The ECLJ made an oral statement during the General Debat (Item 3) of the Human Rights Council (Session 36) to denounce the attempt made by the Human Rights Committee to impose abortion and euthanasia worldwide through its General Comment on article 6. The Committee infers a right to abortion and to euthanasia from the right to life.
Credit video: UN WebTV
Text of the intervention:
The ECLJ would like to alert Member States to the current attempt to create a universal right to abortion.
Indeed, the Human Rights Committee, in its last Draft General Comment on Article 6 on the Right to life, is trying to impose the legalization of abortion and euthanasia against the will of States Parties, against the letter of the text, and in contradiction with its mandate.
The Draft fails to mention the right to life of the unborn child, and presses States to legalize abortion on demand and without limitations. Any limit on abortion is seen by the Committee as a potential violation of women’s rights.
As to euthanasia, the Committee is openly promoting assisted suicide.
It is absurd and unacceptable to draw from the right to life a “right to kill an innocent human being” or a “right to be killed.”
The ECLJ must remind this Committee that its job is to interpret the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not to create new rights or obligations.
Article 6 was never intended to give ground to the idea that the life of the unborn is not worthy of protection; quite the contrary.
Interpreting the article in a way that creates a right to abortion violates both the Covenant and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
The ECLJ invites State-Parties and the Committee to reaffirm that the right to life, the most precious one, is to be promoted for every human being, from conception to natural death.