Radical Lawyers Exaggerate Importance of Recent UN Statement on Abortion

By C-FAM Staff | 2005

    (NEW YORK – C-FAM) Pro-abortion lawyers at the Center for Reproductive Rights are saying that a recent statement by a UN committee represents a major victory in the battle to create an international legal right to abortion. But experienced UN observers say the decision is nothing more than a non-binding recommendation and CRR is greatly exaggerating the significance of the statement.

    A CRR e-mail dated November 17, declared that "UN Human Rights Committee Makes Landmark Decision Establishing Women's Right To Access To Legal Abortion." The case involved a 17-year-old woman from Peru who was pregnant with a child with anencephaly. After the mother was denied an abortion, a complaint was brought to the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of her by the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women's Rights and the Counseling Center for the Defense of Women's Rights.

    According to CRR the Human Rights Committee ruled that Peru violated the mother's "most basic human rights" by "denying access to legal abortion." CRR hailed the decision as "the first time an international human rights body has held a government accountable for failing to ensure access to legal abortion services."

    In 2004 CRR issued a memo exploring the role international litigation can play in expanding abortion rights in Latin America. The memo said that in "past decades, legal advocacy has played a critical role in changing the realities of women's reproductive lives in countries worldwide." The memo noted that "When a national court falls short of the desired outcome, international human rights litigation can also offer an opportunity to address reproductive-rights violations." The memo specifically cited CRR's efforts in the Peru case as an example of internationalizing the abortion issue.

    According to CRR the recent statement says Peru's government violated the mother's right to be free from cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment; her right to privacy; and her right to special protection as a minor. It orders the Peruvian government to provide the mother with reparations, and to adopt the necessary regulations to guarantee access to legal abortion.

    Despite CRR's attempts to tout the ruling as creating an international right to abortion the Human Rights Commission's decision amounts to little more than the opinion of a UN committee that has neither the authority nor the mechanism to enforce their own statement.

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