UN Petition for the Unborn Child Re-Launched
Good Afternoon Ladies,
If you haven’t signed this petition please do it now. It is something you can pass along to all your family and friends.
Sincerely, Luanne Kucera, NUDCCW Legislation Commission
Volume 12, Number 45
October 22, 2009
UN Petition for the Unborn Child Re-Launched, Seeks One Million Names
By Austin Ruse
(WASHINGTON, DC – C-FAM) An international coalition of pro-life and pro-family groups has re-launched a petition that is expected to gather one million signatures in support of the unborn child and the traditional family.
Groups from the United States, Poland, Spain and other European counties launched the petition last fall and at that time gathered nearly 500,000 signatures, which were presented to selected Ambassadors at the United Nations (UN) and at a UN press conference that was broadcast throughout UN headquarters. The groups included C-FAM [publisher of the Friday Fax], Concerned Women for America, United Families International, all from the United States, along with the Polish Federation of Pro-life Groups and the Spanish Institute for Family Policy. A prominent parliamentarian from Honduras also participated in the press conference.
The purpose of the petition is to persuade UN Member States to begin interpreting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as protecting the unborn child from abortion and also to recognize traditional marriage and the right of parents to educate their children.
Organizers launched the petition partially in reaction to efforts by pro-abortion groups last year to use the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration to promote a right to abortion.
The pro-life petition, which can be signed at www.c-fam.org/campaigns/lid.2/default.asp in one of 19 languages, specifically references portions of the Universal Declaration that can be interpreted by States in pro-life and pro-family ways. For instance, the Universal Declaration says, “Everyone has the right to life.” Though it is not clear that the drafters meant to include the unborn child in this formulation, States may interpret the document this way.
The Universal Declaration also says, “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.” In recent years social radicals have pushed the UN to call for an international right for homosexuals to marry. Social conservatives point out this is in direct opposition to the intention of the drafters of the aspirational Universal Declaration and its binding implementing covenants promulgated in 1966.
Family-rights proponents also highlight the Universal Declaration’s recognition that “Parents have the prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” There is a push in the West to allow homosexual propaganda in schools even against the wishes of parents. This would be in violation of the Universal Declaration.
Additionally, the petition cites the Universal Declaration where it says “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection from society and the State.” In recent years efforts have been made to undermine the natural family by redefining it to include homosexual couples, efforts that have been repeatedly defeated in the UN General Assembly.
Organizers were also inspired by efforts of the Catholic St. Egidio Community of Rome who gathered one million signatures calling for a moratorium on the death penalty that resulted in a successful UN resolution calling for a ban on executions.
European Union Parliamentarians Anna Zaborska of Slovakia and Carlo Casini of Italy led similar efforts to the UN pro-life petition in Europe. Their petitions were presented to the European Parliament last year.
You can find this online at: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1483/pub_detail.asp
Copyright 2009 © Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 495, New York 10017 – (212) 754-5948 – info@c-fam.org
Volume 12, Number 45
October 22, 2009
UN “Alternative Care” Guidelines Scrutinized for Pitting Children Against Parents
By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.
Co-authored by Marie Connelly
(NEW YORK – C-FAM) The United Nations (UN) General Assembly (GA) will consider a document on alternative, non-parental care of children this fall in conjunction with the twentieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Certain delegates are expressing concern, however, at one provision in particular that appears to pit the rights of children against their parents.
The Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children call upon States to implement policies aimed at “empowering youth to face positively the challenges of everyday life, including when they decide to leave the parental home.” They further call for governmental programs aimed at youth as “future parents” to make “informed decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health.”
While the Guidelines also reference promoting “family-oriented policies” and “family strengthening services” to avoid alternative care, critics see the youth emancipation provision as calling for state intrusion into the parent-child bond. They also express concern at the linkage to programs concerning “sexual and reproductive health,” querying whether such youth empowerment programs would exclude parental oversight.
Such concerns are getting more attention with approach of the CRC anniversary, with a number of voices questioning the “child’s rights” approach evident in both the treaty and the Guidelines. They see an emphasis on the rights of the child, as opposed to one emphasizing “best interests,” as pitting children against parents who should be their natural guardians, with the State as guarantor of rights intervening at the expense of the familial bond.
This tension between a rights-of-the-child and a family-centered approach is the subject of a recent article in the New York International Law Review by Professor Lynne Marie Kohm. She criticizes the CRC as ineffective in addressing global exploitation of children, such as curbing sex trafficking. Kohm explains that this is because “the CRC has essentially worked to set the child as his or her own rights advocate, or at best a direct adversary to those whom he or she would normally rely on, parents and state actors, for protection and provision because of the rights framework it has adopted.”
Instead of advocating a “child’s rights” paradigm, Kohm advocates a return to a “best interests of the child” approach, adding that “[c]hildren are protected only when adults have a duty to provide that protection, rather than cloaking children with the right to do so themselves.”
This has led to certain delegations calling for greater recognition of the role of parents. A recent intervention by the Holy See at the UN, for example, clarified that when promoting the protection of the rights of the child “all legislation regarding children must take into account the indispensable role of parents, for children are born of a mother and father, and into the fundamental community which is the family.”
The Guidelines were forwarded to New York for consideration by the full GA following adoption of a Brazilian-sponsored resolution annexing the Guidelines this summer at the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. Brazil is seen as the chief promoter of the Guidelines.
You can find this online at: http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1484/pub_detail.asp
Copyright 2009 © Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 495, New York 10017 – (212) 754-5948 - info@c-fam.org