By Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer
(March 11, 2008) The hit television show, American Idol, is planning to host its second annual Idol Gives Back show on April 9 which will urge viewers to donate to charities that are associated with abortion and radical population control programs.
Idol Gives Back, which raised $75 million last year, has a noble purpose, to “raise awareness of the effects of poverty on children and young people.” But two of the charities that will receive the millions raised during the show, UNICEF and Save The Children, are tied to organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the Population Action Council.
Although the public remains largely unaware of it, UNICEF has been adopting an ever more radical feminist and pro-abortion position for more than a decade. Life Dynamics International (LDI) reports that UNICEF has helped to write many documents that call for increased access to abortion and has funded programs run by the militantly pro-abortion Population Council, which holds the patent for the abortion pill, RU-486.
It is now official UNICEF policy to “Promote and expand access to sexual and reproductive health services, including access to condoms.” A high ranking UNICEF official even called for his group to “make condoms available and accessible for everybody, everywhere and at all times. Abstinence is simply not a realistic option for most young people in the world today.”
The Vatican cut funding to UNICEF in 1997 due to its sponsorship of a manual that endorsed emergency birth control and because the group refused to provide an accounting of its population control and pro-abortion programs.
However, the problem with these new programs is not merely ideological. The embrace of radical feminism by UNICEF has caused the organization to stray from its main child survival mission, which has in turn undermined child survival efforts.
According to an article appearing in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, when UNICEF was still focused on child survival during the 1980’s many countries made substantial progress in reducing child mortality. However, things changed dramatically under the feminist leadership of the new director, Carol Bellamy, who took over as executive director in 1995.
“Since the mid-1990’s, this momentum has been lost,” the Lancet reports, “and gains in child survival have been slowed or been reversed.”
Shifting the emphasis from child survival programs focused on combating disease and malnutrition to providing condoms and abortions has cost children’s lives.
The other recipient of Idol cash is International Save the Children, of which Simon Cowell is the chief executive officer. This organization has also worked with Planned Parenthood, the Population Action Council and the pro-abortion Audubon Society on its five-year “Planet Campaign.”
“Save the Children has stated that ‘family planning has been a ‘critical component’ of its work for nearly 20 years,” LDI reports.
“It is laudable that the people involved with American Idol want to help the poor, said LDI President Douglass R. Scott, Jr. “But it is tragic that they would choose to do so through groups like UNICEF and Save the Children. These groups have far too much deadly baggage.”
The show does not disclose Cowell’s association with Save the Children, nor do they provide full disclosure to the audience about the controversial activities of these charities.
“If you believe the plight of pre-born children is as important as the plight of the poor, do not participate in Idol Gives Back,” Scott urged. “We are caring people who want to do our part to help those less fortunate, but we will do so through organizations that do not view the killing of human beings as a ‘solution’ to poverty and other adult-created problems.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly/Women of Grace. http://www.womenofgrace.com
