Tuesday October 12, 2010
Abortion as a “Human Right” a Corruption of International HR Agreements: John Smeaton
By Hilary White
ROME, October 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The push in recent years to establish abortion as an international “human right” flies in the face of international human rights law that springs from the natural law and the world’s response to the Nazi atrocities, John Smeaton, head of the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told an international conference last week.
International agreements dating back to 1948, in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials, repeatedly insist on the right to life of the unborn child, and specifically protect all human life from conception, he said.
Speaking Thursday at the international congress held by Human Life International in Rome, Smeaton said that the modern, secular perception of human rights derive directly from Judeo-Christian thought, the Natural Law philosophies and the concept of human beings made in the image and likeness of God.
Cut these concepts of rights off from their divine origins, and “human rights become anti-human.”
Smeaton said in his address that this corruption has become apparent in the persistent invoking of human rights to “to justify public policies which threaten the most vulnerable in society or used to silence those who speak out in defence of Christian values and natural law.”
“Rights which are incompatible with natural law are not only invalid, but their promotion demands the subjugation of some human beings in order to advance the interests of others.”
Smeaton noted the irony that modern human rights law had its start at the Nuremberg trials where, among the war criminals prosecuted for crimes against humanity, were “the architects of the T4 euthanasia programme and the abortionists of occupied Poland.”
Smeaton quoted the 1955 Declaration on the Rights of the Child that committed signatory states to provide children with “special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.”
“When the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950) was being drafted, abortion was recognised as a crime against humanity and human life was intended to be protected from the moment of conception,” Smeaton said.
At the time of the Convention’s drafting, he said, there was a “broad consensus” on the rights of the child before birth. But since then, the European Court of Human Rights has avoided applying the Convention’s Natural Law underpinnings to abortion. This lack of commitment by the Court, whose task is to interpret the Convention, he said, has moved the Court inevitably “toward recognition of a right to abortion, or at least access to abortion where abortion is lawful.”
“In other words [the Court implies] ‘Yes’ the unborn child is a member of the human race, but ‘No’ it is not a person and therefore entitled to protection under Article 2 [of the Convention].”
Nevertheless, “we are not powerless to prevent this” ideological drift. Despite attempts to distort them, Smeaton said, international agreements do recognize the right to life of all members of the human family regardless of their state or condition in life.
Abortion, “gay marriage,” explicit sex education, the infringements on the rights of parents and of Christians to exercise their conscience, he said, are all under direct attack in Europe and around the world.
“Europe is under intense attack and the pro-life and pro-family movement and Catholic Church leaders must be in the front line of resistance. This is World War Three and it’s primarily a war on the unborn and on parents as the primary educators of their children.
“We must call upon governments and human rights institutions to return to the original meaning of these documents which were drafted in response to the atrocities revealed by the Nuremburg Tribunals.
“We must resist injustice and continue to speak out for those who cannot defend themselves.”
Read the full text of Smeaton’s talk here.