WyBlog

Trick or Treat for Abortion

Sophie came home from school today with one of those orange UNICEF boxes. I'd have thought that a Catholic school would know better, but I guess they're just going with the whole "it's for poor kids" meme. She had even memorized the sales pitch. Sigh.

UNICEF undoubtedly does some good work. But, so does Hamas. And Mussolini kept the trains running on time. That doesn't make them noble. UNICEF has been commandeered by radical feminists who have hijacked its original mission to help poor children. They now prioritize women's rights over child protection and survival. Every year UNICEF publishes the "State of the World s Children Report". The report for 2007 barely mentions the problems facing impoverished children. The Executive Summary reads:

The State of the World s Children 2007 examines the discrimination and disempowerment women face throughout their lives and outlines what must be done to eliminate gender discrimination and empower women and girls. It looks at the status of women today, discusses how gender equality will move all the Millennium Development Goals forward, and shows how investment in women's rights will ultimately produce a double dividend: advancing the rights of both women and children.

Leading the list of UNICEF's Millennium Development Goals is "access to safe abortion", which is synonymous with legal abortion. The 2007 report has 5 chapters. They are devoted to women's equality in the areas of households, employment, politics, and government. The final chapter is an outline of the process needed to achieve "gender equality". Nowhere in the 160 pages of this report is any mention of the 6 major causes of the more than 10 million child deaths worldwide. Problems like pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, neonatal sepsis, pre-term delivery and asphyxia at birth are given the merest of passing mentions. Instead, women's "rights" to reproductive freedom and gender equality are the primary focus of the report.

Prominent Catholic organizations like EWTN have joined in the campaign to raise awareness of UNICEF's ties to the pro-abortion movement. They note that since 1996 The Vatican has withheld their symbolic contribution to UNICEF, and this report from the Knights of Columbus gives even more details of UNICEF's duplicity. EWTN suggests that pro-life families insert a note into the UNICEF collection box explaining that they cannot support an organization that promotes abortion. That's what we'll do.

UPDATE 31 Oct 2007 11:02:
I found some even more disturbing news regarding UNICEF and it's pretty scary stuff.

Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado writes in National Review about UNICEF's ties to Palestinian terrorist organizations. UNICEF is the primary financier of "summer camps" for Palestinian children where they learn songs that extol the virtues of suicide bombers and martyrdom. The most popular of these camps is named for Wafa Idris, the first female suicide bomber.

But wait, it gets worse. UNICEF "global ambassador" Bianca Jagger tours the world to help them raise funds. Her spiel consists of rants against the United States, calling our country the source of all evil in the modern world. UNICEF blames child poverty on the free market, claiming that only state run economies can adequately provide for children's needs. This is so patently absurd that it would be laughable if they weren't so serious. One of UNICEF's yearly reports praised North Korea for addressing the needs of women and children via their collective production system. The North Korean dictatorship is one of the most brutal in history. Anybody who thinks they are a paragon of child development needs to have their head examined.

A prominent member of UNICEF's executive board is China. Their "one child, forced sterilization and abortion" national policy is anathema to Catholic teaching. Because of UNICEF's complicity in this policy, the Catholic School board of Toronto discontinued their support for UNICEF in 1997, and last year UNICEF threw in the towel and discontinued all Halloween fund-rainsing in Canada as a result of pressure from pro-life groups.

For even more information, please read this pamphlet, UNICEF: Guilty as Charged. And, if you want to give some money this Halloween to help poor children, give it to Catholic Charities instead.

UPDATE 29 Oct 2009 12:05:
UNICEF is still at it, trying to force the Dominican Republic to repeal their pro-life constitution.

Posted at 22:06 by Chris Wysocki   []   | Perm Link |