Many languages at the United Nations

The latest and most forceful is Newspeak. It changes the meaning of words like “human rights” to embrace the cause of ending life at will, which is antithetical to the very foundation of this global body as elaborated in its original Charter.

And now, adding weight and gravity to the NGOs already using the United Nations to advance an abortion agenda, the president of the United States is calling on that body to spread access further. Access to abortion.

At United Nations (UN) headquarters this week, the Obama administration continued its push for ever increasing access to legal abortion around the world. The Obama team has introduced language that has thrown a high level negotiation into a roil. The US proposal calls for “universal access” to “sexual and reproductive health services including universal access to family planning.” The document under consideration will culminate in the 2009 Annual Ministerial Review, which convenes next week in Geneva.

Note the word “services” after reproductive health. It’s like a land mine.

So controversial is the topic of “services” in the context of “reproductive health” that the usually impenetrable negotiating bloc of the 27 member European Union has imploded with Malta, Poland and Ireland splitting from their allies and joining the Holy See in opposing the measure.

In addition to the word “services,” delegates are also concerned with attempts to link “sexual and reproductive health” to “universal access,” something the UN has never agreed to and what would amount to a major gain for pro-abortion forces. There have been numerous attempts at the UN to insert language on “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services.”  In 2005 at the Commission on Population and Development, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) joined with pro-abortion lobby groups to call for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and programmes.” They were defeated in large part by the Bush-appointed US delegates who insisted that none of the terms related to reproductive health be interpreted to include abortion.

In recent weeks the new US administration has interpreted “reproductive health” to include abortion. In April, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a US House subcommittee, “We [the Obama administration] happen to think that family planning is an important part of women’s health and reproductive health includes access to abortion that I believe should be safe, legal and rare.” In this statement, Clinton also contradicted the agreement reached at the Cairo Conference which said that abortion can never be used as a part of family planning.

This used to be clear and self-evident. It has only reached this level of acceptance and threat to human life….threat from the United Nations, no less…..because of delusion on a grand scale.

I visited the United Nations last weekend on a trip to New York. Standing in front of the Marc Chagall ‘Peace Window’ I was astonished by the visual depiction of the human family in our temporal and spiritual history. Throughout the colorful panorama, I saw the image of mother and child all over the place, from top to bottom and side to side. It was compelling. I stood there thinking of all the pressure put on the UN over all these years by abortion activists, to re-define motherhood and women’s rights and thereby distort both out of known proportion. It’s right here, I thought, artistic expression of the universal and timeless truth of the sacredness of human life. How can they not see?