Pro-Life NGOs from the Americas Attend 44th General Assembly of the OAS
Monday, June 9, 2014
 
The 44th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) took place in Asunción, Paraguay with the theme “Development with Social Inclusion”. Radical NGOs attend this annual meeting in large numbers but this year they were challenged by over 50 pro-life and pro-family organizations from the Americas.  Human Life International’s (HLI) report includes an account of what transpired at the meeting.

Pro-life representatives at a civil society forum were able to dialogue with the OAS Secretary General (SG) Jose Miguel Insulza on “the need to protect the life of the unborn from procured abortion, the need to help mothers with crisis pregnancies, and the need to respect the institution of the family as the primary cell of society.”

HLI reports that Secretary General Insulza while initially not wanting to respond to questions related to abortion said that “he did not personally favor abortion but that it was a reality in society that needs to be accepted and addressed.”  Pro-life and pro-family NGOs were allotted table space by OAS officials who labeled the table “The Pro-Life and Pro-Family Table”. This action encountered immediate opposition from radical NGOs who were intolerant of the diverse views expressed by life and family civil society and tried unsuccessfully to silence them.

The pro-life coalition developed a statement that symbolized the unity of purpose of the large number of organizations gathered in Asunción to defend life, family, and marriage. The statement was submitted to the SG Jose Miguel Insulza, Eladio Loizaga, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Paraguay, and country ambassadors and representatives who were in attendance.

The statement called on the OAS to strengthen a list of points that included:

  • The Family – The family is the foundation of society and must be protected in an integral manner…
  • The Right to Life—The human right to life must be recognized from conception to natural death, being the foundational right from which all other rights come forth. We express a resounding “NO” to procured abortion.
  • Marriage – The stable union between one man and one woman must be promoted, strengthened, and protected as the basis for the institution of marriage for the purposes of procreation and mutual support…
  •  The inclusion of public policies that strengthen programs and projects that are being developed in the areas of post-abortion syndrome, pregnant mothers in situations of vulnerability, children and families in conflict situations, marriages in crisis situations, and other social sectors in need of protection.

The official documents that were adopted can be found here.

During consideration of the resolution recommending the work of the monitoring body of the OAS treaty on prevention of violence against women, Belém do Pará, Guatemala and Ecuador issued reservations in the form of a footnote to declare that, “pursuant to their respective domestic legislation, they recognize the right to life from the moment of conception.” This was to clarify that in regards to the call for states to “promote, though technical cooperation with national machineries for the advancement of women and other government bodies, the adoption of protocols for guaranteeing that women victims of violence have access to justice”, these countries will not allow abortion.  The Committee of Experts of the treaty monitoring body MESECVI has recommended in the document Regional tools to fight violence against women: The Belém do Pará and Istanbul Conventions the legalization of “interruption of pregnancy on therapeutic grounds, whether to save the life of the mother or to prevent serious or permanent injury to her physical and mental health” and legalization of “the interruption of pregnancy caused by rape”.


 


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