“Estrela-Report” now without compulsory paedophilia, but still promoting massive human rights violations.

By J.C. von Krempach, J.D. | December 4, 2013

Here is the newest update on the European Parliament’s controversial “Estrela-Report” on so-called sexual and reproductive health and rights.

It seems that the public pressure, not least by this blog, has had some effect. Allegedly, Members of the European Parliament have already received more than 80.000 protest e-mails! (Excellent! Keep the pressure high!! There still is one week to go. Writing to your MEP is not “harassment”, but your right as a citizen.)

The proponents of the report, stemming mostly from left and extreme-left parties, in their determination to get the report adopted at whatever cost, are not ashamed of disrespecting not only the long-established parliamentary customs, but even the basic rules of fair procedure. When the inept proposal, after having been rejected by the Parliament’s plenary assembly, was debated for a second time in the Committee from which it emanated, the Committee’s president (Mikael Gustafsson, a Swedish communist) decided that no new amendments could be tabled.

However, he did allow some of the controversial content of the report to be removed. This was probably done not out of conviction, but for tactical reasons: he is hoping that the removal of language promoting compulsory education on masturbation for 0-4 year old toddlers, or of language relating to a pretended “right of single women or lesbians to have access to artificial fertilization” would clear the way for the proposal to be adopted.

The strategy of the report’s proponents apparently is: first you try to get the Plenary adopt (if possible without debate) a text promoting at least six massive human rights violations – and when despite all your efforts to foreclose debate you are confronted with protests, you simply remove three of the six human rights violations, leaving you with the remaining three. And of course, you pretend this is a “reasonable compromise”.

But of course it is not. Even in its downgraded version the Estrela-Report is completely unacceptable for at least the following reasons:

• It promotes abortion without any restriction. In doing so, it disrespects not only the right to life as set out in Art. 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 2 of the European Human Rights Convention (ECHR), but also contradicts its own point of reference, the ICPD Programme of Action, which explicitly states that abortion should in no way be promoted as a means of family planning.

• By urging Member States to legalize abortion (and criticizing those not doing so) it disrespects their sovereignty both under EU Law and under the ICPD Programme of Action, which both clearly state that legislating on abortion and similar matters is the competence of the Member States, not the EU.

• It assaults the right of medical practitioners to freely practice their profession according to their conscience. In doing so, it contradicts Article 18 of the UDHR, Article 9 of the ECHR, and Resolution 1763 (2010) of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.

• In calling for “compulsory” standards for sexual education to be administered to children in contradiction to their parent’s moral and philosophical convictions, it violates the right of parents to be their children’s first and primordial educators. This right is universally recognized as human right, set out, inter alia, in Article 2 of the First Protocol of the European Human Rights Convention.

The Estrela-Report thus is not a “reasonable compromise”, but a repeated and intentional assault on human rights. Any politician voting in favour of it, and any NGO promoting it, are fighting against human rights.

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