Wednesday September 12, 2001
UN EXPLICITLY DEMANDS ABORTION RIGHTS IN NEPAL
GENEVA, September 12, 2001 (LSN.ca) - In one of the most explicit demands for abortion legalization ever issued by a United Nations committee, on August 31, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued its Concluding Observations of the Committee on Nepal. While the United Nations frequently suggests it does not promote abortions in countries where the practice is illegal, the official UN report of the CESCR concluding observations, fully released only in the past few days, demonstrates the opposite.
The UN report states, "The Committee urges the State party to take remedial action to address the problems of clandestine abortions, unwanted pregnancies and the high rate of maternal mortality. In this regard, the Committee urges the State party to reinforce reproductive and sexual health programmes, in particular in rural areas, and to allow abortion when pregnancies are life threatening or a result of rape or incest."
The United Nations is overstepping its bounds in this case even by its own definition. The CESCR, which was set up to review how the rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) are protected, acted outside its jurisdiction since abortion is not even mentioned in the ICESCR. The United Nations code phrase for abortion "reproductive health services" is not mentioned in the document either. Moreover, Nepal's report to the committee does not mention abortion.
In Nepal, which signed on to the ICESCR in May 1991, the right to life of unborn children is protected by law. UN committees have in recent years been increasingly showing that have no regard whatever for the sanctity or value of unborn human life in member states.
See the full CESCR concluding observations on Nepal:
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/E.C.12.1.ADD.66.En?Opendocument
See the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm
See Nepal's report to the CESCR committee.
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/E.1990.5.ADD.45.En?Opendocument
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