Debra

Anti-choice groups are taking the recent story of officials trying to force a woman in China to have an abortion, to reiterate their hatred of UNFPA whom they claim is implicit in this action.
UNFPA’s mission statement reads;

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNFPA because everyone counts.

It is hard to see how anyone could take issue with that, but then we know that choice of any kind is anathema to the forced pregnancy types. Because they are willing to force people to adhere to their rules and beliefs they cannot fathom that those of us who believe in choice believe in actual choice Meaning that we do not support forcing issue into or out of a woman’s womb. UNFPA in fact supports the choice to be mother through their campaign to make motherhood safer;

Every minute, a woman in the developing world dies from treatable complications of pregnancy or childbirth. Every minute, a family is devastated. The lives of surviving children are put at risk. Communities suffer. And for every woman who dies, as many as 20 others are seriously harmed by fistula or other injuries of childbearing.

UNFPA’s strategy for preventing maternal mortality includes:

* Family planning to reduce unintended pregnancies
* Skilled care at all births
* Timely emergency obstetric care for all women who develop complications.

UNFPA also advocates at many levels for the right of mothers to give birth safely. It spearheads the global Campaign to End Fistula, a collaborative initiative to prevent this devastating injury of childbirth and to restore the health and dignity of those who have been living with its consequences. And it is working to address the shortage of skilled midwives in much of the developing world.

However, based on the most recent statistics, maternal deaths are declining far too slowly to meet the MDG and ICPD target for a 75 per cent reduction by 2015.

UNFPA also helps in providing contraceptives and of course preventing pregnancy is the best way to prevent abortion.

Yet the shrieking continues unabated

LifeNews.com

Egged on by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, Obama has promised to restore funding to the UNFPA, the UN agency that has worked hand-in-hand with Chinese family planning officials.

Not only do Obama and his pro-abortion friends ignore the plight of women like Tursun, they’re willing to send our money to the UN group that gives the people who imprisoned her in a hospital for a forced-late term abortion a pat on the back.

“Obama to fund forced abortions” screams another.

Strangely we are to believe that their desire to force pregnancy is somehow less coercive or less a denial of human rights than forced abortion.

For a more realistic assessment we turn to RH Reality Check

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, does not support coercion or abortion. It follows the mandate of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which clearly states that reproductive health-care programmes should provide the widest range of services without any form of coercion. All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so. In addition, the global community has decides that abortion should never be promoted as a method of family planning.

[emphasis mine]

Congratulations to Arzigul Tursun on her continuing pregnancy. May all women around the world have the opportunity to control their reproductive choices.