Danny Gilles, a "development educator" at Development and Peace, and representative for the Atlantic region wrote a denunciation of Lifesite's report on D&P association with a pro-abortion group.(Published on their facebook page).
I will repost the item in toto at the end of this blogpost. However, I just wanted to highlight some of things he wrote. To begin with, he seems not to know too much about the fetal rights issue. Freedom from Debt Coalition, a Filipino partner of D & P, was accused by Lifesite of supporting abortion. He says of one of the articles on the FDC website:
says: "Because of largely unmet needs for modern contraception and related reproductive health services and education, half of the 3 million pregnancies occurring every year are reported as unplanned, with one-third ending up in abortion. Induced abortions are the fourth leading cause of maternal deaths in the Philippines."
This is not a pro-abortion statement.
If you read the articles from the Freedom from Debt Coalition, it's full of feminist rhetoric including "the right to choose"
D & P would have us believe this is all very innocent, and has nothing to do with abortion.
But on top of being naive to a fault, Mr. Gillis is obviously ignorant that many contraceptive methods are abortifacient.
And if one goes by the Catholic definition of abortion, those statements are pro-abortion.
But Development and Peace has shown time and again that they are ignorant of the abortion issue, they don't care and that they do not support fetal rights.
Then Gillis tries to deflect again, by saying that FDC is not really a pro-abortion organization because that's not the crux of their work. Nobody ever said it was the crux of their work. What is being said is that it supports abortions (and other beliefs against Church teaching) and they work against Church teaching. He practically admits the charges here:
What is true is that the women’s committee of the FDC has taken part in the work of a very broad coalition of women’s groups and other groups who are pushing for the passage of the reproductive health bill. The women's committee of the FDC, as well as dozens of other groups, participated in meetings to give input into the drafting of the bill and have organized activities to educate the public about the content and importance of the bill for society's development.
And we know from their website that they supported this pro-abortion bill. So they're a pro-abortion group. And when you give to Development and Peace, that money goes to these groups, who are not audited, and they can use that money for pro-abortion lobbying.
Danny continues:
Why has Lifesite decided to make an issue of the reproductive health bill now? One reason is that it needed a news story so that it could defame Development and Peace during its Share Lent campaign.
What "defamation"?
So far, it has become OBVIOUS that Development and Peace does not support fetal rights, nor does it uphold the teachings of the Church. D&P keeps putting its head in the sand instead of just admitting the gist of the facts. That would be the most honest thing to do, but they are afraid of being exposed for what they are.
And here's the kicker folks. Danny Gillis practically admits his non-support for the Church's teaching on contraception:
The reproductive health bill is controversial for the Catholic Church in the Philippines because of the church’s teaching on contraception, not because it advocates for abortion. It should be pointed out that in Canada, the bishops conference in their nuanced Winnipeg Statement have not been so unrealistic as to deny Catholics a choice with regard to forms of birth control.
And there you go. The Winnipeg Statement, a statement by Canadian Catholic bishops, is used to dissent against the Church's universal teaching against contraception.
Note to Danny Gillis: the Church's opposition to contraception is part of the universal magisterium and therefore must be accepted as part of Divine Revelation.
Here's a little snippet from Pope John Paul II's Evangelium Vitae on the matter:
It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The Catholic Church is then accused of actually promoting abortion, because she obstinately continues to teach the moral unlawfulness of contraception. When looked at carefully, this objection is clearly unfounded. It may be that many people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of abortion. But the negative values inherent in the "contraceptive mentality" - which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act - are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the pro- abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected. Certainly, from the moral point of view contraception and abortion arespecifically different evils: the former contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the virtue of justice and directly violates the divine commandment "You shall not kill".
But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practised under the pressure of real- life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.
The close connection which exists, in mentality, between the practice of contraception and that of abortion is becoming increasingly obvious. It is being demonstrated in an alarming way by the development of chemical products, intrauterine devices and vaccines which, distributed with the same ease as contraceptives, really act as abortifacients in the very early stages of the development of the life of the new human being.
Note to the Catholic Bishops of Canada: you're going to have to put your money where your mouth is: either denounce contraception and retract the Winnipeg Statement, or else continue to have groups like this work against fetal rights. Your souls depend on it.
And one last thing about D & P's response to all these allegations: I have never seen such a tone-deaf PR response in my whole life. They don't even get it and don't want to get it. They won't even condescend to try. Their PR might work on people outside the Church. But to the orthodox who CARE about the Catholic Fait-- people who potentially put money in their envelopes, they're shooting themselves in the foot, and they don't even REALIZE it.
Here is Danny Gillis' reply to Lifesite:
Life Site News attacks Development & Peace partner
Share
Wed at 1:12pm
On Tuesday, March 22, Lifesite News made all-too-familiar allegations against a Development and Peace Filipino partner. Under the headline Development & Peace Sending Canadian Youth to Work with Pro-Abort Group in Philippines, Lifesite News (LSN) wrote that abortion advocacy “is readily available” on the partner's website.
The organization being attacked is a long-time D&P partner The Freedom From Debt Coalition. In fact there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of abortion advocacy on the coalition's website. This is not a matter of opinion where a reporter can make a judgement, it is a matter of fact and I challenge anyone to produce one shred of evidence that would show otherwise.
So why are articles like this written on LSN? That's a good question and I hope that what I will write will shed some light on LSN's smear campaign against Development and Peace.
The March 22nd article is typical of LSN reporting. It mixes a small bit of truth with a lot of manipulation to attempt to defame a Development and Peace partner in the eyes of Catholics. The LSN report contains some truth but it is so misrepresented as to make even the truth seem like lies. First of all, it is true that there are two articles on the coalition's website that mention abortion. LSN’s dogged journalist discovered these articles by simply doing a website search for the word abortion. However the references to abortion in these articles have to do with the terrible state of affairs in the Philippines where so many deaths occur because of abortion. One of the articles in question says: "Because of largely unmet needs for modern contraception and related reproductive health services and education, half of the 3 million pregnancies occurring every year are reported as unplanned, with one-third ending up in abortion. Induced abortions are the fourth leading cause of maternal deaths in the Philippines."
This is not a pro-abortion statement.
The second important piece of truth in the article is as Lifesite reports: the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines opposes the reproductive health bill. LSN would like us to believe that the bishops oppose the bill because it would legalize or decriminalize abortion, and most people reading their report would draw that conclusion. However, this is simply not true. The bishops oppose the bill because it proposes that sex education and better access to contraception be made available to the Filipino people. The LSN report also makes it seem as though the Freedom From Debt Coaltion is leading the charge to pass this bill. This also is not true.
The Freedom from Debt Coalition has attempted for many years to have the Filipino government move more of its spending away from the servicing of debt (paying interest on the country’s foreign debt) and into services that would benefit the people, whether these be education, health services or housing. This is the crux of their work. What is true is that the women’s committee of the FDC has taken part in the work of a very broad coalition of women’s groups and other groups who are pushing for the passage of the reproductive health bill. The women's committee of the FDC, as well as dozens of other groups, participated in meetings to give input into the drafting of the bill and have organized activities to educate the public about the content and importance of the bill for society's development.
One quote that LSN uses in their report is the following: According to the coalition, “The RH Bill makes it the responsibility of the state to protect the right to choose, not to make decisions for individuals. Women’s right to choose is a basic part of exercising control over their lives. The Bill provides for women to be informed as to services that will ensure women’s ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights.” LSN’s use of this quote in the context of the rest of the article is supposed to make the reader think that the coalition is advocating for abortion rights. It is not.
“Choice” in this quote refers to knowledge of one’s body, the reproductive health services that are available to people and access to forms of contraception… it does not refer to abortion. Why has Lifesite decided to make an issue of the reproductive health bill now? One reason is that it needed a news story so that it could defame Development and Peace during its Share Lent campaign. What makes this news story, which draws on two articles that are 17 months old, “current” is that LSN has learned that Development and Peace is organizing youth from Canada to visit the Philippines next summer. The obvious inference is that Development and Peace will be corrupting impressionable youth by exposing them to a group that has been a leader in the struggle for abortion services. Anyone who believes this has been duped.
The reproductive health bill is controversial for the Catholic Church in the Philippines because of the church’s teaching on contraception, not because it advocates for abortion. It should be pointed out that in Canada, the bishops conference in their nuanced Winnipeg Statement have not been so unrealistic as to deny Catholics a choice with regard to forms of birth control. Should Catholics in the Philippines have a choice whether to use contraceptives? Should non-Catholics? Should men and women be aware of options in this regard? These and other sensitive questions frame the debate in the Philippines. The debate is not about abortion, which is illegal in the Philippines. For Lifesite News to ignore this distinction and attempt to draw slanderous conclusions against a Development and Peace partner is a travesty for the truth.
For someone who calls himself a reporter to sit at his office computer in faraway, rich Canada; log onto a website of an organization that is fighting for better services for its people; do a word search for the word abortion just so that he can nail that word to the organization which does no abortion advocacy whatsoever… and finally try to plant the idea that Canadian youth are being corrupted by the staff and volunteers of Development and Peace… this to me is an irresponsible “journalist” who writes for a news agency that is led by a narrow view of reality and unconcerned by the real struggles of the poor.
For the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace to have to take this slander year after year… this too is a travesty.
- Danny Gillis
