What normal people do on Saturday

While the UN was still arguing over CPD , I was heading out fishing with my friends from my NY church , East 7th St. Baptist .

There were about 50 people on the boat and Rita ( pink hat ) was the only one to catch a flounder.

I could have pretended to catch it but resisted the temptation.

I fly back to Scotland this evening , arriving in Glasgow 10.20am on Monday.

Last day and a half at CPD

I must admit I was a weakling , left the meeting at midnight , see opposite photo.

My colleague Wendy Wright sent me the following note on Sunday morning :

"Select ambassadors negotiated throughout the night.  At 5 a.m. the Chair released a streamlined text. Philippines began statements with a firey denunciation of the process. Others agreed. Consensus achieved. 

Nearly 2 hours of country statements.
Some bemoaned the lack of Sexual orientation.  Others clarified national sovereignty,  their laws against abortion, sex ed is under parental rights,  and denounced imposition of views.

Everyone unhappy with the process. No one claimed victory."

So all those late nights just left us with the status quo.

Canadians at it again at CPD with the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaDPXBXlc0g&list=UUFglQoaOcgP-u5_Th0Ad9sA

Pro-Aborts at the UN

Pro-aborts always resort to this un-professional method when they do not get their way.

I complained to security and they shut down the demonstrators and confiscated their material.

My first talk at the UN.

 

Mr. Chairman , distinguished delegates , NGO colleagues , ladies and gentlemen , thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

I would like to talk about maternal mortality , which is a major area of interest for the ICPD.

A brief history  will help us to understand this problem a little better. A miraculous decline in maternal mortality began in England after 1935. In 1945 the maternal mortality rate was half what it had been ten years earlier. By 1950 , it was half what it had been in 1945.  This coincided with the introduction of Prontosil in 1936 , the first successful drug to treat for bacterial infection. Soon after this sulphamide was introduced , later on  penicillin was available. There was better treatment for high blood pressure , and haemorrhage post and ante partum.. There was also an improvement in nutrition during this period. This amazing reduction in maternal mortality was well before the introduction of modern contraceptives ( 1960) and legal abortion ( 1968 ). The decline in maternal mortality , in England , after 1970 was nowhere near as steep as from 1935 to 1950. This same pattern was followed by all the developed nations.

I am pleased to observe that the World health Organisation  published a small paper on the definition of unsafe abortion in March 2014. They stated that “.. illegal abortion is not synonymous with unsafe abortion”.  In the past the two terms were completely interchangeable.

Two countries with consistently the lowest maternal mortality in the world are Ireland and Malta , where abortion is currently illegal.

Since the Cairo conference I believe that too much money has been spent on contraception and the promotion of abortion.  It is  scandalous that over 340,000 women die each year from pregnancy related causes. We have known how to remedy this situation  in the developed world since the 1950s . The answer is simple , better basic health care , better nutrition for mothers , emergency obstetric care , and skilled birth attendants.

Those promoting fertility decline and the legalization of abortion should stop pretending that they are trying to reduce maternal mortality. We believe they just want to lower the number of births.

If in the developing world there was better basic health care we would have a safer outcome for mother and baby. Who knows what even the “ least of these little one  “ may one day contribute to the betterment of the world.

 

Story of coat holders

Before

After

Yeesterday , after a nice  lunch and Bible study at the Christian Embassy  I felt that I needed to do a good deed. So I went to an NGO's office in NY , where I have been many times. Their coat holders were falling to bits , so I went and fixed them. Name of the NGO is withheld.

Great statement by the Holy See at CPD.

Statement by Msgr. Janusz Urbanczyk,
 Chargé d'Affaires a.i.

Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations

Commission on Population and Development

47th Session

United Nations Headquarters, New York, 10 April 2014


Mr. Chairman,

My delegation takes this opportunity to express its best wishes to you and your Bureau for a
productive session, and looks forward to working constructively with delegations as we assess the
implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and
Development.

According to the report of the Secretary General, no fewer than 80 countries now register a
fertility rate below replacement level.1 These statistics should be a great cause for alarm, as
expressed in another report of the Secretary General: 1 E/CN.9/2014/5, para. 7
2 E/CN.9/2014/3, para. 42


Old-age support ratios, defined as the number of working-age adults per older person in
the population, are already low in most countries of the more developed regions and are
expected to continue to fall in the coming decades, ensuring continued fiscal pressure on
support systems for older people.2


The unsustainable phenomenon of ageing populations can only be resolved by promoting family
life and fertility. Support systems for the ageing can only be sustained by a larger, not smaller,
next generation, either by paying into a social security system, or by providing intergenerational
family support directly.

My delegation wishes to express grave concern over a very proscriptive approach taken in the zero
draft of the outcome document, towards the implementation of the ICPD. This approach seems to
treat fertility and pregnancy as a disease which must either be prevented or managed via
government or outside assistance. While this may well reflect the concerns of certain highly
developed countries, on a universal scale it certainly skews the population and development
realities for the most part of the developing countries of the world, for whom other issues take
greater priority. My delegation is of the view that a more sensible approach should focus less on
reducing fertility and more on programs and values which support integral human development,


namely: personal, social, and spiritual development. Access to education, economic opportunity,
political stability, basic health care, and support for the family should serve as the key priorities
for achieving such integral human development.

An issue of great international sensitivity is an insistent promotion of so-called sexual and
reproductive “rights”, almost to the exclusion of any other issue. This reflects an improper
overtaking of the ICPD Programme of Action by efforts to promote the legalization and/or
liberalization of abortion laws, whether by Member States or some UN Agencies, who openly
promote laws providing for legal abortion.

3 See OHCRH and UNAIDS, International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, 2006 Consolidated  Version, pg. 35:“Laws should also be enacted to ensure women’s reproductive and sexual rights, … including safe and legal abortion …”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/HIV/ConsolidatedGuidelinesHIV.pdf

4 Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 213 & 214

5 See Pope Francis, Message to the World Council of Churches, 4 October 2013

However, the Programme of Action in no way promotes abortion, but expressly repudiates it as a
mean of controlling families or the population. The ICPD denies that it creates any new rights in
this regard. Such laws and policies remain the prerogative of individual Member States
according to the Programme of Action. All States emphasized at Cairo that Governments should
help women avoid recourse to abortion.


Pope Francis recently addressed this issue:

 Among the vulnerable for whom the church wishes to care with particular love and
concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays
efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one
pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way
of this. … [T]he church cannot be expected to change her position on this question… It is
not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life…4


The Holy See continues to serve at the front-line addressing greater global poverty, human rights
and development. Through its presence and emphasis on providing quality and affordable
education, health care, access to food and respect for all human rights, the Holy See demonstrates
that care and compassion for the poor, rather than focusing on fertility reduction, serves as a model
for a truly human-centered approach to development.5



Thank You Mr. Chairman

Pro-Abortion bad advertising

Tonight I was given a little silver bag with a object and a small note in it. Firstly I thought the pebble was a candy and I almost ate it. Lucky for my teeth that I did not. Then there was this note that read " You don't want to get back to the stone age commit to women's rights".

I was taking a photo of this material when one of the ladies who was involved with it asked me what I thought about it. I asked , have you ever had lessons in marketing . She said no.

Their pathetic little message could have been about anything , votes for women , equal pay or right to education . Of course she meant the " right to kill unwanted unborn children by abortion". But who would have guessed.

Negotiations went on to 10pm last night and I expect the same for tonight.

My friend Jeanne Head arrives

My friend Jeanne head , in the red jacket , arrived at the UN.

Negotiations are well underway.

Pro-Life corner at the UN

Great video by Canadians

Excellent video please see ;

 http://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/index.php?p=CLC_Blog&id=29

First day at CPD.

We had our own mini UN with us yesterday. As  you can see from the photo we had people from Ireland , England , Australia ( me ) , Epypt , Pakistan , Qatar and Nigeria ( Uju).

Negotiations begin in earnest today.

CPD

Today I will fly to New York ,via Amsterdam , to attend the Commission on Population & Development ( CPD ). My boss from London , John Smeaton , will be in New York this week to see what I get up to first hand.

Please pray that all goes well.