Researchers Asked to Hide Scientific Debate over Maternal Deaths

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.
Co-authored by Catherine Foster

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) At a meeting on maternal and child health research in Washington last week, United Nations (UN) staff and abortion advocates told scientists they should “harmonize” their findings or discuss them “in a locked room” so that the press could not report maternal death numbers that conflicted with the ones they use to lobby policy makers and major international donors.

Ann Starrs, co-founder and president of the abortion advocacy organization Family Care International (FCI), told a roomful of scientists to “lock all the academics in a black box and have them come out with a consensus set of numbers” or “at least hide that there is disagreement” and “infighting.” FCI is the founder of Women Deliver, which is hosting a massive UN-backed reproductive rights fundraising conference in Washington next week.

The comments were made at a symposium hosted by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the British medical journal, The Lancet. The journal recently published an IHME study, which refuted the UN-sanctioned but highly controversial figure of 500,000 annual maternal deaths, finding the number to have declined to 342,900 including 60,000 deaths from HIV/AIDS. Abortion advocates and some UN staff have been using the higher figure for two decades to promote a version of maternal and child health policy that includes abortion.

Tessa Wardlow, Chief of Statistics and Monitoring at UNICEF, shared Starrs’ concerns, saying that there is a “system in place for harmonizing estimates for child mortality and I would invite the IHME to participate in that process and contribute to the methodological dialogue.”

Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, pushed back saying researchers should not come to a “consensus” or “harmonize” but rather have a “scientific summary view of what the totality of available evidence should be.” He argued that this should not be centered at the UN, but housed “independently within the scientific community.” Horton responded to Starr’s objection by saying, “Unless we subject numbers to that peer-review process, I think we are accepting second-class data, and that applies wherever the numbers come from.”

When he published the IHME study, Horton told the press that he withstood significant pressure from activists not to release it until after major global funding conferences concluded this year, such as the G8 summit, UN General Assembly, and next week’s Women Deliver conference.

Highlighting the tension in the room between the researchers’ desire for openness and activists call for secrecy, Horton said, “For God’s sake, your country, the United States, was founded on the press! One of the best documents in the history of humankind is the Federalist Papers; if it wasn’t for the press, we wouldn’t have a United States! So learn to love the press.”

The confrontation between the maternal health advocates and researchers may be behind the decision by Women Deliver conference organizers to re-write their schedule to include Dr. Horton in the agenda for next week’s conference.

You can find this online at: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1641/pub_detail.asp

Feisty Timor Leste Bucks Abortion Lobby, Upholds Right to Life

Volume 12, Number 26 / June 11, 2009

By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.

(NEW YORK – 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.

Efforts to broaden the abortion license to include cases of fetal abnormality and pregnancies resulting from rape were rejected. In addition, an abortion law that would have included broad exceptions for cases affecting the physical or mental health of the mother that had been adopted in early April by the executive branch's Council of Ministers was effectively overruled by last week's legislative action.

Following the end of Indonesian occupation in 1999, East Timor – or Timor Leste – was administered by the United Nations until independence. The previously existing penal code inherited from Indonesia had banned abortion in all instances.

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.

Former United States Ambassador to East Timor Grover Joseph Rees told the Friday Fax that the "claim that access to abortion is an internationally recognized human right" is "outrageous," while commending the Timorese for "remaining faithful to Timor's own best values and traditions – in this case the principle of respect for all human life, including the lives of unborn children."

East Timor will appear before the committee charged with monitoring compliance with CEDAW next month, and it has already submitted a report responding to questioning over its legislation protecting life. It is anticipated that the CEDAW committee will press the country on its new legislation now that it has been finalized.

CEDAW Committee Targets East Timor on Abortion

By Amy De Rosa

(NEW YORK – C-FAM) As pre-session working groups of the committee charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) meet in advance of the committee's July session, the small Asian nation of East Timor has come under pressure for its continued criminalization of abortion. East Timor’s new penal code, which will take effect early next month, continues to penalize the practice, including abortion in cases of rape or incest, but with the added proviso that exceptions can be made in cases where the mother’s health is in jeopardy.

As East Timor, or Timor-Leste, states in its report to the Committee, "Abortion is still an extremely sensitive issue in Timor-Leste, especially given the traumatic events of recent years." The report goes on to explain some Timorese cultural practices which impact "reproductive health." Contraception is generally unpopular in the predominantly Catholic state, with both men and women seeing it as fueling promiscuity and sexually-transmitted diseases while decreasing the number of children.

A newly independent nation as of 2002, East Timor claims that it is still recovering from 24 years of Indonesian occupation, during which time the Indonesia allegedly imposed family planning programs that were widely resented by the Timorese population. Both men and women remain sensitive to suggestions of limiting family size and to abortion.

Despite general support in Timor for the continued criminalization of abortion, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Alola Foundation and Rede Feto, have been agitating for reconsideration the legal status of abortion. The Alola Foundation has received support from certain United Nations agencies, namely the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Though CEDAW is silent as to abortion, CEDAW committee members have also pushed it under the guise of promoting "gender equality."

East Timor notes that NGOs promoting gender equality are often seen as "meddling" and many Timorese (including women) feel that gender distinctions are important in protecting the integrity of the family, a valued institution in Timor, and that loss of these distinctions could be harmful to women. According to the report, many Timorese also express satisfaction with adat, their native system of justice, despite its failure to treat women as equal to men. Adat represents part of the Timorese adherence to deep-rooted traditions. "Foreign laws" are seen as irrelevant to tradition and therefore ineffective.

Timor’s repeated references to its long-standing customs, its distrust of foreign influence and its discussion of "reproductive rights" abuses suffered by Timorese women during Indonesia’s rule appear to have been met with opposition or indifference from the CEDAW committee. The committee has called upon the Timorese to engage in "modification of customs and practices" it regards as "discriminatory." It also is demanding clarification on how certain CEDAW provisions have been implemented in court cases.

The 44th session of CEDAW will be held in New York from July 20 to August 7. Japan and Tuvalu are also among the eleven nations up for CEDAW review in July.

from C-FAM

More on the NY Times.....

"all the news that's fit to print".... of course..

UN NGO at the Center of New York Times Reporting Scandal

By Samantha Singson

( NEW YORK — C-FAM) It has been revealed by Canadian-based LifeSiteNews.com that the New York Times published a grossly inaccurate story about abortion in El Salvador and that it was assisted in the incorrect story by a notorious pro-abortion group. Times freelancer Jack Hitt’s April 2006 story, “Pro-Life Nation”, reported on a woman serving a 30-year jail term for supposedly having an illegal abortion. To get the story, the Times relied on a translator from a UN-accredited non-governmental organization called Ipas that, among other things, sells portable abortion devices over the telephone.

The Times writer was trying to make a point about what happens when countries have pro-life laws; that women go to jail for having abortions. The problem with the story is that it is not true. The woman, Carmen Climaco, was not jailed for having an abortion, but for strangling to death her newborn infant. Court papers revealing this were easily obtained by LifeSite who then complained to the Times. Two Times editors defended the piece as accurate.

Ipas, the pro-abortion group in collusion with the inaccurate story launched a fundraising campaign to “help Carmen [Climaco] and other Central American women who are suffering under extreme abortion laws.”

A UN-accredited NGO since 1998, Ipas works “to enhance women’s reproductive choices and to eliminate unsafe abortions” and “to expand the availability and accessibility of medical equipment and supplies that health professionals need to deliver high-quality reproductive health services.” To this end, Ipas sells and distributes the manual vacuum aspirator (MVA), a portable abortion device.

A pro-life expert from Latin America told the Friday Fax, “Ipas is doing a lot of damage in our countries. Their aim is to legalize abortion in El Salvador , in Nicaragua and all of Latin America because they want to sell their abortion vacuum machines in huge quantities. They shouldn't have the status of an NGO since they are really dealers, they distribute and profit from selling these machines.”

Last Sunday, the New York Times ombudsman reported on the scandal and concluded that LifeSite was right and the Times was wrong and reported further that the Times had no plans to print a retraction or correction of the story. The Ipas website did not mention the Times’ inaccurate portrayal of the Climaco case, despite benefiting from a fundraising campaign based on the false story. The Ipas’ website refers to the ombudsman’s report only as calling “attention to the tragic situation faced by women in El Salvador who must make crucial reproductive choices.”