a seed – was sown into the female womb– the soil. A woman’s contribution to conception was thought to be that off a passive receptacle offering a favorable environment for the germination of the seed.

The picture that now emerged meant that fertility in women was in the normal case orderly and cyclical, and therefore predictable. This new understanding of human reproduction seemed to lift the veil on an awesome event that, until then, had been shrouded in mystery. Science began to expose the mystery, to reveal the mechanics of how human beings came about, and made that event accessible and open to manipulation.

Read it all here.