A new report from a UN committee on women’s rights has slammed Ireland’s pro-life laws, demanding that the predominantly Catholic nation alter the Eighth Amendment to its constitution that bans the procedure.
For years, the UN has relentlessly targeted the Emerald Isle for its unwillingness to allow women to abort their babies, except when the mother’s life is in danger.
In 2014 a UN committee claimed that the Irish Amendment violates international law, and in 2016, AP reported on a ruling from UN human rights “experts” that Ireland’s abortion ban “subjects women to discriminatory, cruel and degrading treatment.”
In its latest attack, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) committee has alleged that the Amendment violates women’s human rights because it “unduly restricts access to abortion.”
The UN committee insists that Irish law be changed to allow “the introduction of amendments to current legislation governing access to abortion.”
The publication of the “Concluding Observations” was reportedly timed for release just ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, March 8th.
After the divulgation of the UN report, Cora Sherlock of the Irish Pro-Life Campaign suggested that CEDAW was violating its own charter, since it was established to highlight and eliminate discrimination. Abortion, Sherlock stated, “is the ultimate discrimination as it targets the most vulnerable in society, namely unborn babies.”
Sherlock also suggested that Irish citizens were right to ignore the UN’s heavy-handed attempts at coercion, since the CEDAW committee “has no authority to decide who should live and who should die.”
“Certain UN committees like CEDAW are losing all credibility as defenders of authentic human rights and have, in recent years, become nothing more than cheerleaders for the abortion movement,” she noted.
Pro-life groups have estimated that the constitutional amendment has saved approximately 100,000 unborn babies’ lives from abortion in Ireland.
Sherlock has stressed that if anything, the UN should be applauding Irish law, since it upholds the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to life of all people.
Noting that that there is no right to abortion in international human rights law, Sherlock observed that Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the “right to life, liberty and security of persons” and does not arbitrarily exclude unborn persons.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.