By: Peter Smith
I am currently sitting in my office in the UK , feeling very sad about loosing a great monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
I have been asked to write a small article on one of the most contentious issues at the UN. For over 25 years I have been involved with this battle.
After searching through hundreds of UN documents I have never seen even one reference to obligations, just rights, rights and more rights. I have sat through many boring meetings at the UN where rights are front and centre. In the Bible I see obligations at the fore-front not much mention of rights.
Their favourite right is the right to health. This makes me think about what this means. Perhaps no-one should get sick. Then I think no, it means they expect me to pay for their health care. After this is the notion that reproductive health is also a right. Now the latest one at the UN is the right to access safe abortion. So, what the USA and the EU want is the right to have unborn children killed in their mother’s wombs at some abortion mill. These countries want to force all the countries in the world into this culture of death. Abortion is a human wrong not a human right.
Nigeria is a champion at defending unborn children, along with most of the rest of Africa and the Muslim countries. These brave counties resist the pressure of the so called developed nations. The Biden administration is very pro-abortion. They do not think any abortion is wrong or bad. Their own Supreme Court recently denied that there was any right to abortion when it over-turned Roe v. Wade. This was thanks to President Trump appointing three pro-life justices.
Please pray against the UN’s relentless push to make abortion a human right. Every child in the womb is loved by Christ and wanted by Him.
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On 26th August 2022 the General Assembly of the United Nations passed the following resolution:
International cooperation for access to justice, remedies and assistance for survivors of sexual violence
I have copied Operative paragraph 6 below and would like to make a few comments on it. The wording in bold script is problematic.
6. Urges States to ensure the promotion and protection of the human rights of all women and their sexual and reproductive health, and reproductive rights in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences, including through the development and enforcement of policies and legal frameworks and the strengthening of health systems that make universally accessible and available quality, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health-care services, commodities, information and education, including safe and effective methods of modern contraception, emergency contraception, prevention programmes for adolescent pregnancy, maternal health care such as skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care, which will reduce obstetric fistula and other complications of pregnancy and delivery, safe abortion where such services are permitted by national law, and prevention and treatment of reproductive tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and reproductive cancers, recognizing that human rights include the right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free from coercion, discrimination and violence;
The above paragraph is dangerous as the term human rights is included along with the term “ safe abortion”. This can be construed as some right to abortion. More specifically where pregnancy occurs due to rape. Even though abortion due to rape is about 1 in a thousand of all abortions, it is used as a hard case to justify some abortion which is then used to justify all abortion.
Now there is some good qualifying language, with a reference to the “International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action”. This could have been better by referencing the Report of these conferences rather than the Platform for action. The former includes reservations the latter does not. However the reference includes wording that “ abortion laws should be decided at the national level.”
On the safe abortion wording is included , “where such services are permitted by national law”. This also works counter to abortion as a human right. However this is the second time this term “ safe abortion” is in a co called consensus document.
Pro-abortion people will claim these terms add to customary international law and are a step along the road to abortion as a human right, As seen above there is qualifying language to counter this idea of a right to abortion. The bad thing here is that pro-abortion countries will claim “ safe abortion” is agreed wording and they will conveniently forget to quote the qualifying language.
Sadly there are three other references to : ,”including sexual and reproductive health-care services, “ in the document. This is a loaded term that has been fought over for a quarter of a century at the UN. It should be deleted, or at least have qualifying language next to it to prevent a supposed right to abortion.
Also this resolution is non-binding, it is only a voluntary code of practice for countries. It is not a treaty or convention. However poor countries only find out later when pressured by rich countries that non-binding can become conditional on economic aid.
Peter Smith represents CCI at the UN in New York