The following news release was issued today, Oct. 10, 2013.
The second annual International Day of the Girl Child has been designated as Oct. 11, 2013, by the United Nations General Assembly as a day to acknowledge, protect and empower female children. The U.N.'s efforts this year are focused on education for girls.
While education is a key component for success in our world, basic human rights are paramount and must be prioritized by global leaders. Specifically, the most basic human right of all, the right to life, must be respected for all girls.
Today, parents can identify the gender of their unborn child as early as seven weeks from conception—long before a pregnancy is recognizable. The victims of sex-selection abortions, performed solely based on the sex of the unborn child, are overwhelmingly female.
U.N. estimates indicate that more than 200 million females are "missing" due to practices like sex-selection abortion, which has appropriately been called "gendercide." Rampant sex-selection feticide is commonplace in China, India and Korea, where culture and tradition favor boys.
Sex-selection abortion violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Adopted in 1989, the document notes that "the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth."
Legal and educational efforts, such as the ones taken in Harayna, India, against "female feticide," have resulted in 30 percent decreases in the numbers of abortions in a few short years.
"These initiatives to protect the girl child ought to be implemented globally," said Scott Fischbach of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Global Outreach (MCCL GO).
MCCL GO is a pro-life NGO global outreach program of the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life Education Fund with one goal: to save as many innocent lives as possible from the destruction of abortion. Learn more at www.mccl-go.org.
