EUROPE/UNITED KINGDOM - Coalition of European and American NGOs denounce the Conference 'Women Deliver' for manipulation and deceit “instead of a Conference on life it was a Conference to promote death”

London (Agenzia Fides) - The Conference 'Women Deliver' held in London 18-20 October has been denounced by a Coalition of European and American NGOs for sectarianism manipulation and deceit, according to a statement sent to Fides by the Spanish Institute for Family Policies. "Instead of being a Conference on life it was a Conference of death" said Lola Velarde, president on the European network of Institutes for Family Policies IPF. In fact, Ms Velarde said, "on the one hand, instead of removing obstacles which prevent women from having as many children as they wish, they encourage population control efforts in developing countries with the promotion of abortion and family planning, and on the other, instead of analysing the real causes of death such as lack of basic medical care and something as simple as clean water". they claim that the main cause of maternal mortality is illegal abortion.
A coalition of NGOs present at the Conference presented the chairman of the organising committee with a statement expressing "profound disappointment and sadness that the Conference Women Deliver failed to reach the 5th Millennium Development Goal, to reduce maternal mortality". The Conference claimed it would discuss causes, prevention and treatment of complications in pregnancy and delivery, which cause the death of so many women in developing countries, to find effective solutions. Instead what it did primarily was to promote abortion. "To insist that only illegal or secret abortions are ‘unsafe' and that consequently deduce that legal abortion is safe, is misleading and scientifically wrong - the statement affirms -. Affirmations heard at the Conference that the reduction of the maternal mortality rate depends on the promotion of legal abortions, are not only false, they also divert attention from the urgent necessity to guarantee access to basic medical care, particularly delivery and emergency obstetrics".
The statement concludes with a call to the Conference organisers and collaborators to concentrate attention on basic healthcare, delivery and emergency obstetrics the key to diminishing the number of maternal deaths in developing countries, “instead of exploiting the tragedy of maternal mortality to promote a supposed 'right' to abortion”. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 23/10/2007; righe 31, parole 410)