C-FAM: US Castigates Holy See over “Family Planning”

The always useful C-FAM site – may they thrive – has this.

Volume 14, Number 18
April 14, 2011

US Castigates Holy See over Family Planning

By Lauren Funk

NEW YORK, April 14 (C-FAM) The contrast between the priorities of the developed and developing world was as clear as night and day.

“It is detrimental to not have adequate family planning resources,” a visibly US delegate told the room.  “Why is there a resistance to acknowledging access to family planning as a necessity?”

The soft-spoken delegate from the small island nation of St. Lucia replied, “How do we get our fertility rate to rise? We were told we needed to reduce our fertility rate –now we have an aging population.”

Both voices spoke out during a UN panel hosted last week by the Holy See, Honduras, and Malta called “Secure Human Development: Marriage, Family, Community.” Laurie Shestack-Phipps, a US representative to the UN, castigated the Holy See and other organizers for not being “comprehensive” in their approach to the panel, specifically mentioning family planning and abortion. She [There’s a surprise.] complained further about high fertility rates in the poor countries of Africa.

Shestack-Phipps said, “How can you say that you value family, community, and marriage, but not bring into the picture that both men and women have a right to a healthy life, to be able to avoid unsafe abortion, and have access to the highest attainable standard of reproductive health, and to decide how many children they should have?”  [Get that?  Note the language about “rights”.  The “right” to “avoid unsafe abortion”.  The assumption is that abortion is a right.]

The exchange between Shestack and Sarah Flood-Beaubrun of St. Lucia points up an irony at the UN. On the one side are rich countries demanding poor countries reduce their fertility rates, and on the other, the poor countries saying they need higher fertility rates for not just development, but survival. Almost half the countries in the world are facing what has come to be known as demographic winter, where fertility rates have fallen so dramatically that populations are rapidly aging.

The US delegate’s castigation on family planning, which ignored the demographic realities and actual desires of developing countries, is a microcosm of the current UN debates on population and development.  The documents that guide this year’s Commission on Population and Development admit that most nations have achieved low fertility, yet the UN continues to ask donor nations for more and more money for family planning services [US taxpayer money at work around the world!] and for what the UN euphemistically calls commodities: condoms, pills, and injectibles that prevent pregnancy. [“commodities”…. Orwellian.]

Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America, further underscored the incongruity. She has visited many medical clinics in Africa and the doctors there told her of medicine cabinets that are empty of essentials like penicillin but overflowing with condoms [Get that?] – so many that children have taken to blowing them up like balloons and playing with them as toys.  “So much attention is given to family planning that it drains resources away from what the desperate needs are,” she explained.

Archbishop Francis Chullikatt of the Holy See Mission also strongly warned against such warped priorities.  “International programs of economic assistance aimed at financing campaigns of sterilization and contraception, as well as the subordination of economic assistance to such campaigns, are affronts to the dignity of the person, the family, and the human community,” he said.

The panel was organized and hosted by C-FAM (publisher of the Friday Fax, Focus on the Family, and Concerned Women for America). The UN Commission on Population and Development ends this Friday.

Did L’Osservatore Romano cover this?

I wonder if they still think Pres. Obama really wants to to find common ground, really wants to dialogue.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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28 Comments

  1. Brooklyn says:

    Unsafe abortion???!!!! Abortion is always unsafe for the baby. And truthfully, even if it is “safe” for the mother physically, it is always unsafe for her mentally and spiritually.

  2. markomalley says:

    You can listen to Ms. Shestack-Phipps ask her 5 minute long question (or make her 5 minute speech, depending upon how you look at it) at this mp3 link. The question begins at 64:10 in the audio file.

  3. moon1234 says:

    Father,

    You are now seeing the goal of the Globalists and the New World Order types. They want to reduce the population of the planet to around 600 million persons. They are doing this under the guise of “health care” and “family planning”. All of these plans are about nothing but eliminating as many people on this planet in as short of a time as possible.

    From steralizing people when they receive a vaccine to pushing condoms and family planning. This is the culture of death.

    This is happening in the USA as well. This is a scary time to be alive.

  4. AndyMo says:

    to be able to avoid unsafe abortion,

    The other day I was just crossing the street, minding my own business, and BAM! I got hit by an abortion. If only I had the right to safe abortion!

    Give me a break. You have to go looking for an abortion to get an unsafe one. It’s strange: now what I stopped doing cocaine, I’m no longer at risk suffering from cocaine cut with drain cleaner. Go figure.

  5. Elly says:

    Able to avoid an unsafe abortion!?

    Perhaps this concern should be directed towards countries where women are forced to have abortions (which are always unsafe) and are not able to avoid them.

  6. Margaret says:

    @Moon1234

    From steralizing people when they receive a vaccine </i)

    Source, please?

  7. Margaret says:

    Gah! Sorry, didn’t close my italics properly. Amazing what a tantruming four-year-old will do to the concentration… :)

  8. albinus1 says:

    a visibly US delegate told the room

    “a visibly US delegate”? Was she wearing an Uncle Sam costume? Or is there an adjective missing here? ;-)
    ***
    “…but not bring into the picture that both men and women have a right to a healthy life, to be able to avoid unsafe abortion…”

    It’s oddly amusing to know that she evidently believes that men, too, have a right to be able to avoid unsafe abortion.

  9. inara says:

    “most nations have *achieved* low fertility”??

    Shestack…is that a female Sleestak?? someone needs to send her on a routine expedition…

  10. Marianna says:

    India is now suffering a shortage of women, because so many girls are aborted. According to a report I heard recently, this is not, as is widely believed, a problem only among the poor – in fact, the middle classes go in for this kind of gender selection with enthusiasm. Apparently one reason is that parents are bothered about paying huge dowries.

    In China, I gather that government people are now going from house to house in some large cities to remind couples that they are entitled to have two (!) children… Why? Because of the disastrous effect of the one-child policy there (which has also led to a disproportionately low number of women).

    Bravo to the population-control people. What a disaster their “planning” is turning out – for all of us.

  11. Ed the Roman says:

    The true unofficial motto of population control types: “just enough of me, way too much of you.”

  12. BLB Oregon says:

    She says people have a right to decide how many children to have, but she won’t believe the “right” exists unless the fertility rates are low? This is the same clueless attitude that allows some people to feel free to tell women of small children, whom they do not even know, “They know what causes that now” or to cluck, “Oh, you poor thing.” If they only knew who it was that is deserving of pity.

  13. She [There’s a surprise.] complained further about high fertility rates in the poor countries of Africa.

    Back to the racist roots of the abortion/contraceptive crowd.

    Shestack-Phipps said, “How can you say that you value family, community, and marriage, but not bring into the picture that both men and women have a right to a healthy life, to be able to avoid unsafe abortion, and have access to the highest attainable standard of reproductive health, and to decide how many children they should have?”

    Anyone can avoid an unsafe abortion anytime by the simple expedient of not seeking abortion. (And it helps if you don’t live in China.)

  14. Iowander says:

    I don’t suppose it will do any good to point out that natural family planning is far more healthy and comprehensive than the “comprehensive family planning” methods they’re pushing. If only it weren’t so difficult to find health care providers who support NFP here in the industrialized world.

  15. capsela says:

    It is very difficult to find health care providers who support NFP even among Catholic healthcare providers. We are Providentialists and I really hope we never have to use NFP but it would be nice to have support if we did. Considering all the birth control advertisements I see in my Catholic college affiliated doctor’s office, I am not going to count on that.

  16. stgemma_0411 says:

    What I think is absolutely crazy is that leaders of these “populist” type parties, where they support a low fertility rate, can’t see that they are killing off their own constituency and making it more and more difficult for their governments to survive. They are making it a certainty that those who are pro-life will be the ones who eventually are in power. Because there will no longer be anyone who is anti-life, left to say anything.

  17. Sure, I would go even further and say that not only do we all ahve the right but the duty to avoid unsafe abortions. And they are all unsafe seeing as their very object is the destruction of life. In short, we all have the right and the duty to avoid abortions. And not least do the unborn have the right to avoid abortions.

  18. fiatlux says:

    @Ed the Roman–Hilarious & true!

    Good golly, I’m not just tired of the immorality or the “rights” language that holds no real meaning, but of their obvious ignorance of social science, medicine, and the hard sciences that are showing 1) “Family planning” is physically dangerous and unhealthy 2) “Family Planning” inevitably leads to social behaviors and societal consequences are grave (far from developing a nation, they devolve them) and 3) It’s a demographic nightmare. Any one who hasn’t read Mary Eberstadt’s “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae” or Brad Wilcox’s “The Facts of Life & Marriage” should check it out.

    Please also pray for the mission of The Edith Stein Foundation, because it’s our mission to prove these people wrong. (theedithsteinfoundation[dot]com)

  19. APX says:

    It’s oddly amusing to know that she evidently believes that men, too, have a right to be able to avoid unsafe abortion.
    Maybe it’s supposed to be symbolic of their struggle against oppression.

    Considering all the birth control advertisements I see in my Catholic college affiliated doctor’s office, I am not going to count on that.
    At my Catholic elementary school we were actually taught all about birth control and safe sex “that was only to be used by a married couple” in our Religion class during a unit called “Fully Alive”. They still teach it throughout Canada, but they changed it to try to discourage students not to use ABC because it’s unreliable and rely on chastity instead. I have no problems with the chastity part, but why not just get it out in the open and say what the Catholic Church actually teaches about ABC and conception, natural law, etc?

  20. Christine says:

    @stgemma_0411—It’s no accident that most of these population control folks are teachers. Their way of adding to their ranks is by indoctrination through the public school system. Yet another reason to homeschool.

  21. moon1234 says:

    @Margaret
    UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated with Sterilizing Agents Scientist Finds
    http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2004/mar/04031101

    Bill Gates: Use Vaccines To Lower Population
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/bill-gates-use-vaccines-to-lower-population.html

    John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, says: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save the planet
    http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

    Are New Vaccines Laced with Birth-Control Drugs?
    http://www.thinktwice.com/birthcon.htm

    http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/thegeorgiaguidestones.htm
    THE MESSAGE OF THE GEORGIA GUIDESTONES

    1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
    2. Guide reproduction wisely – improving fitness and diversity.
    3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
    4. Rule passion – faith – tradition – and all things with tempered reason.
    5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
    6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
    7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
    8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
    9. Prize truth – beauty – love – seeking harmony with the infinite.
    10.Be not a cancer on the earth – Leave room for nature – Leave room for nature.

    You will NOT find sources in CNN, FoxNews, etc. These “mainstream” news media will NOT report on the forced sterilization of populations.

    These are just a few sources. If you start digging into what the governments of this world have been funding, you will not like what you find. It is up to each and every one of us to make know the evil that exists in this world and to stamp it out.

  22. moon1234 says:

    @Margaret

    I submitted a post that has links for you to verify, but Fr. Z. has to approve it first (at least that is what it says above my post) In the meantime just google the following terms:

    – hcg tetanus toxoid vaccine
    – UNICEF Nigerian Polio Vaccine Contaminated with Sterilizing Agents

  23. KAS says:

    I am glad that the very people who are often so looked down on by the elites will inherit this country because they refuse to kill their children off in the womb and refuse to use contraception. It is a very pleasing justice that those whose behavior follows God’s plan will inherit in the end.

  24. moon1234 says:

    @Margaret

    Also do a google search on:
    – GMO Population Control Spermicidal Corn

    Apparently the GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) crowd is no longer content with just patenting seeds and selling their own herbicide to go along with it. They are now engineering crops to carry genes that will make men sterile and potentially cause an abortion in women.

    Evil knows know bounds. The devil is trying his hardest to kill as many people on this earth through whatever means he can. Educate yourself, protect your family and pray.

  25. jflare says:

    For those interested in pursuing fertility care with a conscience, you might contact the Pope Paul VI Institute, here in Omaha. I gather they’ve been training doctors for some time now, so they might be able to refer you to someone in your area.
    Can’t hurt to try, can it?

  26. Kerry says:

    “And which of you, if he ask his father bread, will he give him a stone? or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?” Or for pennicillin, latex?

  27. benedetta says:

    C-FAM is such a courageous organization to help to give voice of the poorest and littlest, to speak truth to power. Obviously they do not do what they do in order to gain the accolades of the elites. Their credibility is so resonant where silent and passive cooperation with the culture of death rules the day.

  28. benedetta says:

    APX, Is it true that Catholic schools in Canada, funded by the government, are required to teach the state health curriculum?

    In the U.S. Catholic schools are not required to teach the public school “health” curriculum.

    The health curricula though can’t really be said to be up to date any longer, of course. What kind of scientifically based curriculum omits ultrasound video of the formation of human life?

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