Spending bill has money for abortions

Depressions and recessions can be good for the soul. We can trim down our budgets and simplify our lifestyles, finding more time for the simple things which make life worthwhile, a family dinner, walking throught the woods, talking with a friend by the fireplace. . . ABORTION!!
Yes, Obama's lapdogs in Congress talk about helping the economy, then pass an omnibus spending bill to fund abortion for the first time in 13 years. Seems the economy of Planned Parenthood and other loyal Democrat contributors must be stimulated while millions of women are victimized and their children murdered.

"The bill also provides millions of dollars for international 'family planning' that could be directed to organizations that pay for and promote abortions. A majority of Americans do not support the use of their tax dollars to pay for abortions," she said.

The bill also appropriates $648.5 million for international family planning funding, an increase of $103 million from Fiscal Year 2009, without the constraints of the Mexico City Policy to prevent these dollars from being provided to organizations that promote and perform abortions.
The bill also increases funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which has an admittedly pro-abortion agenda and has been criticized for working hand-in-hand with Chinese population control officials, to $55 million, a $5 million increase from FY09."

Read the entire article on Life News.

UN Treaty on Disabled free of pro-abortion language; for now

Thanks to the valiant efforts of pro-lifers, like our friends Piero Tozzi and Austin Ruse at C-FAM, there is no language stating that abortion is a right of the disable, in fact the UN Treaty on the Disabled says the opposite.
"Take the Disabilities Convention. The term was debated extensively, and it was clear throughout negotiations that "sexual and reproductive health" did not include abortion. This was recognized repeatedly by the Chairman, who said that no new rights -- and specifically no right to abortion -- were created. Indeed, the official report of the proceedings stated that "this phrase was not intended to alter or prejudice the general policies of governments," thus acknowledging that countries are free to keep their laws protecting the unborn in place.
At least 15 nations made statements that the phrase did not create a right to abortion. The US in its closing statement affirmed that the term "cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion."
But we must remain vigilant, as there are many UN committees with anti-life agendas.
Read the entire article at MercatorNet.

Overpopulation is an outdated myth

Feast of St Stephen, martyr

Obama and Hillary are about to invade the UN...
Unborn babies in unspeakable danger...
Dear Friend of the Friday Fax,
On this Christmas Eve, I am truly frightened about the battles that will begin in a few short weeks when Barack Obama becomes President and Hillary Clinton becomes US Secretary of States. I know what is about to happen.
I lived through the Clinton years when abortion was pushed relentlessly by the Clintons and their cohorts at the UN. It was awful.
Pro-lifers were outnumbered by 1,000 to one. Pro-lifers were outspent by $1 billion to one.
Pro-life Christians were persecuted by UN officials simply for being present and fighting for the unborn. The nightmare is about to continue and it will be worse than ever before.
Barack Obama is the most pro-abortion president the US has ever known. He will push for abortion in every venue there is. It will be worse at the UN than anywhere else? Why? Because hardly anyone pays attention to the UN. His work will be hidden. This hiddenness will allow Barack to truly be Barack when it comes to distain for the unborn child.
It will be far worse this time because Barack will also become the most pro-UN president the US has ever seen. He and his team believe the US should join the "global consensus" on a whole host of UN social policy issues, most especially abortion. Worse than that, he and his team believe whole-heartedly that the UN is the sovereign power, not the US, not other sovereign states. He and his team are eager to subsume national sovereignty into UN sovereignty. This includes not just US sovereignty, but Australian sovereignty, Canadian sovereignty, Spanish sovereignty and every other national sovereignty on the globe.
But it will be worse this time than during the Clinton years precisely because his UN team will be led by Hillary Clinton, the Grand Dame of UN pro-abortionists. Hillary was literally leader of the pack at the UN during the nineties, and the pack was braying for a right to abortion. We beat them then and they are back for revenge.
This is what will happen. The US will immediately join the European Union and the UN bureaucracy in advancing a woman's so-called right to choose abortion. You can expect the following:
• A new global conference on women's health, maternal health and violence against women. This will be used to advance a universal right to abortion.
• A new global conference celebrating and advancing Cairo+15 (Cairo+10 was largely ignored during the Bush years because pro-aborts feared a loss).
• A new global conference celebrating and advancing Beijing+15 (Beijing+10 was also largely ignored during the Bush years for fear of a loss).
• You will see renewed US funding of the UN Population Fund, the premier UN agency for advancing population control and abortion.
• You will see Obama strike down US laws forbidding abortion funding for groups around the world. This will result in millions of more dollars supporting abortion around the world.
You will see much much more. But here is the good news. C-FAM and the Friday Fax will be there. As much as the Obamas and the Clintons and the UN hate it, we will be there at every meeting. If we can't get into the meeting, we will be sitting in the hallway outside. We will delve in to documents no one else sees. We will meet with diplomats you will never hear of. We will stalk those halls at the UN all day and, if need be, into the night. We will shine our bright light on UN abortion shenanigans when no one else is there. We will tell the truth.
C-FAM and the Friday Fax are uniquely situated to do this work for the global pro-life movement. We have been here for more than ten years. We are the only pro-life group working exclusively on UN matters. It is as if we have been in training for a decade just to meet the challenge of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And we say, bring them on! We are ready. But, we need your help. Right now the Friday Fax costs more than $100,000 a year to produce. This includes salaries, office space, computers, printing and mailing the snail-mail edition, and the cost of sending out emails (yes that costs money, too!). And our expenses are about to go through the roof.
Our hugely successful online petition for the unborn child that so far as netted almost 500,000 names will add a net 200,000+ names to our Friday Fax list. We do not have the money to email that many. Some firms want to charge us $2000 per month to mail that many! Needless to say, we will find a cheaper solution. Still, our costs are about to go much higher. Now is the time to step forward and help the Friday Fax,=2 0the only weekly source of pro-life and pro-family news coming out of UN headquarters in New York City.
Now and over the next five weeks we will be running our bi-annual Friday Fax fund drive. You can go right HERE and give. You can give by credit card over our super-secure server, or you can send us a check (mail instructions HERE). You can also wire us your contribution (instructions HERE).
Now is the time. The Obamas and the Clintons will be backed by billions and billions of dollars. The Friday Fax gets by on a pittance. Still, we and our allies have beaten them before. We can beat them again. But we need you now.
And remember to pray for us, too. This is not just a battle of people but of powers and principalities. We cannot beat them, only He can.
Please help the Friday Fax. We are here. We are ready. We are not afraid.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Austin Ruse of C-FAM

C-FAM presents abortion petition to United Nations

Those of us in the blogosphere who worked to get signatures can be proud of the 350,000 signatures which were on this petition to include the unborn on the UN Declartion of Human Rights.
Austin Ruse, president of C-FAM, told Catholic News Agency he anticipates the pro-abortion petition to have only a tiny fraction of the number of signatures on C-FAM’s petition in favor of life and family.
“We are proud not only to match but far surpass the efforts of pro-abortion groups,” said Ruse.
Added Ruse, “I suspect that Marie Stopes and IPPF will present a few thousand names. This shows what we have known all along; that abortion is supported mostly by elites while everyday people are for protecting the unborn child.”
Read the entire story on NC Register.com.

What the UN Populatin Fund is doing with it's money

President Bush refused to fund the UN Population Fund because of horrific stories like the one I cite here. Our money would be used for forced abortions in China. Obama has promised to fund the UNFPA.
from the Family Research Council
Reinstating UNFPA -- Over China's Dead Bodies
Newspapers from cities as far away as Melbourne, Australia are anxiously awaiting word on a Uyghur woman in China, six months pregnant with her third child. According to local reports, government officials tracked Arzigul Tursun down in her village and escorted her to a hospital where authorities ordered her to abort the baby against her will. Although guards had been stationed at the hospital, Arzigul managed to escape. After the police interrogated her family, the mother-to-be was recaptured yesterday in the home of some relatives. Her plight has sparked outrage in the international community, which is demanding her release. In the past, the U.S. government -- at President Bush's insistence -- has withheld funding from groups like the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) for its supporting role in these coercive abortion policies. President-elect Obama has said he will restore U.S. funding to UNFPA. America will no longer be an innocent bystander of tragedies like this one. Instead, the U.S. will be knowingly funding forced abortions like Arzigul's with millions of taxpayer dollars. In an interview with the Obama campaign before the election, RH Reality check asked, "If elected President, would Sen. Obama, overturn the Global Gag Rule or reinstate funding for UNFPA?" A spokesman for the campaign responded, "Yes, Senator Obama would overturn the global gag rule and reinstate funding for UNFPA." The new administration plans to funnel millions of dollars to UNFPA despite its support of China's savage one-child policy. Contact your leaders and tell them that terrorizing pregnant women is not the "change" America voted for. Urge them to oppose Obama's anti-woman agenda.

Please sign the C-FAM petitition to the UN

On December 10th, pro-abortion groups will present petitions asking the United Nation's General Assembly to make abortion a universally recognized human right. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute created an alternate petition drive that calls for government to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as protecting the unborn child from abortion. They
need at least 100,000 signatures by December 10th, the 60th Anniversary of the Universail Delaration of Human Rights. Please go to othe Website:
http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.95/default.asp and sign the petition.
If you know anyone that would be interested in doing the same you are welcome to forward this on to whomever.
"A nation that aborts its own children is a nation without hope." -- Pope John Paul II

International proponents of the Culture of Death close in for the kill

This happens to be the feastday of the Archangels.
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.Protect us from the wickedness and snares of the devil. Here are some of Old Nick's friends at work in the world.

The UN will celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this December 10th. To celebrate this occasion, radical pro-abortion groups intend to present the UN General Assembly with petitions calling for a universal right to abortion. The largest, richest and most powerful pro-abortion groups are even now planning their attack on the unborn at the General Assembly.
Campaigns are being waged right now by International Planned Parenthood Federation and Maire Stopes International, the two groups responsible for more abortions than any other groups in the world. Both are beloved of the powers that be at the UN; and their efforts to promote an international right to abortion are welcomed by many UN Member States, perhaps most of the UN bureaucracy, and powerful US foundations that give millions to promote abortion at the UN and around the world. We must stop them this December.
I am writing to ask you to sign a petition calling on UN Members States to interpret the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as protecting the unborn child from abortion. Did you know that the Universal Declaration calls for a right to life? Did you know that UN committees now interpret that as a right to abortion? We can stop them. Please go HERE to sign the petition which we will present at the UN on December 10th, the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At the very least we must match what the pro-abortion advocates will present to the UN that day! They will present thousands and thousands of names. WE MUST MATCH THEM!
Go HERE to sign the petition and then please send this email to all of your family and friends. Our goal is to present 50,000+ names to the General Assembly. We need your help right now to block the pro-aborts from making huge progress for abortion at the UN. We are going to run this campaign for the next six weeks. There is plenty of time to get this petition to everyone in your address book and all around the world. This is an international right. Please help us now. Imagine the look on their faces when we slam down 50,000 names! Be a part of that. Sign the petition HERE and send this all over the world.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
PresidentC-FAM
(The only pro-life group working exclusively on UN social policy)

A peek into the sick world of abortion policy planners

Secret Meeting to Plot Global Abortion Strategy Exposed
/UN Personnel Present
By Samantha Singson
(NEW YORK— C-FAM) A group calling itself the "brain trust" met in secret recently to plot how to take advantage of conflict situations to advance the abortion and radical feminist agenda. A new group called the Global Justice Center (GJC) hosted the New York meeting on June 9 of this year. The Friday Fax was given the chance to listen to a recording of the inaugural meeting of the "brain trust” which details the GJC's plan to exploit ceasefire and peace talks to gain leverage in newly-formed governments.
The GJC meeting brought together academics, lawyers, practitioners with ties to radical groups as the George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Equality Now, Center for Reproductive Rights, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and Amnesty International. Jeremy Sarkin, the current UN Special Rapporteur for Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances was also at the meeting.
Participants at the meeting lamented the lack of international political will to enforce “gender justice” around the world and agreed that “shock treatment” was needed to change “the entrenched political and cultural norms that perpetuate male-dominated decision-making bodies and constrain women.”
Janet Benshoof, former president of the Center for Reproductive Rights and current president and founder of the GJC, asserted that conflict situations could be used as an “access point” to change the culture and the players. Benshoof argued that the prime opportunities for advancing their cause lay in the “transitioning government structures which afford particular opportunity for repositioning women's role in public life and decision-making.”
Meeting participants deliberated on how human rights law precedents could be made in conflict situations to “reshape power structures,” ensure gender equality, create “judicial entrepreneurs” and change norms. Some ideas included: increasing the number of women judges, increasing the number of female legislators by getting political parties to actively recruit women, and implementing affirmative action policies.
One participant mused, “A lot of laws have not been interpreted or defined in a new country and you can assume that whatever you want the law to be, it is – unless it is proven otherwise. So of course we put the most progressive spin on it.”
Apart from getting involved in conflict situations, the group discussed other possible opportunities and entry points to change norms and advance the agenda. The group expressed hope in being able to take advantage of the new human rights bodies that are being created by the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Arab League.
One member of the group boasted, “The more we say it, the more people get to believing it. We’re changing the norm. First they laugh and then they start repeating it.”
The Global Justice Center started as a project of Women’s Link Worldwide, which was founded by the pro-abortion advocacy group The Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization that seeks to create an international human right to abortion on demand through litigation. By the end of the day-long meeting, participants said they were looking forward to coming together again to discuss monitoring and implementation and “to think of creative mechanisms for enforcing laws.” Future meetings of the "brain trust" have not yet been announced.
For more news, visit us at www.c-fam.org

C-Fam has a new website

Dear Colleague,
Today I am proud to announce that we finally have a website that we can be, well, proud of! Please go here Check out Inside the UN, the Center for UN Documents, the International Organizations Research Group. Check out our new mission statement, the result of a year-long strategic planning process. Today we are reporting on another story you will not have read anywhere else. The US Government has rejected advances by the Danish Government to join a global campaign to put abortion into the Millennium Development Goals. The Danes, along with the UN Population Fund and others is running something called the Torch Campaign that explicitly calls for governments to support "sexual and reproductive health," a phrase that is used repeatedly to promote access to abortion. We are also beginning a three part series by Susan Yoshihara and a very important new book about the history of population control by a Yale-educated scholar at Columbia University. I will write more about this in the coming weeks, but please take a look at Susan's review and then order the book.
Yours sincerely,
Austin RusePresident

Why the UN can't wait for George Bush to leave office

Front Royal, VA, 07/02/08--The Bush administration has once again withheld nearly $40 million from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), marking the seventh consecutive year that the U.S. government has refused the organization. The Population Research Institute applauds this decision, which honors the Kemp-Kasten amendment of 1985 forbidding tax dollars from going to programs of forced abortion.
The groundwork for this decision was laid by the Population Research Institute, headed by Steven W. Mosher, which has sent teams of investigators to China over the years. These investigations have found that the UNFPA was deeply involved in programs of forced abortion and coercive sterilization in that country. The evidence presented to the U.S. Congress and the White House, left no doubt that the UNFPA was operating in China in violations of the Kemp-Kasten Amendment.
Reacting to PRI's findings, President Bush in 2001 decided to redirect $34 million away from the UNFPA's coercive family-planning programs into child survival programs, anti-trafficking programs, and other programs. The UNFPA's subsequent efforts to cover-up its involvement in China, have been to no avail. No U.S. population funds have gone to the UNFPA for the past seven years, costing the organization a total of $235 million.
"The evidence demonstrates that the UNFPA continues to aid and abet China's barbaric one-child policy," says PRI's President Steven Mosher. "It doesn't deserve one penny of U.S. money."
Mosher is the author of the newly published Population Control--Real Costs, Illusory Benefits, which documents the undeclared war that the Chinese government has carried out on its own population. His book is available at PRI's web site: www.pop.org, and at bookstores everywhere.

Defending the Dignity of the Unborn in Bioethics Circles

Last Friday, I attended Bioethics International's Conference hosted by Jennifer Miller in the UN Church Center. A panel of professionals responsible for the training of doctors in the various teaching hospitals in New York and Yale University as well as some of the leading policymakers in the UN Non-governmental Organizations were there.
Is is redundant to say that the Catholic Church was constantly under fire, and that the ideas of objective moral truth and the dignity of the human person, from the moment of conception was mocked?
Only two of the speakers defended these eternal truths, Jennifer of the Culture of Life Foundation (I'll write an entire post on her later) and Fr. Berg of the Westchester Institute who is an expert on Natural Law. Here is the latest column from the Westchester Institute, defending the dignity of the unborn baby.
I will be covering the Conference greater detail in subsequent posts. I was given a glimpse into the future not only of the USA, but the entire world, if Barack Obama is elected, and it terrified me. As a hint, take this fact; the first Western aid to reach Myramar was NOT food, water, or medicine; it was condoms.

Cong Chris Smith: a true Catholic politician v UN pro-abortion agenda

from C-FAM
Pro-Life Congressmen Thwart US Support for UN Abortion Initiative
By Piero A. Tozzi and Susan Yoshihara
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) Pro-life congressmen, lead by Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Bart Stupak (D-MI), rescued a congressional resolution supporting reduction of women’s mortality at home and abroad from surreptitiously advancing the pro-abortion agenda advanced at the United Nations. House Resolution 1022, as now drafted, promotes both “maternal health and child survival” without a stealth promotion of abortion. The language that was removed by Smith and Stupak called for funding of "global initiatives" and the recognition of maternal health as a "human right." Using such language would have lent U.S. support for a new pro-abortion initiative launched at a London conference last October called “Women Deliver.” At the Women Deliver conference pro-abortion advocates launched the International Initiative on Maternal Mortality and Human Rights that seeks to link the maternal mortality issue with access to abortion while furthering development of “soft law” norms that include abortion as a human right. Among those launching the initiative at the Women Deliver conference were UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Thoraya Obaid, the initiative’s architect and then UN Special Rapporteur for Health, Paul Hunt, and the President of the pro-abortion law firm and secretariat for the initiative Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northrup. Northrup stated at the launching that she believes UN treaties already contain an international right to abortion and she would work through the initiative and with UN partners to further that understanding and bind UN member states to recognize that right. The Women Deliver conference, organized and chaired by the world's top abortion advocates, including International Planned Parenthood Federation, Ipas and “Catholics” for a Free Choice, was also sponsored by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization in addition to the UNFPA. House Resolution 1022's primary sponsor, Lois Capps (D-CA), was one of three members of Congress that attended the Women Deliver conference. A number of pro-life members of Congress, unaware of the provenance of the global initiative and health rights language, originally signed onto the draft version of the resolution. One misstatement that remains uncorrected in the present version is assertion that “an estimated 536,000 women die during pregnancy and childbirth” – a number touted at the Women Deliver conference but unsubstantiated by the UN's own statisticians. The UN Population Division report The World’s Women 2005: Progress in Statistics states that “more than a third of the 204 countries or areas examined did not report the number of deaths by sex even once for the period 1995 to 2003 . . . About half did not report deaths by cause, sex and age at least once in the same period.” In a statement preceding passage of the bill, Rep. Smith pointed out that “when women receive proper prenatal care, they are less likely to die in childbirth,” adding that the final form of the resolution “does not endorse – in any way whatsoever – the cruel ideology that pits women against babies by suggesting abortion as a means of combating maternal mortality.”

See the article below for how a Catholic OB is fighting infant mortality in Africa.

Pope Benedict's speech at the UN today

Pope Benedict XVI Addresses UN General Assembly
By Samantha Singson
(NEW YORK — C-FAM) Today in New York, Pope Benedict XVI became the third pope to address the United Nations General Assembly. The pontiff spoke before the packed assembly that included representatives from all 192 member states and hundreds of representatives from civil society. On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Declaration), Pope Benedict addressed the audience in both English and French and called on the UN to be “an instrument of service to the entire human family.”
Pope Benedict emphasized that “The promotion of human rights remains the most effective strategy for eliminating inequalities between countries and social groups, and for increasing security” and that “efforts need to be redoubled in the face of pressure to reinterpret the foundations of the Declaration and to compromise its inner unity so as to facilitate a move away from the protection of human dignity towards the satisfaction of simple interests, often particular interests.”
At the United Nations, the Holy Father faces an international body that does good work around the world in peacekeeping and in providing aid to those who are suffering. But it is also a body which Benedict said last year often falls into relativism. While the Holy See is classified as an observer state at the UN, the Holy See enjoys nearly full participation at UN meetings and negotiations and has continuously worked to overcome ideas and practices that violate the teachings of the Catholic Church, including contraception and abortion. In his speech to the General Assembly, Pope Benedict cautioned that the rights enshrined in the Declaration “cannot be applied piecemeal, according to trends or selective choices that merely run the risk of contradicting the unity of the human person and thus the indivisibility of human rights.”
Pope Benedict XVI not only spoke of the UN’s need to promote and protect human rights, but also spoke of the responsibility of the international community to use scientific research and technological advances in a way that does not violate the “order of creation, to the point where not only is the sacred character of life contradicted, but the human person and family are robbed of their natural identity.”
Pope Benedict is on his first and perhaps only trip to the United States as pontiff. He landed in Washington D.C. on Tuesday and was met by President George W. Bush at the airport, an honor never before bestowed on any visiting dignitary by any president. During the D.C. leg of his trip, Benedict met with President Bush at the White House and held a prayer session before answering questions with an audience of American bishops. Benedict also spoke to the students at Catholic University of America and held an inter-religious dialogue at the John Paul II Cultural Center and held a huge public mass at the new baseball stadium.
The Holy Father’s New York visit will include a mass for priests, deacons and religious at St. Patrick’s cathedral, a visit to Ground Zero at the World Trade Center Site and ends with a public mass at Yankees Stadium on Sunday.
Don't forget a Youth Rallly at St. Joseph's Seminary at Dunwoodie in Yonkers! I'll be there less than 24 hours from now!

Homosexuals push for radical rights here and abroad.

Several House Republicans voted with Democrats to pass theEmployment Non-Discrimination Act, ENDA, a dangerous homosexual rights bill which may force employers to hire homosexuals or face discrimination lawsuits. Homosexual activists have been active abroad, as well, as you can see from this email from C-FAM. If this type of legislation is successful, even this blog post could get this mother of three imprisoned. I want to go on record saying that Our Lord and I love homosexuals as people, and want to set them free from their dangerous obsession. But I am not about to let them dictate their immorality to my country. Or my church. I love them too much. If their unhealthy lifestyle is accepted by force, then there goes their only help of healing and reconciliation with Christ.

We report today on yet another racial social initiative launched this week at UN headquarters. A number of governments and UN officials endorsed a radical homosexual document they hope to foist on the General Assembly and the Member States of the UN.
Spread the word, Austin Ruse President

Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay Launch Radical Homosexual Rights Document
By Samantha Singson (NEW YORK C-FAM)
At a meeting at UN headquarters this week, a coalition of NGOs and the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay hosted the New York launch of a document which seeks to advance homosexual rights at the national and international levels. Boris Dittrich, advocacy director for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender program at Human Rights Watch and moderator of the event stated that this document was the "Magna Carta for human rights in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity."
Called the Yogyakarta Principles , the document lists human rights that already exist in binding international law such as the right to life and freedom from torture, and reinterprets each one to include homosexual rights. Based on the tenet of non-discrimination, the Principles assert that nations are legally bound to change their constitutions and penal codes to incorporate homosexual rights, including rights to same-sex unions and gay adoption.
According to the Principles, "Sexual orientation is understood to refer to each person's capacity for profound emotional, affectional [sic] and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender." The document states that "gender identity is understood to refer to each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth."
Panelist Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and signatory to the Yogyakarta Principles, praised the document for addressing a "deficit in the human rights system" that does not adequately address discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which she argues are "core human rights issues." Though she was not present at the meeting, a letter from current UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Louise Arbour was distributed at the meeting in support of the Yogyakarta Principles. Arbour reiterates her office's commitment to promoting and protecting sexual orientation and gender identity and states that "Excluding lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons from equal protection violates international human rights law as well as the common standards of humanity that define us all."
Pro-family UN experts note that not a single UN human rights treaty mentions sexual orientation and furthermore, UN member states have repeatedly rejected attempts by Brazil and the EU to pass resolutions promoting broad homosexual rights.
The panelists strongly encouraged government delegations to use the Yogyakarta Principles throughout the UN system and as a guide for all future programs and work. Dittrich praised the government of the Netherlands for already using the Principles to help determine development aid. To help more countries follow the Netherlands example, the organizers announced that an activist guide on the Yogyakarta Principles would be published in the upcoming weeks. The event was organized by several prominent homosexual rights groups such as the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC), the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and Human Rights Watch.
For more news visit us at www.c-fam.org
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