"has been asked by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, to examine how the United Kingdom can help women in poor countries get involved in business and public life ... Westminster insiders suggested that the appointment could be a first step towards becoming a peer ... Three years ago, [she] set up the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women ... "Mrs Blair said that ... '[T]here are so many barriers faced by women and girls in the developing world that they are often unable to participate in economic or political life and struggle to get access to health care...'."Mrs Blair's new role, and the possibility of a peerage, poses a fresh danger for women and unborn children in the developing world.
Mrs Blair is notorious for claiming that her career success would not have been possible if not for contraception. Also, in December 2009 she claimed that:
"Controlling our fertility has been one of the key reasons why women have been able to progress".On her website, in the section "About this site", Mrs Blair writes:
"This website is dedicated to the issues that concern me, to helping improve the position of women throughout the world by sharing information and by safeguarding and promoting human rights. At the heart of the website is the Women of the World section."On a page in the Women of the World section, Mrs Blair says:
"The [United Nations] Convention [on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) ... is the only human rights treaty which affirms the reproductive rights of women"."Reproductive rights" is a term commonly used to include abortion on demand.
The page ends by linking to the CEDAW committee, which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the CEDAW convention. The CEDAW committee uses the CEDAW convention to bully countries into allowing abortion, even though the convention doesn't mention abortion. The CEDAW committee issued a report calling upon the UK government to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland.
In July 2003, Mrs Blair endorsed the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the world’s leading promoter and provider of abortion, by hosting a private reception at 10 Downing Street (the prime minister’s residence) for IPPF’s “Lust for Life” fundraising campaign. At the annual Labour party conference in September 2005, Mrs Blair celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Family Planning Association (fpa), the UK branch of IPPF, helping to cut a special birthday cake (and pictured here jokingly offering a condom to the camera-man.) Both IPPF and FPA endorsed the failed campaign to remove the Holy See from the United Nations.
Cherie Blair has tried disingenuously to distance herself from abortion. Pro-lifers, especially Catholics, should be under no illusions about her and her husband Tony and their continuing campaign to undermine the right to life, and the dignity of the family upon which the protection of the right to life depends. As a report in The Daily Mail last week said so well, Tony Blair is a "morally dispossessed" collaborator with those who have little respect for the sanctity of human life - and the same can be said of Cherie Blair. I will be watching her closely in her new role.
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