United Nations Gives Human Rights Awards to International Abortion Advocates
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 5, 2008
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) — The United Nations appears to be confused about what constitutes human rights as the Un General Assembly last week gave human rights awards to international abortion advocates. The awards could be a forecast of what’s to come with the pro-abortion Obama administration replacing the pro-life policies of President Bush.
UN General Assembly president Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann announced the 2008 winners of the UN Prize in the Field of Human Rights last week.
That’s the award given for “outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
According to Samantha Singson, who writes about the awards in the Friday Fax publication of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, this year’s winners include former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and Human Rights Watch (HRW), both staunch global abortion advocates.
Singson writes that Brockmann characterized the recipients as “an inspiration to all of us who seek and believe another type of society, another type of political system, another economic model, another world is possible where all persons will be treated as brothers and sisters, without discrimination, exclusion or destruction of life in all its forms.”
However, it appears that all of the forms of the destruction of human life don’t include abortion.
Louise Arbour is a long-time proponent of abortion, was the most prominent of the award recipients.
"During her time as High Commissioner, she encouraged human rights treaty monitoring bodies to promote this agenda," Singson writes about her abortion advocacy.
"Under her leadership, the UN committees responsible for monitoring state compliance with international treaty obligations have becoming increasingly vocal over national abortion laws – even though no human rights treaty mentions abortion," Singson adds. "During Arbor’s four year term, over 60 countries have been pressured to legalize or liberalize abortion access."
Singson writes in the Friday Fax that Arbour has also promoted the highly controversial Yogyakarta Principles which seek to reinterpret existing human rights to include abortion.
Human Rights Watch, another UN Prize recipient, also comes under fire from Singson and CFAM.
"In recent years, HRW has been a leader in promoting abortion rights, particularly in Latin America," she writes.
"In 2005, HRW released a report on Argentina that recommended liberalized abortion laws. That same year, HRW filed a legal brief in support of a Colombian case challenging the country’s once-strict abortion ban," Singson explains.
HRW also mounted a legal challenge to Nicaragua’s abortion law, claiming that Nicaragua’s ban is contrary to international law.
Human Rights Watch says it believes "the denial of a pregnant woman’s right to make an independent decision regarding abortion violates or poses a threat to a wide range of human rights."
That’s where CFAM and other pro-life groups that lobby the United Nations worry the international body is headed, especially under the Obama administration.
The UN Human Rights Prize is awarded every five years and the 2008 award winners were selected from a group of 189 nominations. The Prize will be awarded in the General Assembly on December 10, the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Related web sites:
CFAM – https://www.c-fam.org
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