Vatican Rejects Abortion "Right" at United Nations, Says People a Resource
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 14, 2009
New York, NY (LifeNews.com) — The Vatican ambassador to the United Nations told the international body on Monday that there is no international "right" to abortion. Its ambassador told UN delegates on Monday that people should be considered the world’s greatest resource instead of the pro-abortion notion that there are too many.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See at the United Nations, presented the position in an address on population and development at the 64th session of the U.N. General Assembly.
According to a Zenit report, he said abortion advocates were wrong to conclude at the Cairo conference 15 years ago "that a population explosion was going to occur and hamper the ability to achieve adequate global economic development."
Now, "we see that this perception was unfounded," he said.
Zenit also indicates that Migliore observed how, in many nations, "legislators are now encouraging an increase in birth rates to assure continued economic growth" because of severe problems accompanying underpopulaton.
"For nearly a century, attempts have been made to link global population with the food, energy, natural resources and environmental crises," he explained. "Yet, on the contrary, it has been consistently demonstrated by human ingenuity and the ability of people to work together that human persons are the world’s greatest resource."
The Holy See representative said "greater efforts must be made to enact human centered policies, which recognize the shared benefits of migration."
He denounced the "notion of sexual and reproductive health which is detrimental to unborn human life and the integral needs of women and men within society."
"Suggesting that reproductive health includes a right to abortion explicitly violates the language of the [International Conference on Population and Development], defies moral and legal standards within local communities and divides efforts to address the real needs of mothers and children," he asserted.
He called for the UN and member nations to care for "the most vulnerable within society," and the "physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing of children."
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