Abortions Anonymous, for Kids: Memo Reveals Group's 'Priority'

CNSNEWS.com ^ | 12/12/03 | Patrick Goodenough

[kattracks]

(CNSNews.com) - A pro-life group wants the world to know about the strategies of an abortion rights group, including the strategy involving children.

The New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) announced last Friday that it had obtained copies of internal memos generated by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Those memos, which revealed CRR's agenda for promoting abortion worldwide, are now part of the Congressional Record.

Arguably one of the most controversial aspects of the strategies outlined in the CRR memos deals with children -- or, in the words of the document, "a project to secure the fundamental right of minors to access all reproductive health services confidentially."

This is described as one of CRR's "priority areas."

"We are seeing the antis push hard to diminish minors' rights, so we should see what we can come up with to push hard back," said a summary of a report by a CRR campaigns sub-group.

But it notes there are difficulties, including "growing opposition amongst minors to abortion and [to] being pro-choice."

On its Internet website, CRR reveals its concerns about the fact that minors need parental consent for abortions.

It says, "43 U.S. states have adopted laws that require a young woman to notify or obtain the consent of one or both parents before she can obtain an abortion. These laws force many young women to obtain illegal or unsafe abortions, carry unwanted pregnancies to term, or travel long distances to states without parental consent requirements."

Elsewhere on the site, it reports that CRR may launch a national lawsuit in Zimbabwe to challenge the parental consent requirements contained in that country's legislation.

The CRR's vision of "adolescent autonomy" may already be moving closer in some parts of the world.

The official Xinhua news agency in China reported recently that "pregnant girls can now obtain legal abortions anonymously" in Beijing.

Xinhua said a "maternal and child care service center" had been set up to provide youngsters with abortions, as well as information on contraception methods and sexual health.

In New Zealand, meanwhile, the center-left government has introduced legislation that will allow a girl as young as 11 to have an abortion without her parents' knowledge.

Critics note that abortions will be the only medical procedure for New Zealand children that will be exempt from parental consent, and one opponent told a parliamentary committee meeting the provision constituted "a form of child abuse."

The CRR, formerly known as the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, describes itself as "a non-profit legal advocacy organization dedicated to promoting and defending women's reproductive rights worldwide."

Its major funders include the Hewlett Foundation, the Packard Foundation, and the Open Society Institute, headed by billionaire and anti-Bush activist George Soros.

CRR has not responded to queries emailed by CNSNews.com.

Thomas Jacobson, a Focus on the Family representative at the United Nations, called release of the CRR memos "a coup."

"Now what is being done in the dark is being brought to the light, just as it should be in the area of policy," an item on the pro-family organization's website quoted him as saying.

Also see:
Memos Outlining Abortion Strategy Land in Congressional Record (12 Dec. 2003)

Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.

[ljswisc]

So, a child has to have parental consent to be treated for a cold, but to have a life threatening procedure they're good to go. Who is going to take responsibility if the child dies? Or if they need hospitalization? Who is going to pay for that? I don't know how any rational human being can agree that allowing a child THIS exception is beneficial. They worry that the child is going to obtain the abortion illegally.

Well.. drugs are illegal too. People (even children) obtain them illegally and often die because of it. That's why the laws are out there. To keep the law abiding citizens out of harms way. There are those who are going to do what they want legal or not. These are the only children who would benefit from this law. The ones who don't care about the law anyway!

"These laws force many young women to ... carry unwanted pregnancies to term,"

What is wrong with a legal system that forces a person to accept the consequences for their own actions?

(Yeah, I know rape is out there..but if a child is getting an abortion due to something like that a parent absolutely needs to be involved anyway.. so they can also see that the child's other emotional and legal needs are taken care of.)

[mware]

If I am not mistaken Dean said on one of his first interviews with Tim Russert that he is against parental notification when minors are involved.

Russert was rather taken aback by the position.

[NoClones]

Center for Reproductive Rights?

Seems like they got the name wrong...

...should be Center for Promoting Ignorance and Abortion...or something like that

[Guillermo]

Also Dean lied about his "patient" who was a "12 year old girl who was raped by her father."

The abortionists take the abolute most extreme examples (in this case, one which was fabricated) and try to make it seem as though it is the norm.

[steve8714]

My Church is a good source of info on the Life war. Now, if only some bishops would take their place on the picket lines, the pictures on TV of highly placed and important churchmen on TV might generate some favorable legislative activity or court decisions that go the right way for a change. This would also energize the faithful.

[NYer]

Ping!

[NYer]

The New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) announced last Friday that it had obtained copies of internal memos generated by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Those memos, which revealed CRR's agenda for promoting abortion worldwide, are now part of the Congressional Record.

Kudos to C-FAM!

Here is their Friday Fax, detailing the above.

SECOND OF A THREE PART SERIES
CRR Threatens Legal Action/Documents Read into Congressional Record

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-FAM’s 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 Center’s 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 Center’s 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 sheep’s 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.]

Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list

[EdReform]

BTTT for later...

[arasina]

And kudos to Congressman Christopher Smith!

[Mr. Silverback]

More on the latest in a long line of "final solutions" leftists have proposed.

ProLife Ping!

If anyone wants on or off my ProLife Ping List, please notify me here or by freepmail.

[cpforlife.org]

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[MHGinTN]

You are not mistaken. What is astonishing is that Russert (a died in the wool CINO) was surprised by Dean's pro-serial killing position!

[Coleus]

Thank you congressman Chris Smith, pro-life Catholic from NJ

FIRST OF A SERIES
Secret Memos Reveal Worldwide Pro-Abortion Legal Strategy

The Friday Fax has acquired a number of internal memos produced by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) that map out CRR's multi-year strategy for establishing binding and enforceable international reproductive rights laws, most notably girls' and women's right to state-financed abortion on demand. The memos were written to summarize the conclusions of strategic planning meetings held by CRR in late October, and they explain in detail how the Center, along with its many pro-abortion allies throughout the world, plans to expand international laws well beyond their current scope and to impose these new laws worldwide, even upon individual nations that do not explicitly assent to the changes.

The memos appear to confirm long-standing fears of some legal scholars that international negotiations on human rights laws are no longer conducted in good faith, and that national sovereignty is jeopardized by such negotiations.

In the memos, CRR repeatedly states that its "overarching goal is to ensure that governments worldwide guarantee reproductive rights out of an understanding that they are bound to do so." These rights would include the broadest possible access to abortion, and the establishment of abortion as an internationally recognized human right, but they are not limited to abortion. CRR also speaks of the international community's need to recognize the "inalienable nature" of what it calls "sexual rights."

These rights will in turn require new laws that "explicitly address the legal and social subordination women face within their families, marriages, communities and societies." They will also require the establishment of "reproductive autonomy" for girls, which CRR describes as access to all reproductive information and services, including abortion, without parental notification or consent.

CRR hopes to achieve these goals through a multi-pronged strategy. First, CRR will work to radically expand the interpretations of already-accepted international rights, what CRR calls "hard norms," into vehicles for its reproductive rights agenda. Thus, CRR claims to have found, or "grounded," a right to abortion in the right to life, the right to health, even the right to enjoy scientific progress. CRR favors this approach 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."

Second, CRR hopes to create new customary international laws, what it calls "soft norms," that explicitly mention abortion and sexual autonomy. According to CRR, if soft norms are repeated often enough, they may become hard norms, and therefore binding on nations. Soft norms accumulate in a host of international and regional settings, including through the European Court of Human Rights and UN compliance committees.

Finally, CRR seeks a means to impose these new international laws on recalcitrant nations. Thus, CRR will be "supporting efforts to strengthen existing enforcement mechanisms, such as the campaign for the International Criminal Court and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women."


SECOND OF A THREE PART SERIES
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1038998/posts?page=8#8

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[tutstar]

bttt

[hocndoc]

The abortionist uses his personal belief that some humans are not quite as equal as other human beings - that the helpless and inconvenient or expensive may be killed if they don't look quite right or can't hire their own lawyer for protection.


If you don't have the right to life, who cares about liberty, property or persuit of any happiness or goal? Or, if I'm strong enough to kill your right to life, why should I worry about any part of your life?

It's all about power and domination.

[Coleus]

THIRD OF A SERIES

CRR Intimidation Campaign Spreads Beyond C-FAM

As news of the Center for Reproductive Right's (CRR) top secret memos to establish international abortion and "sexual" rights spreads within the public policy community, CRR has stepped up its campaign to silence critics by threatening more groups with lawsuits.

Organizations includingFocus on the Family and LifeNews.com have received letters similar to the one sent to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, ordering them to "cease and desist" further discussion of the subject, to return all copies of the memo, and to provide CRR with a detailed list of all groups and individuals informed by the organizations about CRR.

A man posing as a reported also quizzed John-Henry Westin, editor of the Canadian-based Life Site News, demanding to know when Westin received the documents. The man refused to tell Westin who he was working for and also refused to leave a telephone number causing Westin to assume the man was a CRR investigator posing as a reporter.


Citing first amendment protections and the fact that the memos are now part of the Congressional Record, neither groups has assented to CRR's demands.

At the same time, analysis of the documents continues to reveal startling details of both the means and long-term goals of the abortion-advocacy group. Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), who introduced the memos into the Congressional Record, notes that "One of their strategies is to manipulate international norms to force countries to do what CRR wants."

In the memos, CRR states that "there are several advantages to relying primarily on interpretations of hard norms. As interpretations of norms acknowledging reproductive rights are repeated in international bodies, the legitimacy of these rights is reinforced. In addition the gradual nature of this approach ensures that we are never in an 'all-or-nothing' situation where we may risk a major setback."

Smith highlights the fact that, in these memos, intended only for CRR and its pro-abortion allies, CRR candidly mentions that this strategy has not yet worked. According to Smith, "Thankfully, they admit that they have not been successful so far in twisting the international definition of human rights to include the killing of unborn children through abortion.

They disclose that, in their opinion, '.there is no binding hard norm that recognizes women's right to terminate a pregnancy.' And '.the global community has fallen short of recognizing a right to independent decision-making in abortion, providing us with relatively few short norms.'"

Smith also describes CRR's domestic goals, "CRR has programs to work with major medical groups to oppose parental involvement in abortion decisions and to 'debunk the extent of parental rights currently recognized.' They have programs on forcing hospitals to do abortions and on forcing taxpayers to use state and federal funds to pay for abortion. They even go so far as to target Pregnancy Resource Centers."

John O'Neil, a pro-life advocate from California, also notes that CRR acknowledges that it intends to undermine laws mandating the reporting of child abuse for what CRR labels "non-abusive sexual relations," which appears to mean that CRR intends to fight age of consent laws, the primary goal of groups such as the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA).

http://www.c-fam.org/pdfs/SecretLegalDocuments.pdf

[cgk]

Pro-life ping...

More outrage from the population control crowd.

[Bob J]

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