-Caveat Lector- UN hits back at Vatican on Kosovo rape victims By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Reuters) - The U.N. Population Fund on Thursday criticised the Vatican as insensitive to the suffering of Kosovo women because of its opposition to a ``morning-after pill'' for rape victims in refugee camps. ``I am surprised and disappointed at the Vatican's statement condemning the provision of emergency contraception to Kosovo refugees,'' said Dr Nafis Sadik, the UNFPA executive director. ``It shows an insensitivity to the suffering of the women of Kosovo,'' Sadik, a Pakistani physician, said in a statement. A senior Vatican official on Tuesday said the use of the ``morning-after'' pill was tantamount to abortion. Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, reflecting the Vatican's position, called the pill a technique that should not be confused with a contraceptive. He made his comments in the Italian Roman Catholic daily newspaper Avvenire in reaction to UNFPA's announcement it had sent reproductive health kits to refugee camps in Albania that included the ``morning after'' pill. The Vatican's U.N. delegation last month also spoke out against using the pill, saying it involved chemicals used in abortions. Sadik said this was not the case: `` It's a form of oral contraceptive. Of course whether a woman will or not use it is a decision for her to make.'' She told a news conference too many people confused high-dosage birth control pills with the RU-486 pill that aborts a pregnancy and which UNFPA does not distribute. The multi-use UNFPA kits, which were shipped on April 8, included a variety of contraceptives as well as testing for sexually-transmitted diseases, equipment to deliver babies without medical facilities and equipment for medical personnel in complicated deliveries and blood transfusions. The kits are to provide emergency aid to some 350,000 women for three to six months. Sadik said relief agencies estimated some 20 births a day among the Kosovo refugee population. The kits also contained the ``morning-after pill,'' which prevents pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of sex but which is not considered an abortion pill by many health experts. Sadik said she was very concerned at reports of rape among the refugees, a reference to persistent reports that Serbian soldiers had gang-raped ethnic Albanian women at an army camp as they attempted to flee. Some were killed but some accounts from survivors are beginning to emerge. Sadik said UNFPA was not on the ``front lines'' in the refugee camps but had distributed the kits to the U.N. refugee agencies, Albanian government health services and Red Cross societies, where they were in demand. She said UNFPA surveys in Kosovo before the NATO military strikes showed there was little knowledge of contraceptives and that abortion was used instead. The Vatican, during the Bosnian war, also objected to any kind of abortion that would terminate pregnancies of rape victims, mainly Moslem women. It says it is important to distinguish between violence suffered and human beings who have begun a new life. International Pro-Life Group Condemns UN: Demands US Stop 'GlobalContraceptive Imperialism' FRONT ROYAL, Va., April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Fr. Richard Welch, CSSR, JCD, President of Human Life International (HLI), today condemned the decision by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to send so-called "emergency reproductive kits" to the refugees fleeing the bloodshed in Kosovo. "Under the guise of 'humanitarian effort' population controllers at the UN are found once again working in tandem with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to promote their insidious shared agenda of waging war against minority women and children throughout the world. They are now conducting global contraceptive imperialism on a massive scale," Welch said. "The displaced refugees are in need of emergency food, clean water, shelter and medical assistance -- not suction machines, abortifacient devices or drugs such as the 'morning-after pill,' which actually causes an abortion to take place. By lying in bed with Planned Parenthood the UN has demonstrated its disregard for the religious preferences of the Kosovo refugees, most of whom are Muslims who strictly oppose abortion and artificial contraception," Welch added. This week the US House of Representatives votes on renewed US funding measures for the UNFPA. Tacked on as an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, H.R. 1211, the funding request received bipartisan support last Wednesday when the International Relations Committee approved it by a vote of 23 to 17. The bill faces stronger opposition in the full House this week as officials of the Catholic Church and various pro-life groups are already criticizing the UNFPA decision to promote abortion and artificial birth control among the Albanian refugees. The Vatican roundly condemned the UNFPA decision last week. "We call upon Congress to vote against this planned misuse of our tax money that was sinisterly crafted to force abortion and contraception among the displaced Albanians," Welch said. "Even as the horrible spectacle of Albanian women being raped by Serb army units unfolds in the news, the population controllers want to force their insidious plans on an unsuspecting refugee population. What they fail to understand is that a woman who has been raped has already been criminally violated. Don't violate her again with an abortion or an abortifacient." Founded in 1981, Human Life International is the world's largest pro-life and pro-family educational organization with 60 U.S. Chapters and international branches and affiliates serving 89 countries around the world. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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