UN Treaty Rejects New Rights to Abortion, Euthanasia and Homosexuality

Just in from the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute:

After four hard years of negotiation pro-lifers are declaring a victory in the drafting of an international treaty for those with disabilities. Gone from the document are such crazy ideas as the international community guaranteeing the right to "experience one's sexuality" (if you aren't happy in bed the UN will fix it!). In the document are guarantees of food and water for the disabled who are also terminal.
There is much else to be happy about in this negotiation. Congratulations are in order for the intrepid group of pro-life lobbyists who came in from around the world.

Spread the word.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
President
The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM)
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UN Treaty Rejects New Rights to Abortion, Euthanasia and Homosexuality
By Susan Yoshihara, PhD

(NEW YORK — C-FAM) The just-concluded UN meeting on the rights of persons with disabilities was on balance a success for pro-lifers. Negotiations came down to the wire on the last day of the proceedings, after delegates hammered out the issue of “reproductive health” round the clock for the last two days. The ad hoc committee adopted the full treaty late on Friday night, completing four years of negotiations.

Pro-life nations managed to keep some of the worst language out of the treaty, despite enormous pressure from liberal governments. Any new right for persons to “experience their sexuality” and “have sexual and other intimate relationships” was completely rejected. Also, delegates largely replaced the ambiguous word “gender” with the word “sex”. While UN documents have never defined the term as meaning anything other than “male” and “female,” Muslim countries urged the change to avoid misinterpretation of the word “gender” to advance the growing homosexual agenda at the UN.

Another defeat for the pro-death side was the inclusion of the right of disabled to food and fluid, denying euthanasia proponents legal footing to starve or dehydrate the disabled to death. Coupled with the reinsertion of the word “worth” back into the traditional UN phrase “dignity and worth,” and along with the adoption of a separate article guaranteeing the right to life, the treaty reaffirmed in law the inherent value of human life. These pro-life wins undercut attempts to use the new treaty to justify the “death with dignity” movement and assisted suicide.

Finally, though the term “sexual and reproductive health” made it into the final document, it only came after all sides of the abortion debate reached consensus that the phrase did not include abortion. This echoes the results of the debate a year ago at the Beijing+10 meeting addressing the status of women.

Delegates told the Friday Fax they accepted the term because they were confident it would not be misinterpreted as including abortion. The U.S. sounded a note of warning in its closing statement, saying that the treaty “cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion.” The Holy See went further and objected to the phrase all together, despite the fact that their objection went unrecognized until after the gavel came down. During deliberations, the Holy See consistently argued against putting a legally imprecise and undefined term into binding international law.

Likewise, conservative UN experts remain concerned because the phrase continues to be misinterpreted by some UN agencies, members of human rights compliance committees, as well as radical NGOs.

The treaty will now be drafted and approved in various languages before it goes to the General Assembly for final adoption by member states. The General Assembly convenes on September 12th.
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