Is abortion a universal human
right? It may be - if you believe the United Nations.
Nafis Sadik, executive director
of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, claimed last month
that women’s health - including “sexual” and “reproductive” health - has
finally been acknowledged as a human right. She made the comment as part
of a presentation to a UN committee on elimination of discrimination against
women in New York, which wound up its latest session on Feb. 6.
“In 1998, the world (is)
celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights,” she said. “To mark that anniversary, nothing would be more fitting
than to strengthen the role of the UN system and the human-rights treaty
bodies in enabling women to realize their human rights, including the rights
to reproductive and sexual health.”
“Reproductive health” is
widely used by abortion supporters as a euphemism for access to abortion
services.
In its report, the committee
targeted Croatia, Mexico and Indonesia as areas where “reproductive health”
was unassured. It criticized Croatia for the close relationship enjoyed
by the government and church-related, non-governmental organizations in
that country. Such a relationship, the committee said, could compromise
the demarcation between the “secular state” and the church.
It also expressed concern
that “services pertaining to women’s reproductive health were the first
to be cut in times of financial constraint ... (and) some hospitals refused
to provide abortions on the basis of conscientious objection of doctors.”
In looking at Mexico, the
committee strongly recommended the government take steps “to secure women’s
enjoyment of their reproductive rights by, among other measures, guaranteeing
them access to abortion services in public hospitals.” The government was
also asked to consider revising legislation that criminalizes abortion.
The committee lastly expressed
concern about what it saw as “the existence of discrimination in laws that
required a woman to obtain her husband’s consent in order ... to undergo
sterilization procedures, or to obtain an abortion.”
The committee report and
Sadik’s comments come in the wake of a number of developments at the UN
that have troubled pro-life and pro-family advocates during the last few
months. The developments indicate a continuing trend of the international
body moving from an organization committed simply to preserving world peace
toward one that is involved in social engineering on a massive scale.
Angela King, assistant secretary-general
and a special adviser to the secretary-general on gender issues and the
advancement of women, recently predicted that more perpetrators of “sexual
crimes” will be prosecuted by international tribunals. Her comments raised
the spectre of persecution of pro-life activists world wide, under an expanded
definition of sexual criminals to include those who would advocate “forced
pregnancy” or restrictions on abortion.
“Although indictments for
acts of sexual violence have been uncommon (such as) in the case of the
international criminal tribunal for Rwanda, recent developments suggest
that they will become a routine feature of most future indictments,” she
said.
The UN has noted that “forced
pregnancy” is included on its list of sexual crimes. “All violations of
the human rights of women in situations of armed conflict, including in
particular murder, systematic rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy,
are flagrant violations of international human rights and humanitarian
law,” the UN said in a recent document.
Mary Robinson, the UN high
commissioner for human rights, said in a late January speech at the UN
University in Tokyo, Japan, that the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human
Rights “has acquired through state practice the status of universal law.”
That followed her speech
last November to the 52nd session of the UN General Assembly, in which
she promised to put women’s rights into the Universal Declaration and called
for the establishment of an international penal court. An international
conference to discuss the establishment of such a penal court is scheduled
to be held in Italy this June.
“Ad hoc international tribunals
recently established must be welcomed, yet an international criminal court
is the next step the international community needs to take,” she said.
In a November address at
England’s Oxford University, Robinson expressed dismay over the UN’s failed
efforts to protect human rights on the basis of gender, ethnicity, religious
belief and sexual orientation. “My responsibility as UN high commissioner
is ... specifically to include women’s rights as human rights, as we were
reminded by the Beijing conference.”
She added that “international
action” was required to implement these new human rights. “International
law (is) a normative system, harnessed to the achievement of common values
- values that speak to us all, whether we are rich or poor, black or white,
of any religion or none, or come from countries that are industrialized
or developing. The normative work is largely done. The international human
rights standards are in place. The task for us all, given new impetus by
the focus of (1998), will be to implement them. And to implement them in
a rights-based way.”
Robinson’s observations about
enforcement of international human rights were echoed by UN secretary-general
Kofi Annan, who in a speech last November noted that it is the “universality”
of human rights that gives them their strength. “It endows them with the
power to cross any border, climb any wall, deny and force,” he said.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien
supported the establishment of an international criminal court at a meeting
of Commonwealth leaders in Scotland last October. The idea was also backed
by 52 other government leaders at the conference. They envisioned a court
that could deal with crimes of war, genocide, terrorism and acts against
humanity.
In December, Elizabeth Evatt
of the UN Human Rights Committee told an international conference in Canberra,
Australia that independent states have an obligation to remedy violations
of human rights (as determined by the UN) by introducing new legislation,
if necessary. The Human Rights Committee has in the past found it a violation
of human rights not to provide “safe” abortions.
In its report to the 52nd
UN General Assembly, the Human Rights Committee spotlighted the dangers
posed by current, illegal abortions. In a report on Peru, it said it was
concerned “abortion gives rise to a criminal penalty even if a woman is
pregnant as a result of rape, and that clandestine abortions are the main
cause of maternal mortality. These provisions ... mean that women are subject
to inhumane treatment.”
The Committee recommended
that Peru’s civil and penal codes be revised: “Peru must ... take the necessary
measures to ensure that women do not risk their lives because of the existence
of restrictive legal provisions on abortion.”
Also in December, Canadian
Secretary of State Hedy Fry equated “women’s rights” with human rights
and said those rights are not special-interest rights, but rather “the
same as said in Beijing.”
Several individuals and groups
in Canada and the U.S. have expressed their concerns about the recent developments
at the UN and the prospects of an international criminal court being established.
Alfred P. Rubin, a professor
at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, notes that
U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf could have been hauled before an international
tribunal by non-Americans during the 1991 Persian Gulf War after his forces
bombed an Iraqi civilian shelter.
Phyllis Schafly, president
of the Alton, Ill.-based group Eagle Forum, said it would be “dangerous”
to have an international court that could summon Americans and try them
for ill-defined crimes. “(President Bill) Clinton has said he wants this
court to enforce a new body of humanitarian law. Well, what legislature
created that law? ... We shouldn’t subject Americans to any other law.”
Pedro Moreno, international
co-ordinator of the Charlottesville, Va.-based Rutherford Institute, said
the proponents of an international court are not interested in prosecuting
transgressors from countries such as China and North Korea, because they
know those countries will not willingly submit their citizens to the rule
of an international court. Instead, he said, such a court would be aimed
at influencing U.S. policies.
Moreno cited the example
of a British incident in which a boy appealed to the European Commission
on Human Rights after he was caned by his stepfather. The Commission found
England at fault, and the case is set to proceed to the European Court
of Human Rights. If England loses that decision, it may be forced to pass
a law abolishing corporal punishment. Such a ruling might also have the
effect of creating an international norm against such forms of punishment.
- with files from LifeSite
News
