By Hilary White
STRASBOURG, December 10, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Young pro-life advocates from across Europe demonstrated in Strasbourg yesterday as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) heard arguments in the case of three Irish women who have demanded that their country abandon its legal protections for the unborn.
At a vigil, organised by Liam Gibson of SPUC Northern Ireland, pro-life young people from Ireland, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Romania held placards outside the court reading, “Europe needs children not abortion,” “Hands off Ireland's pro-life laws” and “Abortion kills children.”
Members of the Irish pro-life group Youth Defence said they were protesting the “profoundly undemocratic push by the abortion industry to seek the imposition of abortion on Ireland by a foreign court.”
The “A, B and C v. Ireland” case is being sponsored by the Irish Family Planning Association, an affiliate of International Planned Parenthood as part of a larger effort by abortion lobbyists to overturn pro-life laws in sovereign countries using international agreements on human rights.
Olivier Jarry from France said outside the court, “Ireland is one of the only countries to have resisted abortion. The people of Ireland have voted against abortion, yet now there is a danger that the European institutions will change Ireland's constitution.”
Katy Robinson, Rebecca Roughneen and Sorcha Nic Mhathuna of Youth Defence, said they had travelled to Strasbourg to represent the majority of Irish people who are pro-life and who don't want abortion in Ireland.
“We stand here in solidarity with the children whose lives are threatened by the possible outcome of the court's ruling,” they said.
In an email to LifeSiteNews.com prior to the event, Rebecca Roughneen noted the irony of holding a human rights tribunal on abortion. She said, “The human rights of the person whose life is being ultimately judged – the unborn child – are being ignored.”
She said the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) was trampling on the sovereignty of the Irish legal system. “The IFPA had failed to persuade the people of Ireland of the validity of the abortion's industry's claims and were now seeking to have abortion imposed on the country.”
The three women's lawyer, Julie Kay, told media that anyone aborting in Ireland “is legally bound to life in prison, an horrific perspective … there is then an obligation to protect their identity in order to protect them and their rights.”
“It is not known when life begins … philosophers, medical personnel and governments may differ on the question,” Kay said. The women argue that Ireland's pro-life law violates several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the right to life.
The Irish government's Attorney General, Paul Gallagher, countered that the law specifically protects the right to life and is based on “profound moral values.”
But Rebecca Roughneen said, “The IFPA are deliberately confusing legitimate medical treatment with abortion.”
She pointed out that the medical treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, for example, is called a salpingectomy, will save the life of the mother and is a perfectly legitimate procedure in Ireland.
“This treatment is the removal of an ectopic pregnancy where the baby may die, but the baby is not deliberately killed. It's not a surgical abortion which deliberately and violently ends the unborn child's life,” she said, adding that “abortion is not healthcare, it is the denial of the most basic human right; the right to life.”