ACLJ Submits Report on How Abortion Harms Women and Girls to UN Working Group

By 

Olivia Summers

|
September 10, 2020

5 min read

Pro Life

A

A

Recently, the U.N. Working Group on discrimination against women and girls stated that it will be presenting “a thematic report on women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in situations of crisis to the 47th session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in June 2021.” To aid in the creation of that report, the Working Group asked stakeholders to provide input by August 31, 2020. The ACLJ, through our affiliate, the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), did just that.

On August 31, 2020, we submitted a report to the Working Group detailing “the negative effects that pro-abortion efforts to push abortion on women and girls around the world have on the rights of . . . women and girls to be respected and protected from coercion, trauma, and violence.”

It is no secret that pro-abortion advocates are pushing their radical abortion agenda all across the globe. Organizations and governments alike are active in this pro-abortion campaign.

Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) – one of the two largest abortion providers in the world – continually use humanitarian crises as a means of pushing abortion, often in defiance of state sovereignty.

And we told you how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tried to include funding for Planned Parenthood in the Coronavirus funding bills in an effort to circumvent federal law which specifically prohibits direct funding for abortion. We also informed you of similar efforts in the U.N. to include funding for abortion in a critical aid package for Yemen – where “two million children require treatment for acute malnutrition ‘of which around 360,000 are at risk of dying without treatment.’” The Trump Administration took a firm stance against the inclusion of abortion funding in that aid package; and rather than move forward with the rest of the aid, the U.N. Commission on Population and Development Chair tabled the discussion.

Similarly, in May of 2020, the U.N. Global Humanitarian Response Plan (GHRP) required that “sexual and reproductive health services” – also known as “elective abortion” – be given the “same level of importance as food-insecurity, essential health care, malnutrition, shelter, and sanitation.” In this instance, Member States had no input in the GHRP, and the language remained a part of the $2 billion COVID-19 aid package.

Yet, as we point out in our report, “induced abortion is a controversial topic, and is not viewed favorably in a majority of countries.” Moreover, “[p]ublished research strongly indicates that abortion, rather than being safe – even safer than childbirth as most pro-abortion advocates falsely claim – is in fact more dangerous.”

Abortion, rather than being “liberating” or “positive,” is often used as a method to control and coerce women and girls. As we highlight in our report:

58.3% of the women reported aborting to make others happy, 73.8% disagreed that their decision to abort was entirely free from even subtle pressure from others to abort, 28.4% aborted out of fear of losing their partner if they did not abort, 49.2% reported believing the fetus was a human being at the time of the abortion, 66% said they knew in their hearts that they were making a mistake when they underwent the abortion, 67.5% revealed that the abortion decision was one of the hardest decisions of their lives, and 33.2% felt emotionally connected to the fetus before the abortion.

In that same study, the women were asked what positives stemmed from their decision to abort. Twenty-two percent of the women chose not to answer this question, while 31.6% responded by choosing the survey answer as “none.”

Further, we stated:

When asked about the most significant negatives that had impacted them from the decision to abort, women listed the following:

  • Took a life/loss of a life or lives
  • Depression
  • Guilt/Remorse
  • Self-hatred/anger at self/self-loathing/feelings of worthlessness/ unworthy of love
  • Shame
  • Addiction, alcohol or drug abuse
  • Regret
  • Self-destructive behaviors including promiscuity, self-punishment, and poor choices
  • Low self-esteem
  • Anxiety/fear
  • Suicidal/suicidal thoughts/wanting to die/self-harm/dangerous risks/suicidal attempts

All of these factors contribute to the negative and even devastating effects abortion has on women and girls.

We also detailed in our report how abortion has negatively impacted places like India and China, where abortion is used as a tool for sex-selecting children. In fact, the pro-abortion United Nations Population Fund itself estimates that “around 140 million women are believed to be ‘missing’ around the world – [as] the result of son preference, including gender-biased sex selection, a form of discrimination.”

We noted that “India and China are merely two examples of how abortion can be and is used against women and girls around the world. These two countries are hardly alone in revealing the devastating, traumatic, and coercive nature of abortion.”

Finally, we concluded our report, stating:

Women and girls around the world face a myriad of crises and challenges – and their needs should be met, not exploited. Abortion, or “sexual and reproductive health” as termed by many, is a tool often used to contribute to crisis, not aid in halting it. Thus, it is incumbent upon individual countries, international bodies, and organizations to focus on the real needs of women and girls in crisis, such as access to food, clean water, shelter, safety, etc.

We also recommended “measures of support for women facing unexpected pregnancies. This support, instead of being primarily or sometimes solely directed to ‘abortion services,’ should be redirected for the funding of social and medical assistance for the follow-up of pregnancies, for births, health care and social help, in order to truly help women in situation of crisis.”

The ACLJ is actively engaged in this fight against abortion because we truly believe that every human life, from conception to natural death, deserves to be protected because of its inherent worth and dignity.