1. The International Push for Abortion Rights and the Family Agenda at the United Nations Dr. Brian Scarnecchia, M.Div., J.D. International Solidarity and Human Rights Institute www.ishri.net www.ngovoice.com

2. Outline I. Secure Abortion Rights Internationally – A Stealth Campaign by Center for Reproductive Rights II. Protecting Children Internationally – The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Study on Violence Against Babies III. Some Family Issues at the UN

3. Part I. Secure Abortion Rights Internationally – a Stealth Campaign by Center for Reproductive Rights

4. My remarks in this portion of my lecture are drawn in large part from the paper written by Dr. Stephen Krason, President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists: “The International Pro-Abortion litigation Strategy: An Anti-Democratic Plan to Force Legalized Abortion on the World’s Governments” Catholic Family & Human Rights Inst., White Paper Series , No 6, (2006).

7. The second approach – gaining favorable interpretations of existing Treaties by international and national bodies – they thought would be especially effective. This will achieve a coordination of analogous and reinforcing national and international norms on abortion rights.

8. The Stealth Approach to make Abortion an international right consists in this: 1. Establish abortion rights in the domestic law of several nations, often by claiming international norms require it; 2. Then arguing that the growing trend of domestic law of several nations need to be reflected in more comprehensive legal guarantees on the international level.

9. To achieve favorable abortion laws in national and regional venues the CRR suggests working “in a smaller number of focus countries” and on “honing” its ability to “provide cutting edge input on relevant international and regional norms and on providing a comparative legal perspective (i.e. analysis of laws and judicial decisions across countries).” The more nations that come online with new or expanded abortion rights, the more they forge new international norms in favor of abortion rights.

10. The CRR said, to establish new international abortion rights both “hard norms” and “soft norms” can be exploited: 1) hard norms – are binding bilateral or multilateral treaties; 2) soft norms – are the statements, platforms of action, declarations, resolutions made at regional and international conferences by the UN or other inter-governmental agencies or the reports of special rapporteurs. The CRR noted that abortion rights gained momentum after the Cairo conference even though Cairo failed to achieve a right to abortion

11. CRR strategy to craft an international right to abortion will twist the meaning of already agreed upon legal norms and human rights to include the necessity of access to legal abortion. Such existing norms and human rights include - the right to life, liberty, security, health, to consent to marriage, to be free from discrimination, to not be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and to be free from sexual violence.

12. The CRR also hopes to gain greater acceptance for rights more closely associated with Abortion but less clearly recognized as long standing human rights such as the so called rights – “the right to reproductive health,” “family planning,” “the right to equality in marriage,” “the right to privacy” and the “right to modify traditions or customs that violate women’s rights.”

13. The CRR stated that the most effective right to twist would be the “Right to Life”: How can a woman’s Right to Life and health be secure unless she is free from any pressure whatsoever to undergo unsafe abortions. The CRR goes on to claim that there are 78,000 deaths world wide and “hundreds of thousands of disabilities” each year because of “unsafe abortion.”

14. Another Stealth aspect of the CRR strategy is to advance its agenda by bringing cases concerning abortion before regional and international human rights court-like bodies and before domestic courts on international law grounds. There is less scrutiny over the decisions of UN court-like bodies or domestic courts making changes in domestic law based on international law than changes in law brought before domestic legislatures. Judges simply announce the right to abortion and legislatures may be reluctant to repeal judge-made law, even though they would not have legislated abortion in the first place.

15. In order to counter opposition to the tactics the CRR suggests their operatives need to questioned the credibility of reactionaries and to “fight harder” and “be a little dirtier.”

16. The CRR documents correctly point out that there is no internationally recognized right to abortion. But, as legal scholars point out (Wilkins and Krason), there seems to be a nearly inexhaustible supply of language which encompasses the possibility of a right to abortion, but without any express reference to the practice, such as “reproductive” – rights, services, health, care. Also, these documents usually include language preserving national sovereignty on questions of human fertility or contain reservations of the nations to the effect that nothing contained therein will “alter national or international law related to the regulation of abortion.” Therefore, nations often agree to not oppose their inclusion in consensus documents.

17. For instance, the United States recently said neither the Cairo nor Beijing Conferences established a right to abortion by the use of the term “reproductive health”: “I do wish to make one point clear. The United States understands that reference to [Cairo]…and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action… do not create any rights and cannot be interpreted to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion.” (US Ambassador to the UN, John R. Bolton, on the Outcome Document, in the UN General Assembly, September 16, 2005, USUN Press Release #159 (05) September 14, 2005)

18. The CRR hopes that UN soft law (declarations, resolutions, platforms for action) will serve as – persuasive authority for national domestic tribunals and legislatures, ruling bodies of provinces or even city councils so that they may then reference these new international norms and consensus as a basis for changing their own national, state or local laws.

19. For Instance, Yesterday Dr. Acosta related an incident to me of how recently she had to explain the meaning of “reproductive health” to members of the City Council of Legaspi who were going to pass a city ordinance guaranteeing such rights to all residents.

20. “ By repeatedly promoting abortion rights in international fora and providing their own particular interpretations to the often vague wording of international legal document, these groups hope to make the right to abortion a part of customary international law, which, while not explicitly agreed to by nations as with a treaty, will then enter their domestic legal systems and be declared binding on them.” ( Dr. Stephen Krason,“The International Pro-Abortion litigation Strategy”)

21. As we move to our next topic it is revealing to note that the CRR documents refer to the right of minors to “access reproductive and sexual health information and services.” They speak of “adolescents’ reproductive autonomy and decision-making,” and clearly seek to establish the adolescents’ right to confidentiality in receiving health services and information and to prohibit parental consent requirements for a legal abortion.” The CRR admits there is a lack of hard norms (treaties) guaranteeing such policies. But UN treaty monitoring bodies have interpreted existing treaties and state that these rights apply to minors and require states to provide sex education for minors.

22. Let us now turn our attention to one such treaty and its monitoring body – The Convention on the Rights of the Child

23. Part II. Protecting Children Internationally – The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Violence Against Babies

25. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1992) properly interpreted by The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) protects Children from violence after and before birth.

26. The key issue is when the rights of Children begin under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The treaty reads: “For the purpose of the present Convention, a child means every human being below the age of 18 years…” (Article 1). However the UNICEF editor of Innocenti Digest , no.2 (Sept. 1997) claims otherwise: “A ‘child’ is defined [in this publication], as in the Convention [on the Rights of the Child], as everyone from birth to his or her 18 year”

27. So, does the term “ human being ” as used in The Convention of the Right of the Child include Children before as well as after birth? First, States did not limit the definition of “ human being as from the moment of birth which could have been easily done. Second, Article 24 states that the child has a right to pre-natal care. But a “child” can have a right to pre-natal care only if “ human being” in Article 1 is interpreted to cover the entire pre-natal period of life, a period which runs conception to delivery. So, the ordinary meaning of “ human being” - the offspring of human parents from conception onwards – is the only meaning which is fully consistent with the CRC as a whole.

28. Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 31(1) it state: A treaty shall be interpreted [a] in good faith,[b] in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty,[c] in their context and [d] in light of its object and purpose. Once an interpretation has been arrived at, a corollary to this rule allows the legislative records to be used to confirm the reading. But the legislative records cannot be used to alter or over-ride the interpretation.

29. Turning the Center for Reproductive Rights Stealth Campaign against them: The correct interpretation of “Human Being”in the Convention the Rights of the Child – includes children before as well as after birth. Therefore, we should press for domestic courts, legislatures, city councils, etc. to interpret their domestic laws or proclaim ordinances guaranteeing the right to life of children before birth – not simply according to their national Constitution – but under International law expressed in the treaty obligations they have assumed and are bound to follow.

46. ISHRI upcoming events Medical Mission to Equator (1/07) NGO - Commission on Status of Women NYC (2/07) Mission to Honduras (3/07) JPII conference, EU parliament &UN Geneva (5/07) Washington, DC training & Summer solidarity with a developing nation (7/07)

47. ISHRI & SCSS future goals - Graduate studies in the New Evangelization & Catholic Social Thought - Place interns with Embassies, Foreign Service & in Missions - Use communications & law to advance human rights, development & evangelization