ECLJ Concerned About Pro-Abortion Language Touted by European Union
August 24, 2006
(Manhattan, New York)— The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) said today it is concerned about proposed pro-abortion language being promoted by the European Union. ECLJ legal counsel Roger Kiska is attending the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on a Convention for the Disabled in New York.
"The European Union has since the beginning of the draft convention pushed heavily for language supporting sexual and reproductive rights; language which remains undefined in U.N. parlance but has been viewed as a term of art meaning abortion," said Kiska. "The push has been part of a campaign to develop an international right to abortion under customary international law. So persuasive has this tactic been that Colombia recently legalized abortion by Supreme Court decree on the basis of U.N. treaty wording."
Kiska says at the current draft convention, the general consensus has been that the addition of reproductive health language would only discredit an otherwise worthwhile international document, one desperately needed by the disabled in developing nations. The deletion of all language regarding sexual and reproductive health was agreed upon by the delegation of the United States and received heavy support from Middle Eastern nations which tend to vote pro-life on such issues.
However, the ECLJ contends that -- after speaking with several key delegates -- that the European Union has been successfully courting Muslim nations to support abortion language in return for agreeing to an addition of language in Article 11 on occupation which is tantamount to an official slap in the face of Israel in Lebanon and the United States in Iraq. The language would read:
States parties shall take, in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the safety and protection of persons with disabilities under foreign occupation, and that institutions which provide them with care and rehabilitation are not targeted or placed in danger.
According to the ECLJ, what is perhaps equally egregious to the addition of language which has absolutely no relevance to a document on disability is the fact that European Union delegates, by refusing to seek a definition of the term sexual and reproductive health, are acting against governing E.U. treaty law which demands legal clarity for key terms in legislation which would be binding on European Union Member States, as required by the European Convention of Human Rights annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1992.
The European Centre for Law and Justice has been working with delegates to confront the European Union regarding this legal position. The ECLJ is affiliated with the American Center for Law and Justice and is based in Strasbourg, France. |
