Philippines Court Rejects Claims of New York Based Pro-Abortion Group

By Samantha Singson
    
     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) The Philippine Court of Appeals recently rejected claims made by a radical pro-abortion group based in New York. The court dismissed an effort seeking to overturn an executive order promoting natural family planning.  The petition was filed earlier this year by a group of Manila residents who relied heavily on legal advice and material from the international pro-abortion litigation group, the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR).
    
     Executive Order No. 003 was instituted in February 2000 by then-mayor of Manila, Jose Atienza. The executive order “upholds natural family planning not just as a method but as a way of self-awareness in promoting the culture of life while discouraging the use of artificial methods of contraception.” 
   
     CRR admits that the executive order technically applies only to city health centers and hospitals and does not explicitly ban “artificial” contraception.  But CRR and the petitioners alleged that the executive order created “serious and lingering damage to residents” and that the executive order has in practice resulted in a “sweep” of contraceptive supplies and services from city health centers and hospitals. Further, they claim that the executive order “deprive(s) many women of their main source of affordable family planning supplies.”
    
     “Imposing Misery,” a CRR publication severely critical of the executive order, claims that the Philippines is in violation of international law and has a legal duty to “ensure right of citizens to a full range of family planning services and information.”  
    
     The document argues that the Philippine government is required to provide contraception under its international legal obligations.  The document specifically mentions the CEDAW Convention, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the non-binding Beijing Platform for Action.  CRR’s international law argument relies almost exclusively on the non-binding interpretations of the treaty monitoring bodies, which have routinely overstepped their mandates by criticizing sovereign states on their abortion laws and reproductive health programs.
    
     “Imposing Misery” outlines a litigation strategy to challenge the executive order. CRR recommends that “lawyers and advocates should explore different legal avenues to bring a court case challenging the executive order. “At the national level, an administrative complaint can be filed. Citizens who feel their rights have been violated by the policy can also file a petition in the courts, including the Supreme Court. If options at the national level prove ineffective, individual complaints can be taken to international bodies under the CEDAW Optional Protocol and the ICCPR.” 
   
     CRR regards the challenge to the Manila executive order as an important test case. According to CRR’s 2007 annual report, a positive decision to rescind the ban “would establish constitutional protections for reproductive rights throughout the country. It could also be used to defend similar rights in neighboring countries, as well as in Catholic countries throughout the world.”
   
     Government officials have defended the focus on natural methods of family planning, as modern contraceptives have not been banned and are still available commercially throughout the country.
    
     Though the Philippine Court of Appeals has dismissed the petition, the petitioners have vowed “to take their case to the international courts,” and other domestic avenues to challenge the order remain open.

U.S. Foundations Provide Millions to International Pro-Abortion Law Group

By Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D.

     (NEW YORK— C-FAM) The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), a prominent US-based public interest group litigating and lobbying for pro-abortion policies world-wide, has released its annual report for 2007. The reported CRR budget confirms that large US foundations continue their heavy financial support for radical social policies not only in the US, but all over the world.
    
     The report shows that close to fifty percent of CRR’s $14 million budget is financed by more than forty American foundations. The Hewlett and Packard foundations lead the way. Other prominent donors include Ford and MacArthur foundations as well as George Soros’ Open Society Institute. CRR is also supported financially by the UN Population Fund, which claims to take a neutral position on abortion
    
     The report highlights CRR campaigns in six foreign countries and the US, campaigns which have focused predominantly on promoting the pro-abortion interpretation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), fighting against sexual abstinence education programs, legalizing abortion, and promoting contraception. The report also lists CRR’s involvement in legal challenges to overturn pro-life laws in seventeen foreign countries.
    
     The case studies included in the report illustrate the strategy CRR uses in promoting its agenda. CRR’s tactic is to present its cases before UN treaty monitoring bodies to elicit pro-abortion treaty interpretations from them. Although non-binding, CRR then uses these interpretations in its friend-of-the-court briefs submitted to domestic courts, or in local public media campaigns. CRR also partners with local NGOs to help CRR in its efforts.

     In 2007, this tactic was used in Brazil when CRR presented a case before the CEDAW committee accusing Brazil of not fulfilling its treaty obligations by supposedly not providing appropriate emergency obstetric care. According to a CRR briefing at last year’s Women Deliver conference, CRR’s strategy for the next several years will be trying to get a national court to rule that maternal health is a human right that already exists somewhere in international law and that legal abortion is required to fulfill that right. They are testing this approach in a case they recently brought against Brazil. In Europe, CRR brought a case against the Croatian government before the European Committee of Social Rights, which is a treaty body of the Council of Europe – a regional human rights organization. CRR claims that Croatia’s use of TeenStar – an abstinence education program developed in the US – promotes discrimination and spreads false information among teenagers. CRR also wrote two friend-of-the-court briefs to support a pro-abortion challenge in Slovakian and Nicaraguan Supreme Courts. CRR succeeded in defending abortion law in Slovakia, while other developments are pending.
    
     The report reveals that CRR has spent US foundations’ money abroad to develop and test its controversial litigation techniques to then try them at home. CRR is about to sponsor a Visiting Scholar and a Future Scholar Fellowship programs to teach law school professors and their students how to apply CRR’s “successful legal advocacy strategies…in the U.S.” The CRR report also announced its “Federal Policy Agenda” that describes these strategies and how they can be applied in the American legal context.
    
     In 2007, CRR experts testified against the US before the UN treaty body which monitors compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). CRR elicited a ruling condemning the US for not guaranteeing equal access to reproductive healthcare. CRR claims that “these findings will be an invaluable tool as we introduce our human rights approach into our U.S. work.”

Secret Meeting to Plot Global Abortion Strategy Exposed/UN Personnel Present

By Samantha Singson
    
    (NEW YORK— C-FAM) A group calling itself the “brain trust” met in secret recently to plot how to take advantage of conflict situations to advance the abortion and radical feminist agenda. A new group called the Global Justice Center (GJC) hosted the New York meeting on June 9 of this year. The Friday Fax was given the chance to listen to a recording of the inaugural meeting of the “brain trust” which details the GJC’s plan to exploit ceasefire and peace talks to gain leverage in newly-formed governments.
    
     The GJC meeting brought together academics, lawyers, practitioners with ties to radical groups as the George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Equality Now, Center for Reproductive Rights, Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) and Amnesty International. Jeremy Sarkin, the current UN Special Rapporteur for Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances was also at the meeting.
    
     Participants at the meeting lamented the lack of international political will to enforce “gender justice” around the world and agreed that “shock treatment” was needed to change “the entrenched political and cultural norms that perpetuate male-dominated decision-making bodies and constrain women.”
    
     Janet Benshoof, former president of the Center for Reproductive Rights and current president and founder of the GJC, asserted that conflict situations could be used as an “access point” to change the culture and the players. Benshoof argued that the prime opportunities for advancing their cause lay in the “transitioning government structures which afford particular opportunity for repositioning women’s role in public life and decision-making.”
     
     Meeting participants deliberated on how human rights law precedents could be made in conflict situations to “reshape power structures,” ensure gender equality, create “judicial entrepreneurs” and change norms. Some ideas included: increasing the number of women judges, increasing the number of female legislators by getting political parties to actively recruit women, and implementing affirmative action policies.
    
     One participant mused, “A lot of laws have not been interpreted or defined in a new country and you can assume that whatever you want the law to be, it is – unless it is proven otherwise. So of course we put the most progressive spin on it.”
    
     Apart from getting involved in conflict situations, the group discussed other possible opportunities and entry points to change norms and advance the agenda. The group expressed hope in being able to take advantage of the new human rights bodies that are being created by the Association of South East Asian Nations and the Arab League.
    
     One member of the group boasted, “The more we say it, the more people get to believing it. We’re changing the norm. First they laugh and then they start repeating it.”

     The Global Justice Center started as a project of Women’s Link Worldwide, which was founded by the pro-abortion advocacy group The Center for Reproductive Rights, an organization that seeks to create an international human right to abortion on demand through litigation.
    
     By the end of the day-long meeting, participants said they were looking forward to coming together again to discuss monitoring and implementation and “to think of creative mechanisms for enforcing laws.” Future meetings of the “brain trust” have not yet been announced.

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