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WE ARE HEARING, with increasing regularity, that the United Nations is insisting that Ireland must legalise abortion.
Since the primary mission of the UN is to protect human rights, this seems more than a little strange because you cannot, in my view, be a genuine human rights defender while calling for some human beings to be stripped of the most fundamental right of all, the right to life.
A closer look at the reality behind the news headlines, however, makes two things abundantly clear.
No right to abortion under international human rights law
Firstly, there is no right to abortion under international human rights law. That is a fact, and a fact easily verified by looking at the UN’s human rights charters and treaties which so many countries, including Ireland, have signed up to.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn’t mention abortion at all, but it does say that all human beings have a right to life. That the preborn child is a human being is a matter now long established by science. As a matter of fact, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child points out 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.”
This is what human rights treaties are designed for – to ensure that people who are most vulnerable are not denied their human rights. It’s hard to think of anyone more vulnerable than a preborn child.
The inherent right to life
Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights doesn’t say that there is a right to abortion but Article 6 protects the right to life in very strong terms, stating that ”every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
It would seem obvious that establishing an arbitrary “right to choose” to end a preborn baby’s life would directly contradict this fundamental right as spelled out in these international treaties.
What’s happening then, is that various UN Committees – and the UN being the ultimate quango, there are many, many such committees – are putting their own personal and political interpretations on these human rights treaties to make the claim that abortion is a right, and must therefore be legalised in Ireland.
It’s worth reminding ourselves of who these committees are, and who they represent, especially when they are attacking Ireland for protecting the right to life of both mother and baby.
Are we meant to take criticism from these UN bodies seriously?
Recently, for example, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women criticised Ireland’s right-to-life 8th Amendment, a clause inserted by the people into the Constitution in a referendum, because it restricted abortion. But shortly afterwards, Saudi Arabia, a kingdom where women are not even permitted to travel, marry or drive without male permission, was elected to a UN committee on women’s rights.
Saudi Arabia already sits on the UN Human Rights Council, as, of course, does China, where forced abortions and other dreadful human rights violations occur. Yet we are meant to take criticisms from UN bodies seriously.
Last month, a UN Committee Against Torture, again attacked Ireland’s pro-life laws and even argued that the government should be working (ie spending taxpayers’ monies) on getting Irish people to support legalised abortion. It’s hard to know which is more concerning: that such an egregious manipulation of democracy was suggested, or that the suggestion was made by a supposed human rights body.
That Committee’s members came from countries like Denmark, which currently aborts 98% of its babies with Down Syndrome before birth, and from the US, a country so fixated by abortion “rights” that it turned a blind eye to the horrifying abuses of abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell who not only cut the spines of babies born after late-term abortions, but caused several women to die or be maimed in his filthy, but perfectly legal, abortion clinic.
These committees may argue hard to cover up the reality, but the fact remains that, for the preborn child, abortion is the ultimate human rights abuse.
The UN is failing in its mission
Which brings me to my second point: in pushing for abortion the UN is seriously undermining its human rights mission, and is, in my view failing women who deserve support and compassion, not the medieval answer of abortion.
Ireland’s laws are progressive, modern and compassionate precisely because they recognise the scientific certainty that the preborn baby is a human being, and acknowledge the mounting evidence that abortion hurts women.
If we are going to take human rights seriously, and if the UN is to maintain its credibility, then we should be working together to eliminate abortion, not increase its incidence.
Instead of criticising Ireland, the UN should follow our lead in protecting the human rights of both mother and child and seeking a better answer than abortion.
Niamh Uí Bhriain is spokeswoman for the Life Institute.
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Ain’t the media great to give these protests wall to wall coverage…
@Derek Durkin: Goddamn media reporting the news, despicable if you ask me.
@Diarmuid Hunt: yeah because that’s how the media works yeah….not too bright are we
@Derek Durkin: I didn’t say they weren’t selective. Nice ad hominem though.
If you choose to chain or glue yourself to objects, you should be left to protest unaided for 24 hours or at least until you toilet yourself.
@Mick Byrne: Do you really give a **** about what you claim to believe in?
@Mick Byrne: You’re only giving them ideas! Dirty protests are not unheard of in this country…
@Mick Byrne: And to ask what toilets do they use or do they tow mobile toilets with them.
Bunch of hypocrites should be all arrested
@Jim O Brien – TechBuzz Ireland: Arrested for protesting? Are you sure about that?
@Shakka1244: they’re breaching the peace so they can be arrested, there is nothing peaceful about pushing through a barricade and chaining yourself to a gate also it’s worth noting that assembly near or at the dail can be controlled or shut down under article 40 of the Constitution. At this stage their numbers are dwindling and they’re getting desperate for media attention, this little stunt just proves it. Sure their little March through Penneys on Mary street completely backfired, there was killings on Twitter because they came across as elitist and snobby.
@Peej: I think you’ll find that many could see that they weren’t elitist or snobby, more highlighting the abhorrent working conditions of the sweatshops used to fund the functioning capitalists who sell such items by mass production, shops like Penney’s capitalize on the detachment of works who are often as young as 12 brought from urban areas to big cities to be exploited for the good of the western consumer, whilst the big chains relish in the reward,.
Get in those lads the council employed . Seemed to work a dream
Arrest them all already. Waste of tax payers money. Right to free protest has long since passed
@Gareth Murran: Are you saying that anyone that protests should be immediately arrested? Since when did we become North Korea?
@Shakka1244: if XR on their manifesto are encouraging civil disobedience and not protests, by its very nature, their intention is to be arrested!! There is a difference between cd and protest.
@Jennifer Hampson: Yep, civil disobedience pretty much guarantees time in custody. It depends on whether enough people think the cause is worth it & if enough do, change will soon follow. Time will tell if they keep it up but if the climate keeps getting worse, it’ll only go one way.
I thought it already was an open house if you were in the know!!!!!!
Ruined a great event for the general public. And now the hippies will wonder why they ain’t getting support? Plant a hemp tree somewhere and smoke it when it finally is big enough.
TD are the one making the issue of carbon with this tax to handle the public deficit . Twenty per cent of that national debt made up of a deal made by a minister with IMF ad EU never laid before the Dail .
When did a minister get authority to treat his deal as law of land without consnet of Dail and Oireachtas ie legislation making deal part of law
and
How can TD vote on estiamte if the Dail has no control over what in kitty to spend whihc it does not until that deal laid beofe it by min?
Commission can serve notice on ireland to reduce that deficit (64.8 per cent in excess of the 60 per cent threshold under the Fiscal Compact Treaty per ntma report at end of 18 with loan of 44 billion from eu and uk ) as an DEBTOR to EU ??
TD complaining about not enuf spend are only putting us into deeper debt and only DAIL can change situation by TD having minister LAY that EU/IMF deal before the dail that will reduce deficit until DAIL approves terms by voting thru legislation making it part of law of state. Term that public spending complies with deficit rule but also public funds will cap bank cos share value fall cos of ECB policit we have no control over.
Minister have to acknowledge a debt cos min signed loan agreement .
But TD seem to want to have cake and eat it want to complain about govt , overspending or underspending but not taking control of the fund but seem to have no problem voting thru these estimate . Think it will carry on until voter tell local TD .. hey why isnt that deal before Dail? We elect U to be responsible for whats in kitty to spend not minister ?
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