AFRICA: Center for Reproductive Rights Wants Your Unborn Children

Received the following via email from The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute:
=================

Newly Ratified African Protocol Hailed by Radical Pro-Abort Group

Radical lawyers at the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) are celebrating a recently ratified protocol for women's rights in Africa as being "the first human rights instrument to expressly articulate a woman's right to abortion in specified circumstances."

On October 26 Togo became the 15th African country to ratify the Protocol which brings the Protocol into force and is now binding on the countries that ratify it. The document can also now be used by CRR to force other countries to comply. The Protocol supplements the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. In a briefing paper on the protocol CRR outlines how African women can "use the protocol to exercise their reproductive rights" and suggests the "paper can also be useful to advocates outside Africa who are seeking to establish similar guarantees."

While the Protocol contains elements that will likely receive unanimous praise such as prohibitions against genital mutilation and sexual abuse, its most prominent language is of concern for pro-lifers. The Protocol requires states to take "all appropriate measures to: c) protect the reproductive rights of women by authorising medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the continued pregnancy endangers the mental and physical health of the mother or the life of the mother or the foetus." The mental health exemption is especially worrying because its ambiguity may be used to permit abortions in almost any instance.

The Protocol also calls for states to "ensure that the right to health of women, including sexual and reproductive health, is respected and promoted" and defines reproductive health to include "the right to choose any method of contraception."

The CRR briefing paper says the Protocol may be an important tool in the fight to expand the abortion license to the international level. "The significance and potential of the protocol go well beyond Africa. The treaty affirms reproductive choice and autonomy as a key human right and contains a number of global firsts. For example, it represents the first time that an international human rights instrument has explicitly articulated a woman’s right to abortion when pregnancy results from sexual assault, rape, or incest."

The documents acknowledges that the enforcement mechanisms for the Protocol may not be strong enough currently. It notes that the "African Court, however, will have the authority to issue legally binding and enforceable decisions" and it calls for the African Court to be given a stronger role in overseeing social policy. The briefing paper calls on "Advocates seeking to ensure that the protocol is adequately implemented" to "pressure governments to ratify the Protocol to the African Charter Establishing an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and to make declarations accepting the jurisdiction of the African Court over cases brought by individuals and NGOs."

Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427
New York, New York 10017
Phone: (212) 754-5948
Fax: (212) 754-9291
E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org
Website: www.c-fam.org