World Family Policy Center News
5/20/02
Volume 1, Issue 7
The following excerpts are highlights of current events and do not
necessarily represent the views of the World Family Policy Center or Brigham
Young University.
FROM THE WORLD FAMILY POLICY CENTER
WHY THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT RATIFY CEDAW (Click
to read the full article)
One of the most important characteristics of
American civil rights law is that it is crafted to balance society’s interest
in preventing discrimination with other equally important societal interests –
such as the fundamental First Amendment rights to freedom of speech,
association and religious expression. Counterparts to these and other competing
rights exist in international law. However, rather than acknowledging these
competing fundamental rights, the language of the Convention on the Elimination
of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is so sweeping that it threatens to
overrun all competing interests that stand in its path. This is the pressing
defect of CEDAW. CEDAW also demonstrates that many Americans had good reason to
fear a “gender amendment” to the United States Constitution when they rejected
Equal Rights Amendment. For these fundamental reasons, the treaty must never be
ratified by the United States Senate. Moreover, the reservations,
understandings and declarations drafted by the Senate
in 1994 (when it last considered the treaty) do not avoid the serious
difficulties posed by CEDAW.
IN THE NEWS
SUPREME COURT TO HEAR CHALLENGE TO SEX
OFFENDERS LIST (click
to read the full article)
CNN 5/20/02
The
Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider a constitutional challenge to some
registries of known sex offenders, the second case the court will hear
involving lists meant to keep tabs on potentially dangerous sex criminals.
Related
Stories: (click to read the full article)
Court Gets Case on Sex Offenders - International
Herald Tribune
Sex Offense Law Gets Review - Washington Post
Supreme Court to Hear Housing Case - Miami Herald
AT THE UN
NEW UN DATA SHOWS MAJORITY OF WORLD'S COUPLES USE CONTRACEPTION (Click to read full article)
20 May – About two thirds of all couples around the world - or some 650 million
people - use some form of contraception, according to new statistics released by the United
Nations.
Worldwide, 62
per cent of the more than 1 billion married or 'in-union' women of reproductive
age are using contraception, but there are great variations among regions. In
Africa, only 25 per cent of married women use contraception, while in Asia and
Latin America and the Caribbean that figure is between 66 and 69 per cent.
These statistics are featured on a new wall chart entitled "World
Contraceptive Use 2001," issued by the UN Population Division as part of
its ongoing monitoring of world use of family planning.
Nine out of 10 contraceptive users worldwide rely on modern methods, according to the chart. The most commonly used modern methods are female sterilization, at 20 per cent, followed by IUDs at 15 per cent, and oral pills at 8 per cent.
If
you do not wish to receive a copy of WFPC News you may unsubscribe by sending
an email to listserv@listserv.byu.edu. The
subject should be left blank and the body should read, "Unsubscribe wfpc-news".
Additional information and commands can be found at the ListProc homepage
at www.listproc.net/docs/index.html .
If you have any articles, editorials, or papers you would like circulated through
the WFPC News network, you may submit them to wfpc@byu.edu .