We reported last week that Ireland was due to appear before
the human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) on July 14th and 15th in Geneva as part of its fourth periodic
report to that committee.
The Irish
government was harangued by Committee members and pro-abortion NGO’s on the
issue of availability of abortion in Ireland which they falsely claimied violates the terms of the Convention.
One member of the Committee for example asked Irish Justice
Minister Frances Fitzgerald to explain how Ireland “reconciles its current laws
on abortion with its obligations [under the treaty] --- which is, I may remind
you --- an absolute right?"
This claim is absolute nonsense, there is no right to
abortion in the ICCPR, nor is there such a right in any other UN convention. The right to life of every human being is however, protected in this treaty.
Article 6.1 and 6.5 read as follows:
1. 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.
5. Sentence of death shall not be
imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall
not be carried out on pregnant women.
The unborn child is a member of the human family and as such
deserves the full protection set out in paragraph 6. Ideologically driven
reinterpretation of the treaty by the committee however, in the form of general
comments, militates against the unborn.
Reinterpretation of treaties commenced in 1996 when the then
High Commissioner for Human Rights, together with a representatives from UNFPA,
UN treaty monitoring bodies and select NGOs met at Glen Cove in New York to
develop a strategy they said would “determine how the right to
abortion-on-demand could be found in universally accepted norms such as the
right to life.”
They did this
by the creation of a network of ‘experts’, to re-interpret UN Treaties and
Conventions. Despite the fact that the wording of each of the treaties was
negotiated down to the last comma they decided that treaties are “living
breathing documents” that can evolve over time and that convention provisions
may be reinterpreted to establish a global right to abortion and any other so
called right they would like to establish.
Treaty monitoring Committees are charged with ensuring that
member states live up to treaty obligations but are not permitted to change the
substance of any Treaty or Convention, only an assembly of member states can do
so. Nevertheless UN committees have issued general comments expanding the
intent of the treaties and conventions and have instructed many sovereign
nations either to introduce or liberalize abortion.
The Committee warned that Ireland could still in breach of
human rights legislation on the issue of abortion because it criminalises
pregnant women who seek an abortion following a rape or due to a fatal foetal
abnormality.
The committee also told the Irish delegation that, the fact
Ireland’s laws have been debated in public and passed by parliament, does not
prevent a dereliction of duty in terms of fulfilling the country’s human rights
commitments.
Committee member Cornelis Flinterman asked the minister
directly when was the last time that the Irish public has had an opportunity to
vote in a referendum on the issue of abortion in light of opinion polls he says
indicated supported for termination for medical reasons.
Minister Fitzgerald told the Committee that the Irish
Government has “no solution” to the problem of women being unable to afford to
travel overseas to undergo a termination for medical reasons and that the most
recent referendum was in 2002 on the issue of suicide as a risk to the life of
a pregnant woman. She added that another referendum would be required to address
the issues raised by the committee but that the recent Protection of Life
During Pregnancy Act had provided clarity to both doctors and women on some
important issues.
The only pro-life NGO to testify in Geneva in support of the
right to life Dr. Thomas Finegan correctly told the committee, "there is
no such thing as a right to abortion in international human rights law"
and that the "unborn child is recognized as a human rights subject by
various international human rights provisions."
He further said the committee had no legal authority to
issue binding interpretations of the treaty. The chairman of the Committee, Sir
Nigel Rodley, then described Finegan's testimony as, "breathtakingly
arrogant."
