The United Nations' treaty monitoring body for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) ignored the pro-life laws of four countries under review during its recent 55th
session and strongly urged the countries to change their laws or
policies on abortion, despite the fact that the treaty does not mention
abortion.
The Committee for the CESCR issued observations to four
countries with restrictions on abortion -Chile, Ireland, Uganda and
Venezuela-that included enacting new legislation on abortion and
adopting new guidelines on abortion.
Ireland's constitutional protection of life from conception was targeted for elimination as the Committee told Ireland: "The
Committee recommends that the State party take all necessary steps,
including a referendum on abortion, to revise its legislation on
abortion, including the Constitution and the Protection of Life During
Pregnancy Act 2013, in line with international human rights standards;
adopt guidelines to clarify what constitutes a real substantive risk to
the life of a pregnant woman; publicize information on crisis pregnancy
options through effective channels of communication; and ensure the
accessibility and availability of information on sexual and reproductive
health."
The
term "human rights standards" comes straight from the pro-abortion
legal toolkit. No international human rights treaty includes abortion as
a human right and no matter how many times the claim may be repeated,
the destruction of an unborn child in abortion is a reproductive wrong,
not a human right. There is no universally recognized "right to
abortion".
Chile
is considering a new law to allow abortion for limited exceptions but
the Committee expressed its dissatisfaction and told the pro-life
country with the lowest maternal mortality rate in Latin American that
it wanted the legislation to go further saying it was concerned about "a strict ban on abortion."
Uganda was told that abortion in its country is "too restrictive" and was instructed to "...revise
its abortion legislation, including by considering decriminalizing
abortion and providing for exceptions to the general prohibition on
abortion in certain cases."
Venezuela's law restricting abortion was also irrelevant to the Committee which instructed it to: "Review
its legislation regarding the prohibition of abortion to make it
compatible with other fundamental rights such as health and life of
women and their dignity."
Kyrgyzstan
which allows abortion on demand was told that the Committee was
concerned that despite abortion being legal; it was not covered by
public health insurance. It was recommended that the country "...increase financial resources allocated to the health sector" and "Provide
confidential access for everyone, including adolescents, to
contraceptives and safe abortion services, which are fully covered by
health insurance."
The
actions of the CESCR Committee, a UN entity disrespecting sovereign
laws against abortion while promoting increased access to the violence
of abortion and claiming it is a "human right", comes as countries are
in final negotiations of the Zero Draft on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with targets on access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. Target 5.6 includes "Ensure
universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive
rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development..."
Countries
with laws against abortion have felt a level of protection for their
national abortion policies by inclusion of references to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD)-known as the ICPD caveat- where the Programme of Action stated that laws on abortion were to be decided at the local or national level according to the national legislative process.
However,
as demonstrated by the CESCR Committee, certain treaty monitoring
bodies treat national laws with contempt as they issue instructions to
countries under review to change their laws and policies on abortion,
regardless of what is stated in the ICPD Programme of Action. While the
observations and recommendations issued by members of treaty bodies are
mere "interpretations" of the respective treaty, they are increasingly
used to advance support for abortion and other issues related to the
broad agenda of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) which
are not universally recognized human rights but which SRHR activists
claim reflect so-called "human rights standards".
PNCI
expresses its deep concern for the ongoing distortion of international
treaties to promote the killing of preborn babies and advises countries
with laws restricting abortion to defend their sovereign laws and reject
the recommendations from treaty bodies, acting as SRHR agents, to
change their laws and policies to allow easy access to the violence of
abortion.
PNCI
notes that as the process to finalize the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and targets nears completion in September, proposals to allow
treaty bodies to act as monitors of country progress for the targets,
especially those on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive
rights, must be opposed.