Tag Archives: Group: Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM)

Austin Ruse at C-FAM: The proposed code also addresses the outsize influence of the UN bureaucracy and non-governmental organizations on treaty bodies. Over the past fifteen years, the commissions have succumbed to pressure to promote abortion on demand as well as special rights for homosexuals, though no human rights agreement mentions either. The nature of treaty bodies compounds the influence that the UN bureaucracy and nongovernmental organizations exert on human rights monitoring.

Austin Ruse at C-FAM: Homosexual advocates seem obsessed by a social science study that goes against them. They say the research is unimportant but can’t stop talking about it.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Over 20 groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State to end the U.S. obstruction over abortion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Here is the letter sent today . . . It is especially shocking that the U.S. called for deleting a reaffirmation that every human being has the “inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons.” This contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide. [Piero Tozzi of Alliance Defending Freedom is one of many signers]

One News Now: The Alliance Defending Freedom also spoke at the same U.N. forum, saying the problem with treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them,” said ADF.

Life News / C-Fam: “The problem we are facing with the work of treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money,” the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) told the forum. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them.”

Turtle Bay and Beyond: In a submission prepared by Alliance Defending Freedom, Mujeres para la Mujer, and Priests for Life, joined by several others, the organizations asked the Human Rights Council to recall how the quest to uncover and promote universally shared values is at the very root of the human rights project that started at the UN in the aftermath of WWII.

Austin Ruse at C-Fam: Policy makers around the world are regularly informed by seemingly authoritative sources that “sexual orientation and gender identity” are new categories of non-discrimination in international law. What this means is that national and international laws have to change to accept the idea that homosexuality and its various permutations including transvestitism cannot be discriminated against in any way.

Wendy Wright at C-FAM: A European court victory for environmentalists has inspired a continent-wide campaign to end European Union funding of embryo-destructive research and abortion.

LifeNews: In the wake of the defeat to pro-abortion President Barack Obama, Republican political consultants are calling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues. But a pushback has already begun to say that would keep the Republican Party on the road to failure.

C-FAM: A recent article makes the case that any law which restricts abortion–such as waiting periods or parental consent–is the equivalent of China’s brutal forced abortion policy that victimized Mrs. Feng. The articlefrom the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of the abortion group Planned Parenthood, says this because both represent  “coercion in reproductive decision making.”  According to their analysis, “forcing a woman to terminate a pregnancy she wants or to continue a pregnancy that she does not want both violate the same human rights.”

Piero Tozzi at C-FAM: European and American pro-life academics and practitioners gathered late last month at the University of Warsaw for a conference on the “Intellectual Foundations and Legal Means for the Protection of Human Life in the Prenatal Phase.” The event was under the High Honorary Patronage of Her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess of Luxemburg, the Honorary Patronage by His Highness Paul, Duke of Oldenburg, and Poland’s Minister of Justice, Dr. Jaroslaw Gowin . . . One of the themes explored involved the interplay between domestic law and constitutions protective of life and transnationalist “soft law” norms, which are often cited by abortion activists as requiring abortion liberalization. Nikolas Nikas of the Bioethics Defense Fund introduced a panel on international law which featured Jane Adolphe of Ave Maria University, Stefano Gennarini of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM, publisher of the Friday Fax) and Alliance Defending Freedom’s Piero Tozzi.

C-FAM: The US Agency for International Development announced on World Contraception Day a partnership with international donors to distribute Jadelle, a second-generation of Norplant, to poor women in developing countries. The contraceptive is not distributed for use in more affluent countries.

C-FAM: The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) along with other pro-life organizations filed an extensive report to the CEDAW Committee focusing on the false correlations between liberalized abortion laws and maternal mortality. That report was outnumbered by reports filed by pro-abortion advocates.

Stefano Gennarini at C-FAM: C-FAM (publisher of the Friday Fax) along with Alliance Defending Freedom and Focus on the Family filed a brief with the Commissioner last month pointing out that UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies overreach their mandate when they rewrite hard law treaties to include a right to abortion and then direct governments to adhere to the new norms . . . C-FAM has been working in the UN arena for 15 years. Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly Alliance Defense Fund) is the largest pro-life and family non-profit law firm in the world and has won 38 cases at the Supreme Court. Focus on the Family is the largest pro-family organization in the world. The organizations have been working closely together for months on treaty body reform.

LifeNews: Security forces at the Melinda Gates Family Planning Summit approached Wendy Wright, a representative of the pro-life group C-FAM, and demanded to know how she got in to the event. Pro-abortion representatives at the conference recognized Wright and accused her of sneaking in to the summit.

Piero Tozzi at C-FAM: As pro-life and pro-family leaders from around the world gathered in Madrid over the last weekend in May for the Sixth World Congress of Families, the man of the hour was clearly Bishop Juan Antonio Reig Pla. The Spanish bishop’s plainspoken honesty regarding the destructiveness of homosexual acts in the months leading up to the Congress earned him the enmity of leftwing rights activists and a standing ovation from conference participants.

PR Newswire: WCF VI is organized by HazteOir.org (the local host committee) and The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society. Co-conveners for WCF VI in Madrid include Alliance Defense Fund, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and Focus on the Family. World Congress of Families is also supported annually by our 35 partners, in 11 countries. Click here for a complete list of WCF Partners.

LifeSiteNews: The Sixth World Congress of Families (WCF) Conference is set to take place at Madrid’s Palacio de Congresos, May 25-27, 2012, and is expected to be the largest nondenominational, international gathering of pro-family leaders, scholars, researchers, officials and activists at this venue since the inaugural conference took place in 1997.

Austin Ruse at The Catholic Thing: I do not believe that sexual orientation and gender identity should become new categories of non-discrimination in international law. For this, I have been “outed” on a number of homosexual websites and blogs as supporting the murder of homosexuals.

Wendy Wright at C-FAM Friday Fax: The United Nations top agencies are actively promoting two root causes of Asia’s massive gender imbalance, charged an expert on population policies this week during a UN women’s conference.

ADF Attorney Benjamin Bull Townhall : While we sit in our soft chairs watching big screen TVs and complaining that microwave popcorn takes too long to cook, activists backing the homosexual agenda relentlessly march on. Availing themselves of avenues that are notably left of center, both culturally and politically, they incrementally pursue and secure special treatment under the guise of “rights” and “equality.” And while we’ve seen this happen at many levels of government—both state and national—we err greatly if we fail to see the inroads being made on an international level as well.

C-FAM Friday Fax: or decades, a basic tenet of the international population-control lobby has been that declining fertility rates will generate a more stable international order. But according to an impressive panel of scholars who have contributed to a new book, this scenario of “geriatric peace” is untenably optimistic. Population Decline and the Remaking of Great Power Politics is a collection of nine research essays . . .

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Today C-FAM attended a panel discussion on “People at the center: Human rights in global economics and development”. The event commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, and was organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

C-Fam: The most recent example of an independent expert going beyond their mandate is Anand Grover, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health who claimed in his report last month that abortion is an international right. Individuals like Grover are appointed for their expertise in a particular area of human rights, but when they show significant bias in their reporting or claim that their opinions have international legal force, that expertise is called into question.

C-Fam Friday Fax: An impressive list of dignitaries launched the San Jose Articles in the national legislature of Uruguay last week. Led by Congressman Geraldo Amarillo, the list included many members of the Uruguayan Congress, several former high-ranking Ministers, medical doctors, professors of constitutional law, and one famous soccer player.

C-Fam: At UN headquarters this week, governments dismissed a high level UN bureaucrat’s claim that abortion is a human right and went so far as to scold him for overstepping his mandate.

C-Fam.org: The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice issued a ruling this week banning patents of stem-cell technologies based on destruction of human embryos. Some are hailing the decision as an incremental yet important legal step towards international protection all unborn human life.

C-Fam: It is commonplace now for UN officials and American law professors to tell foreign governments that they are required by international law to liberalize their abortion laws . . . Enter the San Jose Articles, which were launched today in the UN press briefing room at UN headquarters in New York. Professor Robert George told UN press and observers that the San Jose Articles were drafted for the purpose of helping government officials fight back against such assertions.

LifeNews.com: Abortion activists at the United Nations routinely claim that abortion access is essential to reduce unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality among women in some developing nations. But this claim is completely false, participants heard earlier this month at a MaterCare International conference in Rome.

LifeSiteNews.com: An international gathering of pro-life leaders will take place in Costa Rica from October 28th to October 30th of this year, featuring speakers from The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), Human Life International (HLI), the Catholic News Agency (CNA), Ave Maria Law School, and various pro-life organizations in México and South America.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): Katherine Nikas, who worked with the coalition as part of the Alliance Defense Fund’s Blackstone Legal Fellowship, said it was “incredible to see the amount of young people who are actually on our side – the young people who wanted a different voice, who stood up for family values.” Nikas said she has found that many members of her generation are “tired of the pain and the heartache of just having abortions pushed at us and condoms thrown at us.”

LifeSiteNews.com: Katherine Nikas, a Blackstone intern with the Alliance Defense Fund, said that the statement’s initial reception at the General Assembly was very encouraging. “It was incredible to see the amount of young people actually on our side,” said Nikas, adding that the statement filled a sorely unmet need.“We’re tired of the pain and the heartache of just having abortions pushed on us and condoms thrown at us.”

UN delegates are receiving copies of the research at a time when debates about “gender identity” are heating up: member states are engaged in a contentious vote on the issue at the Human Rights Council this week and they are preparing for a battle on sexual orientation and gender identity during this fall’s General Assembly.

C-FAM: The UN bureaucracy is increasing its efforts to decriminalize homosexual behavior and normalize its acceptance among member states, without governmental consent or consensus.

Susan B. Anthony List: “Catherine Foster . . . She is currently working part-time as a law clerk on the Alliance Defense Fund’s life team, and has also worked as a summer intern for Americans United for Life and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.”

C-FAM: “A joint brief submitted this week criticizes a UN committee’s abuse of authority amid a back-door push for international abortion rights. C-FAM and the Alliance Defense Fund together outlined why they oppose the committee’s move to endorse a right to sexual and reproductive health. They acted in anticipation of a meeting called by the committee, one of many that oversee specific UN treaties, scheduled for next month in Geneva.”

Catholic News Agency: “A young pro-life leader from the International Youth Alliance has denounced the World Youth Conference in Leon, Mexico as a ‘farce.’ He explained that the United Nations-promoted event is working to impose an agenda on delegates that is contrary to life and the family.”

LifeNews: “With two weeks left before residents of Kenya vote on a proposed constitution that would overturn the nation’s historic pro-life protections for women and unborn children, 171 pro-life leaders from 21 nations have signed a petition urging a no vote on the document. … Signers on the new petition include representatives of Endeavour Forum (Australia), Alliance for Romania’s Families, Christian Legal Centre (U.K.), Family Values Organization (U.K.), Priests for Life, Population Research Institute, Parents Forum Switzerland, Concerned Women for America and the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Americans United for Life: “Last Friday, Advocates for Life, AUL’s new initiative for pro-life law students across the country, in conjunction with Columbia Law Students for Life, sponsored a daylong legal symposium, ‘Looking Back, Looking Forward: Pro-life Strategy and Jurisprudence for the 21st Century’ . . . Alliance Defense Fund’s Matt Bowman and Steve Aden, as well as Pierro Tozzi, formerly with the Catholic Family and Human Right’s Institute, addressed ‘Legalized Abortion in the Medical Profession: Protecting the Conscience Rights of Health Care Providers.’”

“Last Friday the United Nations General Assembly voted to delete language from a proposed resolution referencing a document claiming that two new anti-discrimination categories exist: one based on ‘sexual orientation’ and the other on ‘gender identity.’”

ZENIT: “The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reported the protest of third-party interveners, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, the European Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defense Fund (on behalf of Family Research Council), who claim that the European court does not have jurisdiction over this case, as ‘domestic remedies have not been exhausted.’”

LifeSiteNews: “The same week that UNFPA pulled its name from a graphic sex ed guide that came under criticism, the organization is holding a conference in Berlin to train 400 activists to demand countries fund and provide similar sex ed programs and abortions.”

C-FAM: “This week leading conservative legal experts condemned a United Nations (UN) human rights committee’s recent inclusion of ‘sexual orientation and gender identity’ as a protected category under a cornerstone human rights treaty.”

C-FAM (Volume 12, Number 37): “UN human rights committee recently told UN member states they must grant broad new human rights on the basis of ‘sexual orientation and gender identity.’ . . . The document, called “General Comment 20,” was released on July 2nd by the committee responsible for monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”

Samantha Singson writing at the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM): “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.”

C-FAMM: “While Dominican lawmakers were debating the merits of such a provision and the nation’s penal prohibition of abortion, Nils Kastberg, UNICEF’s regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, interjected himself, calling on Dominican legislators to consider liberalizing abortion so women would not be forced into ‘unsafe procedures.’ He also suggested they would be ‘hypocrites’ unconcerned with the nation’s higher than average teen birth rate. Kastberg made his unusual statements while visiting the capital of Santo Domingo at the end of March.”

LifeNews: “While the international community holds meetings around the world to discuss global progress towards achieving the goals outlined in the 1994 ICPD program, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and pro-abortion non-government organizations (NGOs) are attempting to block pro-life participation from discussions on ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights.’”

Life News: “President Barack Obama has compiled a clear pro-abortion record during his short tenure as president that has raised the ire of the majority of Americans who are pro-life. However, one group that lobbies at the United Nations says Obama is pushing abortion hard in a much less obvious way.”

C-FAM reports: “After two years of debate, the UN committee responsible for reviewing applications from non-government organizations (NGOs) has voted to reject Brazil’s Associação Brasileira de Gays, Lésbicas e Transgêneros (ABGLT) over questions of the group’s position on pedophilia . …

One News Now: A Catholic pro-abortion group wants official recognition from the United Nations. The organization is the Mexican affiliate of Catholics for a Free Choice and is now called Catholics for Choice. LifeSiteNews.com reports Catholics for Choice claims to …