Motherhood Under Attack

Supermodel: Ignore your kids on ‘No Mother’s Day’ to support global abortion access

by Ben Johnson

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, May 11, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – This Sunday, children of all ages will celebrate the role mothers play in their lives. But Vogue model Christy Turlington Burns and a host of female celebrities are encouraging mothers across the nation to ignore their children as part of “No Mother’s Day,” a sign of their support for reducing maternal mortality by supporting family planning and global access to abortion.

The campaign asks women to “disappear” on Mother’s Day to raise awareness of maternal mortality rates and underscore “just how much a mother is missed when she’s gone.” But amidst positive initiatives such as improved health care for complications such as hemorrhage and sepsis, the campaign promotes “safe” abortion, and the legalization of abortion in nations where the practice is currently illegal, as a means of lowering maternal deaths.

A press release for Every Mother Counts, the nonprofit Turlington launched in 2010, notes a new PSA “features moms encouraging other moms to join in solidarity by disappearing on May 13th, Mother’s Day. No phone calls. No emails. No social media. No gifts.”
Turlington told Time magazine, “It’s a day to stop going through the motions…It’s about taking that [day] back.”

Supermodel Christy Turlington

The spot, which was posted online last Wednesday and is directed by Ed Burns, features Turlington, former “Will and Grace” star Debra Messing, NBC’s Ann Curry, Jennifer Connelly, Kelly Rutherford,  Blythe Danner, Dayle Haddon, and other high-profile women.
Amongst the project’s partners are the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the extreme pro-abortion group Women Deliver, and the United Nations Population Fund. The UNPFA is well known in pro-life circles for the fact that the U.S. State Department confirmed over a number of years that the organization provides “financial and technical assistance” for China’s vicious one-child policy.

“Over 200 million women who would like to choose when they get pregnant don’t have access to family planning,” Turlington’s website states.
As part of the Every Mother Counts campaign, Turlington is promoting the film No Woman, No Cry, her two-year-old directorial debut, which features vignettes from four countries. The segment on Guatemala highlights “the legal barriers” to “basic human reproductive rights” and hails the work of Linda Valencia, MD, a program officer with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Planned Parenthood announced on its website it “is proud to partner with Christy Turlington Burns in the release of her documentary film, No Woman, No Cry. Together, and with your help, we seek to increase dialogue and action on issues of maternal and child health, including access to safe abortion.”
 
In Guatemala, the abortion provider is collaborating with “the pioneering feminist organization, Tierra Viva,” which is pressuring “key political and legal players, such as attorneys and judges, in the battle to gain access to safe reproductive health services.”
Turlington called “my friend Linda” of Planned Parenthood a “champion for the women of this country.” She also saluted “Marta Julia Ruiz from the Population Council (who I met when we were both honored at UNFPA), Mirna Montenegro who runs the maternal health observatory in Guatemala OSAR, and Zury Rios, the dynamic congresswoman who has championed this issue” of legalized abortion.
The doctumentary has been screened before the UNPFA, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the World Bank, in a private screening with the president of Tanzania, at Princeton University, the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, and Planned Parenthood of Utah. It has been shown on NBC,  the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and Israeli television. 
The film’s assertion that legal abortion is safe is belied by worldwide data on the matter. A recent study out of Chile shows maternal mortality declined after the nation outlawed therapeutic abortion in 1989. The percentage of women dying during childbirth is lower in that South American nation than the United States. Ireland, another country where abortion is illegal, also boasts one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world.
Although the No Mother’s Day project’s support for abortion around the world – paid for by U.S. taxpayers and supported by the United Nations – has raised few eyebrows, controversy has surrounded its suggestion to separate mothers from children who have already been born.
According to the supermodel, some mothers have voiced their support. “I had a few people that said, `Good. I hate this holiday and I can say I’m not participating,’” she said.
However, Turlington says she plans to have a Mother’s Day meal with her own children and female relatives.

While “CBS Sunday Morning” ran a segment “honoring” her efforts, Turlington has suffered a backlash from commentators and mothers who say the proposal is callous and ineffective.
Meanwhile, other pro-abortion organizations have also attempted to stake a claim on Mother’s Day.
Planned Parenthood used the natal holiday to launch a fundraising campaign asking donors to “join us in celebrating women everywhere this Mother’s Day by making a special gift to Planned Parenthood Global.”

Lezlie Lowe, in a column for The (Halifax) Chronicle Herald entitled, “A Day to be Thankful for Abortion Access,” wrote: “Let’s talk about Mother’s Day, why don’t we? Because if there’s any day to be thankful for abortion access, that’s the one. That’s what I’ll think about when I’m woken way too early by wiggling weasels crawling on the bed to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day.”

Source: LifeSite news