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Wednesday STOPP Report - July 1, 2009
by Marie Hahnenberg
Released July 1, 2009
In this issue:
Lost in Lust: Part 2 of STOPP’s special report on IPPF’s declaration on ‘sexual rights’
PP’s misleading new TV ad
Meet STOPP’s new national director: An expert on fighting PP
El Paso PP goes out of business!
IPPF’s declaration on ‘sexual rights,’ Part 2: Vision of a world lost in lust
As we reported in last week’s Wednesday STOPP Report, after two years of preparation, International Planned Parenthood Federation has issued a document intended to create “change,” promote and ensure “sexual rights” as human rights, and promote the use of legislative and judicial action to enforce these supposed rights. It is titled Sexual rights: an IPPF declaration.
Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, says that one of the great advancements of the modern age has been the acceptance of “universal rights.” Yet the pope also noted that we have come to believe we have rights to actions that have no basis in truth.
In this dangerous declaration of “sexual rights,” IPPF lays claim to many so-called rights that simply have no basis in truth. Thus, the declaration itself becomes a lie and leads to disregard for genuine human rights.
In last week’s WSR, we discussed the preamble and the seven “principles” upon which these supposed “sexual rights” are based.
This week, we look at the first five “sexual rights” that Planned Parenthood is demanding.
Introduction: Entitlements bolstered by international law
The introduction to this section alleges, “Sexual rights are constituted by a set of entitlements related to sexuality that emanate from the rights to freedom, equality, privacy, autonomy, integrity and dignity of all people.”
The enumeration of “sexual rights” picks up where the “principles” left off, by placing a strong emphasis on the fact that, supposedly, “many international instruments, norms and standards recognize the important principles related to sexuality.”
We might be tempted to overlook this as a mere attempt to bolster the “rights” IPPF is claiming. However, a deeper look into the threat of international law shows that this statement is a most important premise—one upon which IPPF may well be relying to compel nations to comply with these “sexual rights,” whether or not a particular nation has ratified the instruments to which the declaration refers.
Read more on this dangerous premise in an upcoming Wednesday STOPP Report.
IPPF enumerates 10 “sexual rights”
In an apparent attempt to mimic the Bill of Rights amending the Constitution of the United States, International Planned Parenthood Federation enumerates what it claims to be 10 “sexual rights,” each listed and expounded upon as a separate article attached to its declaration.
“Article 1 – Right to equality, equal protection of the law and freedom from all forms of discrimination based on sex, sexuality or gender”
The first paragraph references, through footnotes, a whopping eight international instruments or statements: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and must enjoy the equal protection of the law against discrimination based on their sexuality, sex or gender.”
The second paragraph demands that states and civil society take “steps to promote the modification of social and cultural practices based on stereotyped roles of women or men or on the idea of superiority or inferiority of sexes, genders or gender expressions.”
In other words, Planned Parenthood is calling for social engineering to dispel the cultural and social norms regarding male and female roles.
The fourth paragraph says, “All persons shall be accorded legal capacity and the same opportunities to exercise that capacity… and shall be treated equally in all stages of procedure in courts and tribunals, with due regard for the evolving capacity of the child” (emphasis added).
Here IPPF continues to play on one of the document’s recurring themes: that these “rights” are evolving or ever changing, that children’s right to attain sexual pleasure is evolving according to their “capacity,” and that children can be emancipated from parental control in areas of sexuality, rendering the parents totally helpless to intervene or control the sexual behavior of the child.
“Article 2 – The right to participation for all persons, regardless of sex, sexuality or gender”
The second paragraph states, “All persons are entitled to participate in the development and implementation of policies that determine their welfare, including their sexual and reproductive health, without formal or informal barriers such as marriage qualifications, conditions related to HIV status, or discriminatory gender norms, stereotypes and prejudices that exclude or restrict the participation of persons based on ideas of gender and sexual propriety.”
Following on the heels of the statement that children have rights to sexual pleasure according to their evolving capacities, this paragraph says that all persons, obviously including children, are entitled to participate in the development and implementation of policies that determine their sexual and reproductive health (which always includes deadly birth control and abortion, as far as PP is concerned); without the need of marriage, regardless of whether one of the partners is HIV positive; outside of gender norms (i.e., bisexual, homosexual, transgendered); stereotypes and prejudices (i.e., that sexual relations are reserved for a married couple, and that marriage is between one man and one woman); that exclude or restrict the participation of persons based on ideas of gender and sexual propriety (i.e., that Junior cannot be excluded from having sex with anyone of any gender, based on anyone’s ideas of what would be correct or appropriate behavior).
For those who may have doubted the fact that Planned Parenthood wants to pull out all the stops on sexual activity—leaving truth, morality and decency behind as battlefield casualties—this paragraph should dispel any doubt. It spells out, with painful clarity, IPPF’s intention to engineer a world that is guaranteed the right to wallow in the lowest pits of sexual sin, in a moral vacuum, without regard to societal norms.
And just in case you had any doubt that all of the aforesaid applies to young people, the next paragraph removes it: “Young people, who are frequently excluded, shall have the right to be participants and protagonists in processes of change in their societies. They shall have meaningful ways to contribute to and shall share the responsibilities for the development of policies and programmes to protect, promote and fulfil sexual and reproductive health and rights.”
“Article 3 – The rights to life, liberty, security of the person and bodily integrity”
Interestingly, the first paragraph of this article begins with “All persons have the right to life…” The only way IPPF can possibly rectify this statement with its huge abortion and birth control business is to constantly defend its claim, which conflicts with science, that the preborn are not persons. This is an area that cries out to the pro-life community for action—to press for human personhood amendments.
The next paragraph forbids corporal punishment for sexual history or behavior.
It is followed by a paragraph which pits mothers against their preborn babies, stating that “no woman’s life or health shall be put at risk as a consequence of medical treatment being denied to her for any physical or mental condition, or based on others placing a competing value on the foetus she may be carrying.” Medical care of pregnant women should always take into account the best interest of both patients, mother and child.
The next paragraph is a direct condemnation of the right to life of preborn children: “No woman shall be condemned to forced maternity as a result of having exercised her sexuality” (emphasis added).
The 11th paragraph demands that “all migrants and migrant workers, particularly young, female and transgender migrants, must have access… to the means to protect and fulfil their sexual health and rights.”
The 12th paragraph calls for “the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution… on the basis of, among other things, sexual history or behavior or sexual orientation or HIV status.” In other words, in the sex-crazed world of IPPF, where anything goes, there will be no consequences for any type of sexual behavior.
The 13th paragraph demands freedom from “removal, extradition or expulsion or threats thereof to any State where they may face a well-founded fear of persecution based on... sexual history or behaviour or sexual orientation or HIV status.” Regardless of a person’s sexual behavior, he or she may not be extradited to a State where he or she will be caused to suffer because of that behavior.
“Article 4 – Right to Privacy”
This article claims the “right to privacy which is essential to the exercise of sexual autonomy” for all persons.
It seeks to give all persons sexual autonomy “to make decisions about their sexuality, sexual behaviour and intimacy without arbitrary interference.”
It seeks to protect all persons from disclosing their HIV status, sexual history, sexual partners and behaviors.
One must wonder how an organization that claims to be working to lower the incidence of HIV/AIDS can allege that those infected with HIV have a “right” to not disclose that deadly infection to past, present and potential sexual partners. Should Planned Parenthood continue to receive funding to combat HIV/AIDS when this is what it advocates?
“Article 5 – Right to personal autonomy and recognition before the law”
In this section, IPPF flashes back to its preoccupation with children’s “rights” to sexual freedom.
The first paragraph says, “All persons have the right to be recognized before the law and to sexual freedom, which encompasses the opportunity for individuals to have control and decide freely on matters related to sexuality, to choose their sexual partners, to seek to experience their full sexual potential and pleasure, within a framework of non-discrimination and with due regard to the rights of others and to the evolving capacity of children.”
Once again, IPPF is off on its never-ending quest for unimpeded sex within a moral vacuum, accompanied by the threat of enforcing discrimination laws against those who refuse to subscribe to its vision of a world lost in lust.
To further that end, the document continues by claiming freedom “to exercise autonomous and relational sexual practices and conduct, within an environment of social, political and economic conditions in which all rights and freedoms can be realized equally by all.”
It further seeks to normalize, by decriminalization, all consensual sexual practices or conduct, calls for the right of all prisoners to have regular conjugal visits, and seeks to require governments to issue identification documents reflecting the person’s “self-defined gender identity, including but not limited to birth certificates, passports and electoral records.”
That is to say, if tomorrow I decide I am no longer female, I could require the government to change all of my identifying documentation so that it states that I am male.
Can Planned Parenthood get any more bizarre? We will explore that question next week as we take a close look at the last five “rights” proclaimed by IPPF’s declaration on “sexual rights.”
PP’s misleading new TV ad
Planned Parenthood is really trying to convince the American public that it is all about health care. In fact, it has created a new television commercial that pushes the idea of PP being a primary health-care provider. The ad claims that 90 percent of the services PP provides consists of “preventive and primary care.”
But according to PP’s own data, primary care accounts for just 0.7 percent of its business. What does Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, say about the ad? In a U.S. News and World Report article, writer Deborah Kotz reported that Richards “says the ad is aimed at policy folks involved in healthcare reform, those old guys in Congress… who think the clinics only provide abortions.”
PP is desperately trying to get people to think it’s not all about abortion. Another example: PP of Dubuque, Iowa, ran a newspaper ad titled “Want to end abortion? Support Planned Parenthood.”
These desperate attempts still cannot disguise the fact that abortion provides one-third of PP’s clinic income, or the fact that in 2007, PP murdered 305,310 babies by abortion, which is 15,560 more babies than it murdered the year before. PP’s abortion numbers have only been increasing for the past 17 years.
PP is the nation’s largest abortion chain, and no matter how PP markets itself, America will not be fooled. Planned Parenthood murders preborn babies, covers up rape and is certainly not a place you should trust for your health care.
Meet STOPP’s new national director: An expert on fighting PP
We are proud to welcome Rita Diller, who joins Jim Sedlak and his staff as the new national director of STOPP! Rita comes to STOPP with more than 26 years of experience in pro-life work. During 12 of those years, Rita, along with Bishop John W. Yanta, of the Diocese of Amarillo, led a campaign against Planned Parenthood in the Texas Panhandle, which culminated in the closing of 19 PP facilities!
In addition to Rita’s expertise in fighting PP, she served on the board of directors for the first Gabriel Project in the United States; she assisted Birthright, one of the nation’s oldest pregnancy help organizations; and she was a volunteer director for Hope House, a home for women in crisis pregnancies.
For many years, Rita participated in rescues, sidewalk counseling and prayer vigils in Corpus Christi, Texas. After years of prayer and perseverance by Corpus Christi pro-lifers, the two major abortion mills there closed and one remaining abortion facility in an OB/GYN office temporarily closed.
She joins STOPP after working for the last 12 years as the Diocese of Amarillo’s Respect Life and Family Life director. For the last five years, she was also the editor-in-chief of The West Texas Catholic, a diocesan newspaper serving 26 counties in Texas.
We are very happy to have Rita aboard! If you would like to congratulate Rita or contact her for assistance in your local fight against PP, you can e-mail her at rdiller@all.org.
El Paso PP goes out of business!
In 1937, Margaret Sanger herself personally visited her gleaming new Planned Parenthood clinics in El Paso, Texas. Today, American Life League joins local pro-life activists in celebration of another major victory as all seven of Planned Parenthood of El Paso’s facilities permanently close their doors.
We expect many more closures in the days to come as more people become aware of PP’s sex-crazed birth control and abortion business.
After 72 years in operation, the El Paso facilities cited financial concerns as the reason for shutting down. Only months ago, the facilities were seen as a permanent fixture in the city.
The closure of Planned Parenthood of El Paso is part of a larger trend. One by one, with hard work and prayer, these facilities are closing, no matter how entrenched PP may seem to be within a community.
STOPP consults with pro-life groups throughout the nation to shed light on PP. STOPP representatives visited El Paso to instruct and encourage pro-life advocates in 1996 and 2001, at the request of Rev. Rick Thomas, S.J., a priest best known for his work with the poorest of the poor, who reside in and glean their living from the trash dumps of El Paso.
If you would like to join Amarillo, El Paso and a growing number of other communities as members of the “PP-Free Club,” we would love to assist you in realizing that goal. E-mail stopp@all.org. We look forward to hearing from you!
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