As President Obama made his first official visit to China, new information on China’s “one-child policy” surfaced in the media.

In an article published last week, The Washington Post revealed that “monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets,” creating what amounts to “bounties on the unborn,” according to a 2009 State Department report. Technically, it is illegal in China to kill a baby, but family- planning imperatives sometimes prevail. Unfortunately, according to the same source, as recently as July, China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission said that the one-child policy “will be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come”.

While Chinese officials insist that abortions are voluntary under the one-child policy, the Post’s article informs about recent electronic documentation that shows coerced abortions and involuntary sterilizations are still commonplace in China.

The consequences of these violent and dehumanizing policies are many. Besides killing millions of children, abortions, especially late term abortions, claim the lives of the mothers as well, as evidenced by reports from China. Whatsmore, about 500 women a day commit suicide there. This is the highest rate in the world and it is attributed in part to coercive family planning.

Rep. Chris Smith, a long time champion of Chinese human rights and Chairman of the House Human Rights Committee, also pointed out the atrocious harms to Chinese women, exclaiming that “China’s coercive population control program has imposed unspeakable violence, pain and humiliation on hundreds of millions of Chinese women, many of whom suffer lifelong depression as a consequence.”

Furthermore, China has used abortion for sex-selective purposes because of a traditional (cultural) preference for boys. This has resulted in a tremendous gender imbalance with Chinese men outnumbering Chinese women by 37 million.  In this regard, Smith stated, “As a direct result of the government’s one-child policy, tens of millions of girls are missing today…The lost girls of China is a gendercide.”

While the Post rightfully asserts that “[a]verting our gaze from China’s horrific abuse of women is [a choice],” they neglect to mention the U.S.’s involvement in supporting China’s coercive family planning policies (including coerced abortions and forced sterilizations) is also a “choice.”  The Fiscal Year 2009 omnibus spending bill passed by the House this past March created an exception to allow unrestricted funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) including their operations in countries (such as China) that force women to abort or to be sterilized.  In approving the spending, 55 U.S. Senators voted to reject Senator Roger Wicker’s attempt to protect U.S. taxpayers from funding coercive abortions through the UNFPA.

In light of President Obama’s emphasis on human rights while in China this week, the U.S. should strongly consider withdrawing U.S. taxpayers’ money from operations funding these dehumanizing policies in China.

Americans United for Life experts have created comprehensive model legislation and policy guides to address these issues. For a copy of the 2010 Coerced Abortions Legislative Guide, please click here.  For the 2010 Legislative Guide on Sex Selective and Genetic Abnormality, please click here.

It was reported last week that, for the first time, surgeons in the U.K. have successfully treated an extremely ill heart patient with a combination of an artificial heart and his own stem cells.  The patient was fitted with a mechanical pump and then injected with 6 million of his own stem cells, in hope that those cells would repair damage in the patient’s heart.

This success raises questions for us in the United States.  First, why are embryonic stem cell advocates—and the President and his administration—still pushing for destructive research that has yet to successfully treat a single human person, while ignoring the need for substantial funding of adult stem cell research?  Once again, AUL is here to point out that adult stem cells have been used to treat or cure patients with over 70 different diseases and conditions, while there have been absolutely no successes with embryonic stem cell research.  We’re starting to feel like a broken record.

Yet the message is still not getting across.  To date, only sixteen states promote or encourage the use of umbilical cord cells and/or other forms of adult stem cells for research.

But an underlying question is also raised, one that is timely as we wait to find out what kind of health care we will be left with once the federal government takes over. 

In relaying the patient’s story, Sky News reported that NHS in the U.K. will not pay for this life-saving treatment.  Instead, the patient said he “relies on charity funding—or travels abroad to implant pumps in countries where governments are prepared to fund the £60,000 devices.” 

Interesting.  This patient—in a country with nationalized healthcare that is the predecessor to what President Obama is seeking for the United States—has to travel outside of the U.K. to other countries that are willing to pay for his treatment.

The surgeon himself stated, “I am very frustrated that all the work that I have done back home in the UK has to be translated into patient care in other countries,” and “”[w]e have helped to develop implantation programmes in France, Greece and Japan. It’s time we did it in the UK.”

He believes that this treatment protocol for heart patients could save 12,000 patients each year.

The article continues:

The Greek government has recently agreed to fund pumps for some patients with serious heart failure.

Professor Papakonstantinou [a heart surgeon at the Ahepa University Hospital in Thessaloniki] said they offer good value for money because patients are able to leave hospital and do not need drug treatment.

But in Britain, the NHS will only fund pumps in transplant patients who are waiting for a donor heart. Around 100 a year are implanted.

In a statement, the Department of Health said: “Before making such technology more widely available as an indefinite long-term treatment in end-stage heart failure, the NHS needs to ensure there is clear evidence of benefit.

Apparently 11,900 extra lives saved isn’t a clear enough benefit.
I’m not sure this is what most Americans have in mind when they think “health reform.”

The article from Sky News can be viewed at http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Health/Artificial-Heart-And-Stem-Cells-Save-Mans-Life-In-Pioneering-Surgery-By-British-Surgeon/Article/200909415387553?lpos=Health_Second_UK_News_Article_Teaser_Region_0&lid=ARTICLE_15387553_Artificial_Heart_And_Stem_Cells_Save_Mans_Life_In_Pioneering_Surgery_By_British_Surgeon

By Jessica Sage and Denise Burke

As Americans continue to debate proposals to reform the nation’s health care system, it is becoming increasingly clear that rationed healthcare is not just a concern for the elderly.  Recently, under Britain’s government-run health care system, doctors denied a premature baby necessary care and the child’s bereaved mother blames the National Health Service (NHS).  Specifically, the mother was told that her son who was born a few days shy of 22-weeks was too premature and that national guidelines prevented his treatment. 

Notably, the national guidelines at issue are not mandatory, but, in practice, effectively guide the decisions of NHS doctors.  Specifically, the guidelines (from the Nuffield Commission) recommend “intensive care should not be given to these babies [at less than 22 weeks development],” because it is extremely rare for a baby at that stage of development to survive and, if the baby does survive, he or she may suffer from a variety of disabilities and medical problems.  In sum, the guidelines view any effort to care for a premature infant as not cost effective. 

As the American public debates the inclusion of a public (or government) option in any health care reform package, NHS’s abject failure to care for premature infants gives us yet another example of how government-run healthcare all too often does not protect or respect life. 

When the government is the source of funding for health care, rationing is inevitable.  In an article on “Death Panels,” Will Wilkinson writes, “We’ve already got government rationing under Medicare and, frankly, the government is way too soft about it.”  He goes on to say, “We’ve known that Medicare is unsustainable for a long time now.  People flipping their lids about death panels and about government-funded doctors trying to sell seniors on suicide should have been flipping their lids years ago.” 

Clearly, it is not too late to “flip our lids.”  Medicare is not the standard of care we want.  Nor do we want limited government funding becoming the reason that life-sustaining or life-saving care is denied.  If the government—as a potential insurance provider—establishes guidelines dictating what is and what is not “futile care” and what lives are and are not worthy of treatment, it will direct doctors’ decisions and even override their medical judgment. 

Ultimate government health care guidelines may not be cast as mandatory and doctors’ decisions may not be initially dictated by them, but—as experienced in Britain—an anti-life attitude eventually creeps into the system.  This attitude professes that “hard choices” have to be made and government-run health care makes politicians and faceless bureaucrats the arbiters of what lives are valuable and thus cost effective to treat. 

Government-run healthcare will inevitably lead to rationed health care affecting the young, the old, the disabled, and the vulnerable.  It is the wrong choice for Americans.

Steven Ertelt, British Doctors Let Premature Baby Born at 22Weeks Die, NHS Blamed for Death (Sept 9, 2009) available at http://www.lifenews.com/int1317.html.

Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Independent ethics body proposes week-by- guidelines on treating premature babies (Nov 15, 2009) available at http://www.nuffieldbioethics.org/go/ourwork/neonatal/pressrelease_405.html

Will Wilkinson,  Death panels: Wrong name, right idea (Aug 26, 2009) available at
http://www.theweek.com/bullpen/column/99886/Death_panels_Wrong_name_right_idea

In 2008, the states of Washington and Montana legalized assisted suicide, joining Oregon which legalized the practice in 1994.  This legalization of assisted suicide in America demands a truthful look at the logical outcome when this form of killing is accepted.  The logical outcome—as we see in Switzerland—is not just assisted suicide of the terminally ill, but assisted suicide of the healthy.

Ludwig Minelli—founder of the Swiss assisted suicide clinic, Dignitas—recently revealed plans to help a healthy Canadian woman die along side her terminally-ill husband.  Minelli told England’s BBC radio “suicide is a marvelous, marvelous possibility given to a human being in order to escape a situation which is unbearable.”  He also has no hesitation in killing psychiatric patients suffering from depression or mental illness.  In Minelli’s opinion, anyone who has the “mental capacity” should be permitted to commit suicide, even healthy patients.

Switzerland has the most liberal assisted suicide laws in the world—in part as a result of Minelli’s continuing challenges to even the modest boundaries of the Swiss assisted suicide law.  Switzerland legalized assisted suicide in 1918 and is the only jurisdiction that allows nonresidents to kill themselves.  In November 2006, the Swiss Supreme Court expanded the law by declaring a constitutional right to assisted suicide for psychiatric patients and other mentally ill individuals.

For Minelli, the next step in the right to assisted suicide is for the healthy to be permitted to kill themselves.  For him, this is a “marvelous opportunity” to further his agenda and extend the permissiveness of assisted suicide in Switzerland and for those willing to travel there.  He announced his intentions to assist the Canadian couple with full expectation that the case ultimately will end up in courts where he can push for further expansion of the right to assisted suicide.

Minelli is not a doctor, but a human rights lawyer.  He, along with other advocates for assisted suicide, rely on two ideological principles:  1) Individual Autonym— principally, that it is the “ultimate civil liberty” to control the time, manner and place of our own death;  and 2) Killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering.

Assisted-suicide advocates argue that laws can create safeguards to prevent abuses and protect the most vulnerable.  They have managed to convince many Americans, who naively rely on these assertions and believe assisted suicide will be only for the old, the sick, and the dying.  But in reality, Minelli and Switzerland’s laws reveal the true debate. It shows America that the end goal of assisted suicide advocates is to make it available to all—even those who may not really want to die, but are depressed over a difficult time in their lives.

Thus, initially limiting assisted suicide to the terminally ill is only the first in a line of incremental steps for society to accept killing as an alternative to human suffering.  The next is the killing of those with other illnesses and psychiatric patients, then the healthy.  If not informed and wise, America will quickly find herself a nation ridden with euthanasia—where her most vulnerable, in need of protection and help, are simply put to death.

Today, the US Senate voted 39-55 to reject Senator Roger Wicker’s attempt to protect US taxpayers from funding coercive abortions through the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), especially in countries such as China that have policies limiting family size.

The Wicker Amendment would have restored the Kemp-Kasten Amendment, which has been in place since 1985.  Kemp-Kasten denies federal funding to organizations or programs that the President determines support or participate in a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

The FY09 omnibus spending bill passed by the House last week creates an exception to the Kemp-Kasten provision by stating that UNFPA must receive funds “notwithstanding any other provision of law.”  The Wicker Amendment would have closed this loophole by using the previous year’s budget language, making it clear that the President has to make a determination about UNFPA before they can receive any money from the United States taxpayer.

Unfortunately, 55 Senators believe UNFPA should receive money even if they are funding operations in countries that force women to abort or to be sterilized. These 55 Senators are:

Recently, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) promised to call on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department to complete its review of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and to send it to the Senate for ratification within 60 days.

If ratified, this international convention could severely undermine parents and their inherent right and responsibility to care for and raise their children without governmental oversight and interference.  It would also directly undermine U.S. sovereignty and the enforceability of American laws, subjecting U.S. citizens and American laws to the administrative oversight — and even “veto” power — of the United Nations.

A fundamental presumption of the convention is that parental responsibility exists only in so far as parents are willing to further the independent choices of their children.  To advance the convention’s purposes – seeking to make children (even young children) autonomous from their parents and arguably supplanting parents with the State — the convention grants to children a list of inviolable and radical “rights” including “the right to privacy,” “the right to freedom of thought and association,” and the right to “freedom of expression.”

Specifically, the provisions of this convention could be used to undermine and eliminate laws mandating parental involvement in a minor daughter’s abortion decision.  Article 16 of the convention purports to invest a minor with an absolute right to privacy which, in light of the U.N.’s support for unfettered abortion-on-demand, would necessarily permit a minor to obtain an abortion without the benefit of parental involvement and even without her parents ever knowing about the abortion.

Ominously, Article 19 the Convention permits the “identification, reporting, referral, investigation, treatment, and follow-up” of those – like parents – who interfere with a child’s fundamental “rights.”

For more information on this radical threat to the family and American sovereignty, go to http://www.parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={30FF0076-5974-4B3C-B658-BBF7931E3EF8}

“[R]ecognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”  Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On December 10, 1948, in the immediate aftermath of the horror and carnage of World War II, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a document affirming the dignity and rights of all human beings.  What has been described by some as a “Magna Carta for all humanity” has been translated into more than 200 languages and remains one of the best known and most often cited human rights documents in the world.

The UDHR was drafted by the Commission on Human Rights of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations, chaired by social activist and former American First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt.  Its 30 enumerated articles detail the civil, social, cultural, economic, and political rights of all human beings.

To read the entire article, please click here.

In a blind and ideologically-driven quest to impose abortion-on-demand on a reluctant nation, the Supreme Court of Mexico blatantly ignored the country’s Constitution when it recently upheld a law permitting abortion-on-demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Mexican Constitution clearly states that human life must be defended “from conception until its natural end”, but the Supreme Court succumbed to pressures from international pro-abortion groups including the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood who have been aggressively pushing for abortion-on-demand in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

As a result, since April 2007, abortion is now permitted without restriction during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy in the Federal District (Mexico City) and the pressure for other Mexican states to follow suit is increasing. Two other Mexican states, Morelos and Yucatan, currently restrict abortions to cases of life endangerment, rape, or birth defects in the unborn child.

To read the entire article, please visit our website at http://aul.org/InternationalPressur

In a devastating loss for the people of Mexico this week, the Mexico Supreme Court upheld a Mexico City law which allows abortion-on-demand in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

AUL filed the leading American pro-life amicus brief in this case, and I posted a blog entry about the case in June (you can read that entry and details about the case at http://blog.aul.org/2008/06/05/the-battlefield-broadens-the-mexican-roe-v-wade/ ).

As I reported then, the case had been labeled Mexico’s “Roe v. Wade.”  And unfortunately, Mexico’s Supreme Court took a terrible turn, just like ours did 35 years ago.  While initial reports were contradictory—as the Supreme Court in Mexico doesn’t exactly do things in a way we are accustomed to—the AP later reported that 8 of the 11 judges had ruled to uphold abortion-on-demand in Mexico City.

This is a major loss for the people of Latin America.

Obviously, it is a loss for the unborn.  Between the passage of the law in April 2007 and June 2008, at least 6,400 abortions were performed.  One source states that, to date, 12,000 abortions have been performed.  12,000 lives brutally taken.  While after 35 years the United States is finally seeing a downturn in the number of abortions performed each year, the number in Mexico is expected to rise.  But the Supreme Court of Mexico ignored what its ruling would do to the children of Mexico.

It is also a loss of women.  During April 2007 to June 2008, at least 22 women were injured, and at least 8 women died of complications from abortion—one of them a teenager.  This number, too, is expected to rise.  In fact, detailed medical studies, as revealed in AUL’s amicus brief, demonstrate that abortion causes devastating short- and long-term affects on the health of women.  For example, even abortion proponents acknowledge that abortion can cause infection and perforations to the uterus.  But the Supreme Court ignored the detrimental effects to the health and wellbeing of women.

It is a loss for the Mexican people.  The Constitution of Mexico clearly states that human life must be defended “from conception until its natural end.”  So, in a quest to impose abortion-on-demand on a reluctant nation, the Supreme Court even ignored the Mexico Constitution itself.

Finally, it is a loss for every nation in Latin America.  Groups like the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood have been pushing for abortion-on-demand in these nations for the last several years.  Now they have a win.  And they smell blood.  They will not stop with abortion-on-demand in Mexico during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.  They want more.  They want abortion-on-demand in every nation, during all nine months of pregnancy.  Their agenda is clear from what has happened in the United States over the last 35 years – clearly that was just a trial run for what awaits Latin America.  And again, the Mexico Supreme Court ignored this fact as well. 

We had hoped that the Supreme Court in Mexico would learn from the mistakes made in the United States.  Apparently it only hopes to exacerbate them—worldwide.

We’re back this morning at the Minneapolis Convention center as the GOP platform delegates continue their consideration of amendments to the platform.  This morning has been devoted to the national defense section. 

But it still provided a great example of how life issues affect so many different areas:  in a section focused on international organizations, language was inserted to reaffirm the Mexico City policy barring funding to organizations that promote or provide abortion as a method of family planning.

All in favor, say AYE.

The motion passed.

We break for lunch in a little while and will come back this afternoon to consider the Health sections which include the Rights of Conscience sections and a portion that references stem cell research and human cloning.  The hall is buzzing with rumours that the stem cell section might be watered down.

More later.

The Times of India published a data-filled article on Monday, providing a comparison of abortion data from India, UK and United States. Statistics from governmental sources further substantiate revealing abortion trends in these countries and are worth analyzing. 

India, as opposed to UK and US, defines human life as beginning at conception (according to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act enacted in 1971). That unfortunately, does not hinder the availability of abortion services to Indian women, who can abort their babies up to 20 weeks in the pregnancy. An exception in the Indian MTP Act allows abortions to be performed beyond the 20-week limit in cases of grave health risks or disability detected in the unborn-baby. This resulted in 8.33% Indian babies aborted in 2002- that is 2.4 million out of 28.8 million babies conceived that year.

A different picture can be portrayed of Britain. They have had the most liberal abortion laws in Europe since their Abortion Act passed in 1967, which is still in effect in England, Scotland and Wales. In Northern Ireland, however, the laws protect unborn babies and prohibit abortion unless the life of the mother is in danger or the continuation of the pregnancy would cause the woman genuine medical concerns.

In England, Scotland and Wales, the law permits abortion up until 24 weeks of pregnancy to save a woman’s life, or for health, economic or social reasons and after 24 weeks only for severe disability in the unborn baby or to save the mother’s life. According to UK National Statistics Office abortion data, these laws lead to 22.5% British babies being aborted every year- that is 185,000 abortions to 640,000 births.

In United States, abortion was legalized at the federal level by the 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, but is restricted by state laws to varying degrees. States have passed laws to restrict late term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate the disclosure of abortion risk information to patients prior to the procedure.

The Centers for Disease Control reported 17.3% American babies being aborted in 2003, a total of 854,122 legal induced abortions for 4,089,950 live births. But since abortion reporting is not mandatory in US, many abortions may go unreported and so caution should be exercised in taking the numbers at their face value.

As someone who has given her professional life to pro-life public policy, I am always mindful of the ability of one person to make an important difference in the fight to defend, protect, and honor all human life.  But, every so often, a story of one person’s life is so powerful that it touches me deeply and reinvigorates me for the important battles ahead.  Such is the story of Agata Mroz.

Agata was a member of the Polish national volleyball team, a team that won the European championships in 2003 and 2005.  Given their successes, one can readily imagine that Agata and her teammates were dreaming of Olympic glory in Beijing.  But, that was not to be for Agata.

Agata was pregnant with her first child when doctors discovered that she had leukemia.  Agata and her husband decided to delay a bone-marrow transplant until after the birth of their daughter, Liliana, on April 4, 2008.  Sadly, Agata died just two months later, on June 4, 2008, but her love for her child and her brave defense of life will not soon be forgotten.

Auxiliary Bishop Marian Florczyk of Kielce, Poland said that Agata’s testimony is an example of “love of life, motherhood, the desire to give life, the heroic love of an unborn child.”  And, just a few hours after her death, Polish President Lech Kaczynski announced that Agata would be awarded the Polonia Restituta, one of Poland’s highest awards for extraordinary and distinguished service.

Agata’s heroic sacrifice should motivate all of us to continue to speak, with our words and with our actions, in defense of all human life.  That will be her greatest legacy.

In a vote of 419 to 1 yesterday, the House of Representatives approved House Resolution 1370, which calls for an end to Chinese human rights abuses, such as China’s coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization policies. The measure seeks to ensure that the Olympic Games take place “in an atmosphere that honors the Olympic traditions of freedom and openness.”

As originally drafted, the resolution failed to address the abusive Chinese coercive population control policy. Chris Smith introduced an amendment to the resolution in the Foreign Affairs Committee that called on “the Government of the People’s Republic of China to abandon its coercive population control policy which includes forced abortion and involuntary sterilization.”

As chairman of House human rights committees, Rep. Smith has held over 25 hearings on human rights abuses by the Chinese government. He has been a long-time champion for Chinese human rights throughout the years.

Smith stated that China’s one-child policy “is the largest violation of women’s rights in the history of human kind.” He continued, asserting that “With its heavy reliance on forced abortion, involuntary sterilization and ruinous fines for illegal children, the policy, in effect since 1979, constitutes one of the greatest continuous crimes against humanity in human history.”

Smith highlighted the atrocious harm that has been done to Chinese women, exclaiming that “China’s coercive population control program has imposed unspeakable violence, pain and humiliation on hundreds of millions of Chinese women, many of whom suffer lifelong depression as a consequence.”

Not only has the coercive one-child policy harmed living women, it has created a huge gender disparity in China through sex-selective abortions. Smith stated: “As a direct result of the government’s one-child policy, tens of millions of girls are missing today…The lost girls of China is a gendercide.”

The Olympic Games has lead to heightened human rights abuses, as the Chinese government increasingly seeks to silence Chinese human rights activists from bringing attention to the government’s barbaric policies during the Olympic games. Rep. Smith asserted that “Tragically, but predictably, the Olympics have been an occasion of a massive crackdown designed to silence and put beyond reach all those Chinese whose views differ from the government line.” Chinese government officials have doubled their efforts to fill their jails, investigate, watch, intimidate and house arrest human rights activists. Rep. Smith experienced this “crackdown” when his trip to China was disrupted when human rights lawyers were detained by Chinese police when they tried to meet with Rep. Smith.

Rep. Joe Pitts commended the passage of the resolution, stating: “I hope this resolution right before the President leaves for Bejing makes a strong statement. I urge the President to pressure Chinese officials to end their government’s human rights abuses – especially the appalling policy of forced abortions. Coercive abortion is a most horrific violation of the most basic human rights of families in China.”

The Press Secretary reported that President Bush met with five Chinese human rights activists at the White House this Tuesday. The President assured them that he would carry the message of freedom with him to Bejing when he attends the Olympic Games. The President stated that his trip to China gives him an opportunity to make the United States position clear – human rights and religious freedom should not be denied to anyone.

A video of speeches given by Chris Smith and Joe Pitts during the Committee debate can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/prolifeinformation

Spain’s parliament recently passed a nonbinding resolution granting apes legal rights.  The New York Times discussed the trend toward granting animals human-like rights at length here and here.

According to columnist Adam Cohen, “[s]trip away the goofier rhetoric of the ape-rights activists, and their claim is straightforward. Great apes are biologically very close to humans; chimps and humans share about 98 percent of their DNA. Apes have complex communication skills and close emotional bonds. They experience loneliness and sorrow. They deserve some respect.”  He also argues that giving apes the right to humane treatment will make it “harder to deny that same right to their human cousins.”

The trend toward granting animals “human” rights, which some have extended even to granting plants rights, is dangerous, particularly because it results not in the elevation of animals but in the devaluation of humanity.  The devaluation of humanity to an animal level puts all living creatures at risk because animals are not moral beings.  Defending human life at all stages, from the embryo to natural death, will be harder if humans are not viewed as exceptional.

In a column in the Weekly Standard, Wesley J. Smith discusses the importance of maintaining not only a distinction among species but the truth of human exceptionalism.

Even absent a theistic view of humanity, that God created people in His image and that humans have intrinsic worth from conception to death, arguments can be made for human exceptionalism (for more, visit Smith’s blog)

• Humans are the only moral, intellectual, and creative beings.  These intrinsic characteristics make humans markedly different, despite any common DNA, from animals.
• If human exceptionalism is denied, there is no longer a universal human moral equality.  Without the notion that humans are universally equal, there can be no universal human rights.
• Being human is not just about having rights but owing duties and obligations to other creatures, both human and animals.  Humans are the only beings that owe duties and rights to others.  If granted rights, animals would not owe rights to humans or to other animals.  The mere existence of having an obligation toward other creatures makes humans exceptional.
• Only humans are having this discussion, or are capable of having this discussion.
• Being human is what gives people the obligation to treat animals humanely.  If being human does not give us this obligation, nothing would.  The lion does not treat the gazelle “humanely,” and the zebra doesn’t care if it does or doesn’t, because they are not moral agents.

Granting animals “human” rights devalues humans and creates an equivalency among humans and animals that results in no moral standards, and thus no obligation of humane treatment, rather than more humane treatment of animals.  Smith says that “[t]hese and other concerted efforts to knock ourselves off the pedestal of exceptionalism are terribly misguided. The way we act is based substantially on what kind of being we perceive ourselves to be. Thus, if we truly want to make this a better and more humane world, the answer is not to think of ourselves as inhabiting the same moral plane as animals–none of which can even begin to comprehend rights. Rather, it is to embrace the unique importance of being human.”

Emerging evidence suggests that China and India may not be the only countries where sex-selective abortion is commonly practiced.  In a video released today, Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), argues that America also has a hidden and growing problem with sex-selective abortion, a problem that most pro-abortion and feminist groups refuse to address.

The United Nations has defined sex-selective abortion as the intentional killing of unborn females due to the preference for male offspring (also know as “son preference”).  Worldwide, sex selective abortions most commonly occur because of the low value associated with the birth of females who tend to be regarded as more of a financial burden to their families and as a result of various social and legal conventions (such as males carrying on the family name).  This “son preference” is one of the most evident manifestations of sex discrimination in many societies, undermining female equality and contributing to the elimination of many females’ very right to exist.

Currently, sex-selective abortion is widely practiced in Asia and other parts of the world, resulting in a statistically improbable ratio of baby boys to baby girls.  According to the United Nations, the practice has already claimed the lives of more than 100 million girls worldwide. Moreover, a recent study published by the National Academy of Sciences indicates that many American groups, particularly those of Asian descent, have the same skewed birthrates as found in their country of origin.  Apparently, many of the customs and practices that have led to these skewed birthrates in other countries are being imported into the United States and leading to the selective abortion of baby girls here.

Pro-abortion and feminist advocacy groups have largely ignored this problem, prioritizing their support for unregulated abortion-on-demand over addressing this growing and barbaric form of sex discrimination.  In fact, their silence on this issue is deafening and very telling as to their true priorities and allegiances.
Conversely, the American public and medical professionals have repeatedly condemned this deplorable practice.  In a March 2006 Zogby poll, 86% of Americans agreed that sex-selective abortions should be illegal.  Moreover, in February 2007, the Committee on Ethics of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated, in an ethics opinion, that sex-selective abortion is inappropriate for family planning purposes.

In response to this growing problem, several countries (including China and Great Britain) have enacted bans on sex-selective abortion.  Given the evidence released today, it is clear that we need to do the same and that pro-abortion and feminist groups should be confronted for their continued silence on this critical issue.
Visit the Population Research Institute’s website at www.pop.org

This week, the U.S. House State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Subcommittee approved a 2009 funding bill that will undermine the Kemp-Kasten provision—the provision that allows the President to withhold funds from any organization that “supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.”

It is under the Kemp-Kasten provision that Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush have withheld funds from UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.  This ability to withhold funds is significant, as comments by UNFPA officials themselves indicate the group’s deep-seeded support of abortion and China’s one-child policy.  Take these comments, for example:

“China has had the most successful family planning policy in the history of mankind in terms of quantity and with that, China has done mankind a favour.” –Agence France-Presse, October 11, 1999.

“I have had the honor of being associated with China’s reproductive health and family planning program for more than two decades.” –Nafis Sadik, former UNFPA Executive Director, January 12, 2002.

“… I also feel proud that UNFPA made the wise decision to resist external pressures and continued its fruitful cooperation with China.” – Nafis Sadik

A favor to mankind?  An honor? Something in which to take pride?  Not according to the Chinese women forced into abortion because of China’s heinous population control policies.  And definitely not to the children aborted.

Unfortunately, an amendment to the funding bill offered by Representative Nita Lowey (D-NY) creates a special exception to Kemp-Kasten that will allow UNFPA to receive 60 million dollars, despite Kemp-Kasten.  An amendment by Representative Dave Weldon  deleting this loophole was rejected.

Representative Weldon had the following reaction:

“For years we have sought to protect women and children in China because it was morally wrong to support China’s forced abortion program.  Now the Democrat Majority in the House has voted to change existing law and send millions of dollars to UNFPA and turn a blind eye to the egregious human rights violations that UNFPA promotes in China.  This is a despicable policy change.”