Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Nigeria, East Timor Stand Against Culture of Death

From Catholic World News:

Nigerians reject abortion bill pushed by American group

Imo, Nigeria, Jun 15, 2009 / 06:08 pm (CNA).- By a vote of 13-1, the legislature in the small state of Imo, Nigeria rejected the Reproductive Rights Bill last week, marking a pro-life victory in a state whose rich heritage, culture and religious traditions welcome life and respect the lives of unborn children.

It was a decision that the national Nigerian newspaper This Day described as a “victory of the superior Imo cultural values over the new global Western Cultural
Revolution” and “yet another triumph of reason… a triumph of democracy and the popular will.”

and from LifeSiteNews:

Feisty Timor Leste Bucks Abortion Lobby, Upholds Right to Life:
More on New East Timor Abortion Law

By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.

NEW YORK, NY, June 11, 200 (C-FAM) - The parliament of East Timor – a small, Catholic nation in South East Asia recognized as an independent state in 2002 – has resisted concerted pressure from United Nations agencies and pro-abortion non-governmental organizations (NGOs) by enacting a revised penal law that continues to criminalize abortion in virtually all cases.

With last week's 45 to 0 vote with only 7 abstentions on the main operative paragraph, parliament retained penal sanctions on abortion, except in instances where abortion is the "only way" to prevent death to the mother as attested to by three independent physicians. A preambular paragraph states that life "from the moment of conception" is entitled to protection. Abortionists are subject to up to eight years imprisonment, depending on the circumstances. The law also recognizes the conscience rights of doctors to refuse to perform abortions....

East Timor has been in the crosshairs of the international pro-abortion movement. The Alola Foundation, an NGO backed by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and headed by East Timor's Australian-born First Lady, intervened repeatedly in the ongoing Timorese debate by seeking abortion liberalization.

In contrast, grassroots NGOs with on-the-ground membership such as Organização das Mulheres Timorenses, whose bona fides were established during the resistance to Indonesian rule, reportedly opposed liberalization, reflecting popular Timorese sentiment.

One international NGO supported by the Australian government and the United States Agency for International Development, the Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), claimed that "International treaty law specifically supports the right of women to have access to safe abortion methods," including in cases of pregnancy due to rape and incest or where the fetus is abnormal. Echoing arguments made elsewhere by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, JSMP citied treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination Against All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There is no support for such assertions in the language of either treaty, however, nor in any other treaty to which Timor Leste is a signatory.

Meanwhile, back in the good old USA:

Hillary Clinton Swears In Melanne Verveer to Lead Obama's Intl Abortion Agenda
by Steven Ertelt, June 15, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- In a late Friday ceremony, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swore in the new head of the Office of Women's Issues who will promote President Barack Obama's international abortion agenda. Melanne Verveer becomes a new ambassador whose mission is to promote abortion as part of a focus on women.

The founding document of our country justified the creation of the United States of America by referencing unalienable rights, the first of which was the Right to Life. Our current leadership has abandoned that moral norm. But the self-evident unalienable rights still exist, and third world countries recognize this.

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