CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- Assertions by members of the U.N. Human Rights Committee that Irish abortion law violates international human rights agreements is erroneous and exceeds its authority, one observer has said.<\/p>\n\t\u201cNo U.N. (agreement) or any other kind of treaty or understanding supports the notion that there is a human right to abortion,\u201d Austin Ruse, president of the New York-based Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, told CNA July 24.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cOnly one treaty even mentions \u2018reproductive health\u2019 but even that treaty does not call for a right to abortion,\u201d he added. \u201cThis idea is made up out of whole cloth by the sexual left. And it is an idea that is even losing ground at the UN and around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe United Nations human rights committee in mid-July hearings in Geneva considered Ireland\u2019s adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as part of a regular periodic review. Several committee members and witnesses contended that Irish abortion restrictions violated human rights agreements.<\/p>\n
\tThe Irish pro-life group Family & Life said that several of the NGOs that testified before the committee had strong pro-abortion positions, including the U.S.-based Center for Reproductive Rights and the Irish affiliate of Planned Parenthood, the Irish Family Planning Association.<\/p>\n
\tHuman Rights Committee member Cornelis Flinterman of the Netherlands charged that Ireland\u2019s law was restrictive and claimed that refusing legal abortion to a woman is cruel and degrading punishment, Family & Life said.<\/p>\n
\tThe group added that committee chairman Sir Nigel Rodley of the United Kingdom said that Irish abortion policy results in discrimination on the grounds of wealth or social class because some Irish women can afford to travel abroad for abortions and others cannot.<\/p>\n
\tWhile Ireland\u2019s constitution recognizes the equal right to life of the unborn child and the pregnant woman, Ireland changed its abortion laws in 2013 to allow pregnant women whose life is at risk or who say they are suicidal to secure abortions.<\/p>\n
\tRuse, whose organization monitors the U.N. and other international organizations, said that the committee has \u201cno authority whatsoever\u201d to reinterpret the agreement to include the right to abortion.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere is no precedent and no grounds in international law. They are simply making this stuff up. The problem is that in making this stuff up, they are harming a genuine understanding of human rights and international law and that is profoundly dangerous,\u201d Ruse said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMost governments utterly ignore these ridiculous kangaroo committees.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDr. Thomas Finegan, legal and public policy advisor with Family & Life, made an oral intervention before the committee on July 15.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere is no such thing as a right to abortion in international human rights law, whether as an explicit right or as an adjunct to other rights. Any statement to the contrary displays either an ignorance of international human rights law or a cavalier and manipulative attitude towards genuine human rights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tHe objected that the committee questions to the Irish government presuppose that abortion is a human right and that the unborn child is not a human being or a member of the human family.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe urge you to protect unborn members of the human family, and the integrity of international human rights law itself, by disavowing a supposed right to abortion, including a right to abortion on the grounds of an unborn child\u2019s disability or the crimes of his or her father,\u201d Finegan said.<\/p>\n
\tFinegan said that the unborn child is recognized as having human rights by \u201cvarious international human rights law provisions,\u201d including the Preamble to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.<\/p>\n
\tHe said the anti-abortion provision of the Irish constitution \u201cshould be lauded on human rights grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tRuse said that pro-life advocates should emphasize that committees like the U.N. Committee on Human Rights \u201chave no power\u201d and are \u201cout of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe need to save human rights from the human rights industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\tThe Irish government\u2019s delegation to the U.N. committee did not make significant defenses against criticisms from committee members who supported broader access to abortion. Some committee members focused on legalizing abortion for women pregnant by rape and pregnant women whose health was at risk.<\/p>\n
\tFrances Fitzgerald, the Republic of Ireland\u2019s Minister of Justice, told the committee that a constitutional referendum would be necessary to \u201ccapture all of the circumstances outlined by the committee,\u201d the Irish Times reports.<\/p>\n
\tHowever, Mary Jackson, an official with the Republic of Ireland\u2019s health ministry, told the committee that the Irish constitution\u2019s right to life provision is in conformity with the U.N. convention, Family & Life said.<\/p>\n
\tThe committee\u2019s actions were widely reported in the Irish press, often angled in favor of further changing the country\u2019s abortion laws.<\/p>\n
\tUnited Nations committees have touched on abortion in past actions.<\/p>\n
\tIn 2011 the United Nations Committee on the Convention Against Torture called on Ireland to change its abortion laws. In May 2014, members of the anti-torture committee have pressed the Holy See, a signatory to the anti-torture convention, about Catholic opposition to abortion. One committee member claimed that the committee holds that laws that prohibit abortion in all circumstances violate the convention.<\/p>\n
\tThe United Nations\u2019 Committee on the Rights of the Child\u2019s February 2014 report on the Holy See\u2019s compliance with a children\u2019s rights treaty also condemned Catholic teaching against abortion, calling for changes in Catholic doctrine.
\n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Geneva, Switzerland, Jul 26, 2014 \/ 04:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- Assertions by members of the U.N. Human Rights Committee that Irish abortion law violates international human rights agreements is erroneous and exceeds its authority, one observer has said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe"],"yoast_head":"\n
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