Friday, November 23, 2012

What if that "basic right to contraception" is... genocide?

Ed Brayton on the "right" to contraception:

UN Group Calls Contraception a Basic Right


The UN Population Fund has issued a new report that calls access to contraception and family planning services a “universal human right” because it is so crucial to empowering women and making it possible for them to have anything like equality and justice.

“Family planning has a positive multiplier effect on development,” Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the fund, said in a written statement. “Not only does the ability for a couple to choose when and how many children to have help lift nations out of poverty, but it is also one of the most effective means of empowering women. Women who use contraception are generally healthier, better educated, more empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive. Women’s increased labor-force participation boosts nations’ economies.” 
The report effectively declares that legal, cultural and financial barriers to accessing contraception and other family planning measures are an infringement of women’s rights.
Hear, hear. This report doesn’t change the law at all, or even any international standards. But it’s absolutely true and it can’t be said often enough. Without access to contraception, equality for women is virtually non-existent.

Here's the UN definition of genocide, Article 2, from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted on 9 December 1948:

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 
(a) Killing members of the group; 
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; 
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
[Emphasis mine] 

The UN Population Fund has played a central role in crimes against humanity in China's One-Child Policy and in sterilization programs in many Third-World nations. Population control policies have led directly to the largest femicide in human history-- 100 million missing girls in Asia, aborted or killed after birth simply because they were girls.

What has traditionally been properly understood as genocide-- targeting nations or groups with measures to prevent births-- is now hailed as "a basic right".

Pure evil. These bastards have no shame.



7 comments:

  1. Michael,

    Which part of the word 'voluntary' don't you understand?

    Not related to 'voluntary' - China's One Child Policy can certainly be criticized in the way it has been carried out. However, the UN has no influence on China's policies. China does what China wants to a large extent.

    China's One Child Policy is certainly discriminatory; minorities, rural populations and parents who don't have siblings are exempt.

    It's a funny sort of 'genocide' that's aimed at reducing births in the majority Han population.

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    1. The word "voluntary" isn't in the definition of genocide.

      "Imposing measures intended to..." means that making policies that are intended to limit births in a group or nation is genocide. The policies can be mandatory or voluntary. And whether the policies are aimed at the majority population or the minority is not the issue.

      I should point out bach that if you find yourself having to split hairs to try to distinguish the your policy from genocide you are already on the wrong side of the issue.

      Population control is ugly Nazi-level stuff, dressed up with junk science and a patina of faux-benevolence.

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    2. "Or have you acquired your illiteracy since then as part of an incipient dementia?"

      Not that I can recall.

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    3. Michael,

      'Not that I can recall'.

      So you're either conceding that you either have a literacy problem or an incipient dementia. Which is it?

      You're a dishonest bastard using mendacious tactics. Quoting out of context. Misattributing quotes. Deliberately misinterpreting comments to mean the opposite of what was written. Refusing to answer questions. Even fabricating quotes.

      Delete
    4. "So you're either conceding that you either have a literacy problem or an incipient dementia. Which is it?"

      Which is what?

      Delete
    5. Answer the question Mr. Egnor: how can it be imposed if it is voluntary?

      Don't worry, we all know you will just try to weasel out of it as usual.

      Boo

      Delete
  2. “'Family planning has a positive multiplier effect on development,' Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the fund, said in a written statement."

    I'm not sure what kind of doctor Babatunde is, but his doctorate is obviously not in statistics. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that smaller families follow development, not the other way around. And it's not a causal relationship, anyway. My Intro Stats students could figure that out. Actually, that's a pretty good homework problem.

    I can understand why Babatunde would want to avoid the real barriers to development in his home country, though. He hails from Nigeria. Nigeria is infested with organized crime, sectarian violence, kidnappings, crumbling infrastructure, and widespread government corruption.

    According to the US Department of State, "Periodically, the U.S. Mission in Nigeria restricts travel by U.S. officials and Mission personnel to certain parts of Nigeria based on changing security conditions, often due to terrorist attacks, crime, general strikes, security threats, student and political demonstrations, or inter-religious communal violence."

    Methinks the general level of violence and ramshackle infrastructure might be a bigger barrier to development than having kids. And I don't think free condoms will cure the problem.

    Personally, I would classify Babatunde as: Moron, major league. I think, given that quote above, pretty much anything he says can be safely ignored.

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