|
IV.)
UN Conference in Cairo Pushes Abortion: BJCPA Supports
1.
The
issue raised in this section is that of BJC executive director James Dunn’s
use of the organization’s journal to call for support of a UN conference on
population when the Clinton Administration had already made it clear that
abortion rights were to be a top priority.
In an effort to hide this fact, Mr. Tichenor states: “James Dunn’s
views on population, family planning, the Cairo conference, and reproductive
health care have no connection at all to the State Department cable about
population policy, nor to the Clinton Administration’s positions on those
issues.” However, the very
purpose of Dunn’s editorial was to call for support of the UN conference
despite the fact that five months earlier, the Clinton Administration laid out
their policy position in a State Department “Action Cable” sent to “all
diplomatic and consular posts” stating:
“The United States believes that access to safe, legal and voluntary abortion
is a fundamental right of all women.” Thus,
Dunn’s editorial supporting the UN’s Cairo Conference, and his condemnation
of those opposed to the conference, was clearly a political statement of support
for the Clinton Administration’s already stated pro-abortion position.
2.
Are
we to believe that the BJC was unaware of the Clinton Administration’s
intention to use the Cairo conference on population to export the
Administration’s pro-abortion policies? Ben
Mitchell, consultant to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life
Commission (now called the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission [ERLC])
writes in a CLC editorial:
“…BJC Executive Director James
Dunn calls for believers to maintain a ‘free and informed conscience’ with
respect to the Cairo proposals. Dunn
views favorably the provisions for ‘removing legal, regulatory, and social
barriers to sexual and reproductive health information and care for
adolescents.’ What he fails
adequately to represent is the Draft Programme’s mandates for the
international expansion of abortion and abortifacient contraceptives.
The draft document is replete with euphemisms for abortion such as
‘fertility regulation’ and ‘reproductive rights.’”
Mitchell continues: “In an invited pre-Cairo
statement to a multi-religious consultation at Geneva, Switzerland, the CLC
called for initiatives on population and development which take into account:
(1) The sanctity of all human life, born and unborn; (2) the equal value and
dignity of every human life regardless of gender, age, state of development,
etc.; (3) that the two-parent, heterosexual family is ordained by God as the
basic unit of human society; (4) that heterosexual marriage is the only morally
acceptable condition for sexual intercourse; (5) that, while growing world
population makes it essential to use wisdom in planning and development, human
history will end with the return of Jesus Christ and not as a result of
overcrowding; and (6) that for married couples non-abortifacient contraceptives
may be appropriate when voluntarily used, but for unmarried couples sexual
abstinence is called for.” Mitchell
continues: “Dunn
chides United States leaders who, in a 1984 population summit, called population
growth a ‘neutral phenomenon.’ He
scolds, ‘How out of it can elected leaders get?’
On the other hand, the CLC reaffirmed the 1984 summit’s language:
‘Governments are urged to help women avoid abortion, which in no case should
be promoted as a method of family planning.’”
(Salt, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1994, p.2)
3.
Defending
the BJC’s silence in regard to President Clinton’s executive orders on
abortion and his veto of the partial birth abortion bill, Mr. Tichenor states:
“…regarding President Clinton’s executive orders relating to abortion and
the veto of the ‘partial-birth abortion’ bill… [t]he BJC does not express
opinions on pro-choice or pro-life actions taken by the Congress or the
President.” This, however, is
absolutely not true. Contrast the
BJC’s silence in regard to President Clinton’s veto of the partial-birth
abortion bill to the BJC’s very clear and vocal condemnation of former
President Reagan’s pro-life position. Dunn
writes: “The complex issue of abortion is reduced to the simple cry of
‘infanticide’ by Mr. Reagan, who would ‘redress a great national wrong’
in the name of civil religion, making
it virtually impossible for mothers to make their own decision in this very
private, very religious matter.” (Florida Baptist Witness, Aug.
25, 1983, p. 7)
The problem lies in the fact that the top
leader of the BJC defends President Clinton’s “social and moral
positions.” In a USA Today article, several months after Clinton’s veto of the
partial birth abortion bill, the USA Today
writer states: “Some [evangelicals] have questioned [Clinton’s] Christianity
for supporting gay rights and legal abortion.
Clinton’s veto of a bill banning certain late-term abortions provoked a
personal condemnation from his own denomination.
Southern Baptist leaders were outraged by Clinton’s statements that he
had prayed about the issue for many months.
During their annual national meeting in June, they passed a resolution
expressing ‘disapproval’ of Clinton’s suggestion that God ‘could have
revealed to him in prayer’ that any abortion method is acceptable.”
The article then includes a statement from the executive director of the
BJC in defense of president Clinton: “Dunn says many moderate Southern Baptists agree with Clinton on
social and moral positions.” (USA
Today, November 4, 1996, p. 9E)
|
