(LifeSiteNews) — In 2021, the Congress of Honduras responded to the abortion activism rearing its head across the continent by passing the “Shield Against Abortion in Honduras” law, enshrining its pro-life regime in the Honduran constitution. The bill states that “it is considered prohibited and illegal by the mother or a third party to practice any kind of interruption of a life that is about to be born.”
The bill passed 88-28 and is considered a “constitutional lock” that makes it incredibly difficult to legalize abortion in the future.
That move, of course, put Honduras, an overwhelmingly Christian country, in the crosshairs of international abortion activists. A tried-and-true tactic of abortion activists is to use pro-abortion international institutions to violate national sovereignty and put pressure on politicians from the top down. Thus, according to the Guardian, “Honduras is being taken to a global human rights body for the first time over its total abortion ban, which campaigners say violates women’s fundamental rights [i.e., the murder of unborn children] and the country’s international commitments.”
The U.S.-based Center for Reproductive Rights and the Centro de Derechos de la Mujer (Center for Women’s Rights) have “filed a petition with the U.N. human right committee this month on behalf of a woman known as Fausia” (a pseudonym), who the abortion activists claim was impregnated through rape and denied an abortion. Fausia is described as an indigenous environmental activist and “human rights defender” targeted for her activism.
According to the Guardian, abortion promoters are using this case to challenge the Honduran pro-life laws “via an international body… the organisations backing Fausia’s complaint want the U.N. committee to rule that the total abortion ban is a violation of women and girls’ fundamental rights and recommend that Honduras regulate access to abortion as an essential health service.”
Austin Ruse of the Center for Family and Human Rights, an organization that carefully monitors attacks on life and family at the United Nations, finds the case dubious. “It is entirely possible that this case is phoney, stem to stern,” Ruse told me. “A ‘human rights’ defender is raped and denied an abortion is simply too much of a pro-abortion narrative. Plus, the case is touted by the American-based Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the most radical anti-life groups in the world.”
READ: ‘Life without exception’: Rape survivor explains why she opposes abortion
The abortion activists are also “seeking reparations for Fausia from the Honduran state over its failure to protect her rights.” The Guardian claims that Fausia told them that a doctor told her she would be imprisoned if she procured an abortion and that she felt “suicidal” as a result.
Nowhere does the Guardian acknowledge that Fausia’s alleged unborn child, a person distinct from her reported rapist, would be brutally destroyed by an abortion despite being absolutely helpless and innocent.
The Guardian trotted out all of the standard abortion activist arguments, such as that women have illegal abortions anyway, even though widespread data shows the effectiveness of pro-life laws at saving babies’ lives.
The failure of activists to override Honduran constitutional protections for the unborn, they hope, will be rectified by international institutions: “Amid disappointment with the lack of progress on reproductive rights [sic] under Xiomara Castro, Honduras’ first female president, campaigners are confident the U.N. will issue a favourable decision that could mark a precedent for change.”
According to the pseudonymous woman at the centre of the case: “Even though UN proceedings take time, I feel optimistic that the Honduran state will be called upon to change its regulatory framework.” Austin Ruse feels differently. “The central problem with the claim is that abortion is not a part of human rights law – period,” Ruse noted. “This has been the claim of the sexual left for decades, but the U.N. has never agreed. The story is probably false, and the claim under human rights law is a lie.”
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