By Peter J. Smith
UNITED NATIONS, August 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A pro-life coalition of 23 nations led by Nicaragua has continued objecting to the adoption of “sexual and reproductive health services” among the human rights in a forthcoming UN treaty on the rights of the disabled and has even made pro-life gains according to C-FAM’s Friday Fax.
Currently pro-life delegates are objecting to the inclusion of “reproductive health” in the new International Treaty on Disabilities since the language – undefined by the UN – has often been used by radical feminists and the abortion lobby to push its anti-life and anti-family agenda. It is feared that the pro-abortion movement will use it to overturn the laws of pro-life nations, since the treaty will be binding law on ratifying nations.
Thus far the resilience of the pro-life coalition recently forced the liberal International Disabilities Caucus to admit defeat and call for the expurgation of such purported rights to “experience their sexuality” and to “sexual and reproductive health services”. However, the conference chairman, New Zealand’s Ambassador McKay, has adamantly refused to give way, employing his staff to maintain relentless pressure on the coalition to give in to the undefined language.
Pro-life forces, however, gained an important victory when the UN convention successfully adopted “dignity and worth” of the person into the treaty’s preamble. The Holy See and Uganda led the initiative to include the term after having discovered that “dignity” – without mention of “worth” – appeared alone in the draft, an omission apparently meant to tacitly support the “death with dignity” euthanasia movement.
The conference also laid bare the anti-life and anti-family agenda of the European Union through the actions of its current president, Finland. In a move that left observers shocked, Finland objected to referencing the family as the “fundamental group of society”, a phrase firmly supported by nations in UN treaties ever since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
11 Muslim states including Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Syria and Qatar led the charge for the pro-family language maintaining the family is the “natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members.”
Finland also opposes an initiative led by Qatar and several other countries to ensure the disabled have a right to lifesaving medical treatment, food and fluid.
According to the Friday Fax, Wayne Cockfield of National Right to Life said, “This kind of ‘passive euthanasia’ based upon a perceived poor quality of life is the number one killer of the disabled. They won’t kill me because I’m in a wheelchair, they will kill me because they say I’m ‘trapped in my own body.’
The vigorous defense of life for the disabled has caught Finland in a clear double standard, which now claims the convention will not be binding law on nations – contrary to their demands over “reproductive health services” – but now a broad statement of principles. Apparently, Finland fears the sword cuts both ways, and the UN treaty may jeopardize radical euthanasia laws in some EU member-states, where “worth” isn’t so important as “quality of life”.
See Previous LifeSite Coverage:
UN Conference on Disabled Draws Fire for “Sexual and Reproductive Health Services”
“Fundamental Reproductive Right Is the Right to Be Born”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06082107.html