Friday Fax - UNFPA Tried to Subvert Muslim Teaching on Abortion
Latest from the Friday Fax on the UNFPA and IPPF trying to undermine Islam’s teaching against contraception and abortion by bringing together “scholars” to “discover” that it’s all really ok to kill your unborn kids.
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FRIDAY FAX
May 6, 2005
Volume 8, Number 20
UNFPA, IPPF Organize Pakistani Conference to Undermine Muslim Teaching on
Abortion/Contraception
A three-day international conference of Muslim scholars that portrayed
contraception and even abortion as acceptable to Islam wraps up today in
Islamabad, Pakistan. The International Ulama Conference on Population and
Development was the first of its kind, bringing together Muslim teachers
to explore whether Islam could approve of family planning and
“reproductive health” programs. The Conference was organized by Pakistan’s
Ministry of Population Welfare with support from the UN Population Fund
(UNFPA).
Pakistan’s Prime Minster Shaukat Aziz gave the inaugural speech, urging
religious scholars to draw guidelines in the light of Islamic teachings
for changing societal opinions on family planning, in Pakistan as well as
throughout the Muslim world. Religious scholars (Ulema) are key figures in
Islam, as they are responsible for interpreting the Koran and establishing
Islamic jurisprudence.
The Minister for Population Welfare, Shahbaz Hussain, explained that
Pakistan’s government has been working to gain the approval of religious
scholars for Pakistan’s recent embrace of population control programs
based on family planning and “reproductive health.” Hussain explained that
the government has established “Mobile Service Units” that provide
door-to-door “family planning and reproductive health services,” and has
expanded “reproductive health services centers,” as well as running a
media campaign to promote family planning.
The conference was attended by several key members of Pakistan’s
government, the representatives of at least 18 countries, including Egypt,
Turkey, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia, and important Muslim scholars from at
least 29 countries.
Ms. Hong Ping of the Chinese chapter of the International Planned
Parenthood Federation (IPPF), who presented at the conference, explained
in her paper that currently there is “misunderstanding and misperception
of reproductive health and family planning prevailing among the Muslims,
such as…’abortion is life-killing,’ etc. All of [this] traditional
ideology tends to result in resistance to reproductive health services and
acceptance of family planning measures.”
In her paper, “Promotion of Reproductive Health Through Religious
Leaders Among the Muslim Population,” Ping said “it is crucial to develop
a sound partnership with the religious leaders should reproductive health
be improved and family planning program[s] be accepted among the Muslim
concentrated populations.”
Ping elaborated on a pilot program of this kind in China, where the
IPPF chapter “initiated a project on promoting reproductive health among
[the] Muslim population via religious leaders in April 1999.” The leaders
are “encouraged” “using relevant statements in [the] Koran and Hadith” to
explain that “reproductive health was necessary and feasible,” thus
“integrating the doctrines from the Koran and Hadith with reproductive
health and family planning.”
Undermining traditional religious teachings of many faiths has long
been the desire and goal of UNFPA and other proponents of UN-style family
planning. UNFPA executives consistently have misstated Catholic teachings
on contraception.
Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.
Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
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Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291
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