The
world has adopted an ambitious plan to change the world in “Transforming
Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”.
The 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also
known as the Global Goals, and 169 targets with indicators still to be
determined, are meant for all countries and for all people and purport to "leave no one behind” as it
addresses social, economic, and environment aspects of development with
interconnected actions to “end extreme poverty”, “fight inequality &
injustice”, and “fix climate change”.
The push has begun to use the 2030 Agenda to increase global access to abortion
as a component of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” as stated in target 3.7— "ensure
universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services"— and
5.6— "ensure universal access
to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights". If successful, the lives of unborn children will be valued on
subjective views of utility and wantedness as the world experiences an
unprecedented fifteen year push for access to abortion.
Pro abortion activists are using the official 2030 Agenda process to advance
their agenda and seek inclusion of indicators related to access to abortion
that will measure progress on related targets; the determination of indicators
is currently underway with final indicators being adopted in March 2016. For example, pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute
states, “Induced abortion is a key sexual and reproductive health service” in
its new report, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Indicators for the
SDGs Recommendations for inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Its recommendations include tracking the “Proportion of health facilities that
…where it is not against the law that provide safe abortion”; the “Grounds
under which induced abortion is legal“; and the “Number of unsafe abortions per
1,000 women aged 15–44.
In addition, Guttmacher seeks to create data on “unsafe abortion” and explains
that the “definitions of safe and unsafe abortion are currently being
assessed for revision by WHO. Data on levels of unsafe abortion are generally
available only from special studies. Major investments in the collection of
these data at the country level will be necessary for this indicator to be
technically adequate. A common definition of categories for the grounds under
which induced abortion is legal needs to be identified to ensure comparability
of the law and policy indicator across countries.”
Other pro-abortion efforts can be found in initiatives related to the goals of
the 2030 Agenda. UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon recently launched the Global
Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent's Health which is touted to provide “guidance
to accelerate momentum for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. It
should achieve nothing less than a transformation in health and sustainable
development by 2030 for all women, children and adolescents, everywhere.”
Tragically, the transformation
that the Global Strategy promotes includes the destruction of children in the
womb as it lists so-called “safe abortion” among the intervention packages
it recommends for ‘Pregnancy, childbirth and postnatal care’.
Commenting on the Global Strategy and the increase of access to health care as
detailed in Global Goal 3, Marleen Temmerman, director, Department of
Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, and states her
desire to train “health workers” in abortion in Towards
a new Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health:
“Quality of care must therefore go side by side with the
increase of service coverage… Upgrading
of first and second level facilities with appropriate infrastructure and equipment, and providing adequate numbers of
skilled and motivated health
workers, with ongoing training and mentoring for women’s health, including on sexual and reproductive
health and abortion care… is necessary to increase
coverage and facilitate access.”
Funding for the 2030 Agenda is also a key area demanding attention by NGOs to
ensure coverage of the cost related to increase access to abortion. IPPF, for example, is following the money
trial and has criticized the World Bank Group (WBG) for its decision to not
renew its Reproductive Health Action Plan stating,
“IPPF
is disappointed that the WBG is not renewing its Reproductive Health Action Plan which expires this year, given current
need to increase sustainable financing for sexual
and reproductive health and the scale and ambitions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IPPF remains
concerned that without the WBG committing
to a dedicated strategy and ring-fenced financing window for sexual and reproductive health, future financing
may decrease because of lack of prioritization and
political will. Moreover, without clear accountability mechanisms, at both the global and national levels, there will
be no way of tracking spending and monitoring whether
financing for sexual and reproductive health increases in future years to come.”
PNCI notes that promoting
abortion perpetuates the throwaway culture that Pope Francis warned the United
Nations about in his address
when he stated, “The common home of all men and women must continue to rise
on the foundations of a right understanding of universal fraternity and respect
for the sacredness of every human life, of every man and every woman, the poor,
the elderly, children, the infirm, the unborn, the unemployed, the abandoned,
those considered disposable because they are only considered as part of a
statistic.” Including abortion in
the 2030 Agenda ensures that one whole group of individuals, unborn children,
will be “left behind” and considered to be “disposable”.