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UN Human Rights Office to Litigate LGBT and Abortion
in Latin America
By Stefano Gennarini, J.D. |
December 17, 2021
NEW YORK, December 17 (C-Fam) The UN human rights office has launched a new initiative to promote judicial activism on gender issues in Central and South America, including abortion and the LGBT agenda.
The UN human rights office established an organization to promote strategic litigation, legal reforms, and legal education on gender issues in Central and South America, regions where laws remain highly protective of children in the womb. While the organization, called the Latin American Network for Gender-based Strategic Litigation, focuses mostly on violence against women, it also promotes abortion as an international right following the recommendations of the UN human rights bodies.
The UN report on which the organization’s work is based describes “access to safe and legal abortion” as a human right and calls on advocates across Latin America to promote the denial of abortion as a criminal act of “reproductive violence.”
“To change laws, judicial practice, and the patriarchal culture that surrounds the investigation and punishment of crimes of sexual and gender based violence remains the central challenge,” said the coordinators of the group and American University professors Susana SáCouto and Claudia Martin in a blog.
The website of the organization promotes the rulings of Latin American courts promoting abortion as models to be followed, including controversial cases that have been dubbed judicial activism, or attempts by judges to impose their policy preferences in disregard of the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives.
Despite much international pressure, Central and Latin America remain stubbornly pro-life, and democratic votes as well as referendums on abortion tend to yield pro-life results. That is why abortion advocates and the governments who back them are turning more and more to the judiciary and law-enforcement, even if this technically is a form of interfering in the internal affairs of countries, something prohibited by the UN Charter.
The initiative of the UN human rights office is only the latest effort of the UN office and powerful western countries to train judges, lawyers, activists, and law-enforcement personnel in the region to promote abortion.
Several UN agencies have long promoted the notion that denial of abortion should be a crime under international law. Ongoing programs from the UN human rights office as well as other programs carried out in the region with money from western donors link gender-based violence with the enforcement of abortion laws.
According to a 2014 Latin American Model Protocol for the investigation of gender-related killings of women prepared by the UN agencies, “deaths due to unsafe or clandestine abortions” should be considered “passive or indirect category of femicides.”
What about the deaths of the children being aborted? Are they not infanticide?
The UN rights office and UN agencies run workshops in the region for legal and law-enforcement personnel every year, according to reports prepared by the UN human rights office. In Central America, the regional offices of the UN human rights bureaucracy routinely promote abortion. And internal evaluations of the UN human rights office praise the role of “gender advisors” within the UN bureaucracy for promoting abortion and the LGBT agenda in Latin America and across the world.
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US Air Force embraces gender pronouns
19 Dec, 2021 16:27
The US Air Force has authorized the use of gender pronouns in electronic signature boxes, further embracing the controversial woke lexicon that other branches of government were criticized for adopting earlier this year.
The military division authorized using gender pronouns in a piece of correspondence earlier this month, which was made public over the weekend. The document states that while the “use of pronouns (he/him, she/her, or they/them) in an email signature is authorized,” it is “not required.”
The signature block in Air Force email templates is otherwise restricted to name, rank, service affiliation, duty title, organization name, phone numbers, and social media contact information. Under the new rules, pronouns will be added to that list.
It’s unclear if there was a specific incident that provoked the move on behalf of the Air Force or if this was simply part of the US military’s onward march toward wokeness under President Joe Biden and his Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, who has pledged to cleanse the military of “deep-rooted racism and discrimination.”
Biden’s pick to lead the Defense Department has ruffled some feathers in the military, as Austin has repeatedly suggested that some of the nation’s worst enemies “lie within our own ranks.” That image hasn’t improved with the department moving to dishonorably discharge those service members who choose not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
The Biden administration is determined to roll out the red carpet for LGBTQ recruits, running ads featuring a lesbian wedding and a Pride parade as well as ones featuring new military members describing themselves in ‘intersectional’ terms. Another video, this one the animated story of a real person, illustrated the upbringing of an army corporal with “two mommies.”
The administration’s embrace of woke-speak – especially gender pronouns – has attracted derision from political opponents. The State Department was mocked for celebrating ‘International Pronouns Day’ in October even as chaos seemingly broke loose around the world, from the ongoing failure to rescue Americans trapped in Afghanistan under Taliban rule to reports of China’s hypersonic missile launch.
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‘Gender critical’ ex-cop wins free speech judgment
20 Dec, 2021 19:52
October 28, 2021. © AFP / Tolga Akmen
A former police officer has scored a legal victory over a UK police policy that records “gender critical” views as “non-crime hate incidents,” after a court ruled it unlawfully interferes with the right to freedom of expression.
In January 2020, Harry Miller was visited by former colleagues at Humberside Police after a member of the public complained about his allegedly “transphobic” tweets. The complaint was designated as a non-crime hate incident and recorded on a national database.
On Monday, however, the Court of Appeal in London ruled that the guidance – issued by the College of Policing – had been unlawfully used, and noted it’d had a “chilling effect” on Miller’s freedom of speech. The presiding judges also found that, while the guidance had legitimate crime prevention purposes, those aims could be met through less intrusive means.
Following the verdict, Miller said that being offensive was one of the “cornerstones of freedom” and that it “is not, and cannot, and should not be an offence” unless “speech turns to malicious communication or targeted harassment against an individual.”
According to the guidance on hate crimes, a ‘non-crime hate incident’ can be “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice.”
The complaint against Miller was in relation to a number of his tweets about transgender issues as part of the debate about reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004. In one tweet, he reportedly wrote, “I was assigned mammal at birth, but my orientation is fish. Don’t mis-species me.”
Last year, the High Court had upheld Miller’s challenge against Humberside Police’s actions, ruling that they were a “disproportionate interference” with his right to free expression. However, it dismissed his case against the guidance on the grounds that it “serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate.”
However, Justice Victoria Sharp said on Monday that the “recording of non-crime hate incidents is plainly an interference with freedom of expression” and that the “knowledge that such matters are being recorded and stored in a police database is likely to have a serious ‘chilling effect’ on public debate.”
Mr Miller belongs to a group of people who could easily be stigmatized for their opinions and be subject to complaints by those offended by his views.
After the ruling, Assistant Chief Constable Iain Raphael of the College of Policing said it had tried to strike a balance “between the need to protect vulnerable people and communities from harm with the need to facilitate and protect freedom of speech.”
This is a brilliant judgment, although if Miller was an active policeman I can see problems with it.
Illinois Governor Signs Law Letting Teen Girls Get an Abortion
without Parents Knowing
Michael Foust |
ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor |
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Saying he was “protecting reproductive rights,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law Friday that allows teenage girls to obtain an abortion without notifying their parents.
The new law, dubbed the “Youth Health and Safety Act” (HB 370), repeals a 1995 law that required minors to notify their parent or guardian 48 hours prior to having an abortion.
“With reproductive rights under attack across the nation, Illinois is once again establishing itself as a leader in ensuring access to healthcare services,” Pritzker said. “This repeal was essential, because it was the most vulnerable pregnant minors who were punished by this law: victims of rape and physical abuse in unsafe homes.”
Despite Pritzker’s reasoning, the 1995 law included an exception for victims of sexual abuse. It also allowed minors to petition for a court waiver if, for example, the minor came from an abusive home.
The new law’s legislative findings pointed to abortion restrictions in Mississippi and Texas and asserted that Illinois “again is called to be an example for the nation in the protection of reproductive health care” while also “working to establish healthy family communications, protecting the health and safety of youth including those who are pregnant and parenting, and investing in individuals throughout their lives.”
Of course, this law does the complete opposite. Communications breakdown between parents and children when one starts to lie to the other. This law encourages that to happen.
Supporters of the 1995 law, though, said the new law harms parent-child relationships.
“I am the father of a teenage girl. I love my daughter, and I care very deeply about what goes on in her life,” Jon Jones, a pastor at the Tinley Park campus of Christian Life Center in Illinois, said in urging legislators to back the ‘95 law. “If she were to get pregnant and consider an abortion, I would want to know so my wife and I could help her deal with the unexpected situation because we love her. We feel it is our duty to protect and guide her. We are family, and we deal with matters together. The state should not seek to interfere with our relationship.”
“The current law requiring that a parent or an adult family member be notified when a minor girl is seeking an abortion to us just makes common sense in a supportive family, which is the bedrock of society,” Jones said.
A March 2021 poll found that 72 percent of Illinois voters – including 58 percent of pro-choice voters – supported the parental notification law.
But, of course, the governor knows better!
The legislative findings of the 1995 law said, “the medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of abortion are sometimes serious and long-lasting, and immature minors often lack the ability to make fully informed choices that consider both the immediate and long-range consequences.”
The new law takes effect on January 1, 2024.
There's still time to reverse it!
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