In fact, motherhood should be viewed for what it is: a unique and powerful opportunity for women to shape the next generation, teaching both boys and girls that equality is not defined by sameness, but by value and respect.
Girls face immense barriers to equality around the world, despite repeated attempts and international initiatives to balance these inequities. The International Day of the Girl should focus on gender-based violence and injustice, on access to excellent medical care, quality education, and the ending of child marriage. To shift the focus to pregnancy and abortion access does nothing to enhance girls’ prospects, but only reinforces the message that women earn equality by becoming more like men.
Read the full article at MercatorNet.
]]>The assertion is made that unsafe abortion practices result in the deaths of approximately 50,000 women worldwide each year. UN experts recommend removing barriers, discrimination and any criminalization of abortion to remedy this problem. “We cannot tolerate the severe violation of women’s human rights on the basis of their sex and biological differences,” said the experts.
But wait. I don’t mean to demean the 50,000 preventable deaths from unsafe abortions – preventable deaths are always sad and worth examining. In Canada alone, however, abortion numbers are estimated at 100,000 per year, as our flag display so vividly illustrated in Manitoba recently. In the United States, that number jumps to at least 700,000, if not closer to a million.
That’s only two countries in this big wide world! If we assume half of those aborted babies are girls (and it’s likely actually more than half), we very quickly get to at least half a million women who are never given a chance at life.
Further, to claim that we cannot tolerate differences for women on the basis of their sex is to say we cannot tolerate the difference that defines them as women. Women are made with a biological gift, not a curse, and as long as we continue to treat abortion access as a necessity, we continue to further the illusion that pregnancy and childbearing are a curse of which the effects must be minimized.
To suggest that repealing anti-abortion laws will actually save the lives of women is misleading, inaccurate, or downright delusional. Abortion never saves lives: abortion is, by definition, the taking of a life. The United Nations continues to push on a global scale the Western view of abortion as integral to success for women and, as such, they do nothing to improve any women’s lives in a meaningful way.
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In 1991, the Canadian government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which they signed onto in 1990. The UNCRC, like the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child which preceded it, is very clear in stating that the rights and legal protection of children are paramount in both born and pre-born children. The preamble from the UNCRC states, “Bearing in mind that, as indicated in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth”. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of a Child that Canada signed onto is a binding agreement, that our country is in direct violation of.
Canada needs to adhere to the commitments made when signing the UNCRC. The lack of restrictions on abortion are not only way out of line with all other Western nations but are also an egregious infringement on the rights of children as recognized by the United Nations.
]]>Published: Saturday, October 5, 2013
For the last two years Prime Minister Stephen Harper has arrived in New York just in time for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. And both times Harper has found something more important to do. 
This year, rather than address the General Assembly, the Prime Minister spent his time participating in a panel discussion on the UN’s maternal and child health initiative.
Harper’s interest here is natural. Since partnering with other G8 countries on the Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn and Child Heath in 2010, Canada has committed over $200 million to help mothers and babies in the world’s developing countries. The Prime Minister reported this week that great strides are being made: “The world is making significant progress in improving the health of women and children in developing countries and reducing the unacceptable mortality rates faced by these vulnerable populations.” This success Harper said is because Canadian funding is going to pay for immunizations, basic health and community services designed to ease the dangers surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
You would think most Canadians would embrace this charitable use of their tax dollars, but Canada’s commitment has not been without controversy.
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