The United Nations Human Rights Committee wants fewer humans to worry about in Ireland. This week, the committee put pressure on Ireland to legalize abortion, calling its current pro-life laws “degrading” and “cruel” to women, according to the New York Times.
The laws in Ireland protect unborn babies from abortion beginning at the moment of conception, but they have come under continuous attacks by abortion activists. The country allows abortions when the mother’s life is at stake.
The UN committee’s ruling specifically involved the case of an Irish woman named Amanda Mellet who wanted to abort her unborn baby because of congenital defects. According to the report, doctors said Mellet’s baby likely would die in the womb or shortly after birth. Rather than treasure the short time she had with her baby and allow him or her to die naturally, Mellet wanted to have her unborn baby killed in an abortion. Mellet said she suffered severe emotional and mental pain because Irish laws did not allow her to abort her child.
This week, the UN committee sided with Mellet and against her unborn baby, saying Ireland’s pro-life laws violated Mellet’s human “right” to an abortion.
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Her case is being called a landmark decision because it is the first individual complaint to receive a response from the international human rights committee, according to The Guardian.
Tracy Harkin, spokeswoman for The Every Life Counts pro-life organization, said it was simply appalling to see the UN use misleading and discriminatory language such as “fatal foetal abnormality” and to press for abortion on disability grounds.
“Surely very sick babies deserve special protection, not abortion” Harkin said, adding that the case had been brought by international abortion campaigners intent on attacking Ireland’s pro-life laws. “They should instead be recognizing that Ireland is seeking a compassionate and progressive solution which supports and protects both mother and baby.”
Cora Sherlock of the Pro Life Campaign criticized the UN for saying that a certain class of human beings, unborn children, should not have legal rights.
“The UN’s Human Rights Committee has become a de facto lobby group for abortion,” Sherlock continued. “Every few months they castigate Ireland’s abortion laws but are totally silent when it comes to investigating abuses in the abortion industry. It is unbelievable how one-sided they have become and they need to be called out on it. The same committee that is always challenging Ireland on its abortion laws has never once taken countries like Britain and Canada to task over the horrific practice of babies being born alive after failed abortions and left to die in hospital corners.”
Sherlock told LifeNews.com she is sympathetic toward women who face the heartbreaking news that their unborn baby may not live, but these women and their babies deserve support, not abortion.
“There is so much more that needs to be done in ensuring adequate provision, for example, of perinatal hospice care services in Ireland to allow families share whatever precious time they will have with their baby diagnosed with a life-limiting condition,” she said.
Here is more from the New York Times:
The U.N. Human Rights Committee, constituting experts from 17 nations led by Fabian Salvioli of Argentina, found that Ireland’s abortion law violates the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on several points and called for widespread reform.
The panel wields no power to compel change from Ireland, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation that maintains the strictest laws on abortion in the 28-nation EU. Ireland’s government offered no immediate reaction to the findings.
But human rights watchdog Amnesty International said the U.N. findings should shame Ireland into further action, three years after the country legalized abortions deemed necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life.
In its ruling, the UN Human Rights Committee pressured Ireland to “amend its law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, including if necessary its constitution, to ensure compliance with the covenant, including effective, timely and accessible procedures for pregnancy termination in Ireland.”
Harkin pointed out that the ruling ignores the experiences of families who have experienced joy and love from carrying terminally ill unborn babies to term. She said it was a shame that the UN ignored the fact that these unborn children are alive and kicking in the womb and that they also are humans who deserve protection and love.
“The language used by the UN reflects the appalling attitude of discrimination which is pushing families towards abortion, and denies them time with their sick babies, time that allows them to make memories and provides a pathway to healing,” Harkin said.
Ireland is not the only country being targeted by abortion activists through the UN. In February, the UN began increasing the pressure on South American countries to legalize abortion as they deal with the spread of the Zika virus. The virus, labeled a world health crisis, has been linked to birth defects.
