"Abortion Rights in Latin America"

Several weeks ago in mid-November, Rick asked an important question about the Human Rights Committee report on the status of abortion in Peru. At that time I offered a few observations. In my view, the Committee’s report was not a legal opinion; moreover, the authors who drafted it did not offer a solid understanding of international law and authentic human rights issues. At the time, I could not address one of Rick’s questions concerning the procedural issues. Since my earlier response, I was able to obtain a copy of the report and discovered that Peru is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights additional protocol that enables individuals to bring their complaints to the Committee. This is not permitted under the Covenant itself. In any event, the complaint of the seventeen year old “author” came before the Committee through the procedures of the additional protocol. The Center for Reproductive Rights headquartered in New York served as counsel to the “author” of the complaint.

Today’s New York Times published an editorial on this report of the Human Rights Committee under the title “Abortion Rights in Latin America.”

Download abortion_rights_in_latin_america_nyt_1606.mht 

I fear that the editorial authors present an inaccurate picture of the applicable law to their readers. With regard to liberalizing abortion “rights,” the Times editorial asserts that “international pressure” is helping to liberalize abortion legislation in Latin American countries. It cites the November Committee report that Rick and I discussed in support for its position. In spite of the rhetoric, the Times and the Center for Reproductive Health fail to acknowledge the reality of the situation. Their language refers to a “severely malformed fetus”—but they cannot escape the fact that this little girl was also born and lived for several days after she was living in her mother's womb. Sadly, neither the Times nor the Center for Reproductive Health nor the Human Rights Committee apply any of the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the Convention on the Rights of the Child to the infant girl. To them, she remains a “severely malformed fetus”—a something but not a somebody; therefore, she is not a human being, a person, a child, who merits the protection of international law. Strikingly, when one reads the Covenant and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, this infant is a human who should also be the beneficiary of the protection of these two instruments, but the Times, the Center for Reproductive Health, and the Human Rights Committee will not admit this. Their interpretations of these two instruments are flawed.

But the story does not end here. Just before Christmas, a new ally from the European Union, namely the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, has issued an “opinion” concerning the protection of conscience. In reality, the “opinion” is designed to eliminate the right of conscience that involves the Church and its members. The “Experts” focus on the EU Member States that have concordats with the Holy See regarding the protection of conscience of those who are exempt from certain activities including having a role in performing abortions (and other procedures that may include euthanasia) or same sex unions/marriages. The Experts suggest that there is a higher law, namely their interpretations, which trumps the right to conscience, which is interestingly enough is a protected subject of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

At this stage, I point out that Catholic Legal Theory has a lot to say about these sinister developments. In the meantime, the flawed understandings and interpretations that the Times heralds as "international pressure" grow stronger.   RJA sj