New Assault on Conscientious Objection to Abortion

International Planned Parenthood (IPPF) has claimed that a milestone decision on conscientious objection and abortion, has been delivered by the Council of Europe (COE) Committee on Social Rights, against Italy. The decision upholds the claim made by IPPF that, regulations relating to health personnel’s conscientious objection violate the right to health protection.

According to an IPPF statement the Committee’s decision supports their view that conscientious objection cannot stand in the way of women receiving the reproductive healthcare services guaranteed by Italian law. The Italian State  they say is obliged to make sure women get access to abortion services – as and when required.

The COE Parliamentary Assembley voted down a report and resolution in 2010 known as the Mc’Cafferty report that attacked Conscientious objection and thereby affirmed that:

 “no person and no hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion [...]”.

This new initiative by IPPF and the decision of the Committee, in addition to placing pressure on Italy to change its laws, appears to be their response to the Council of Europe Parliamentary decision on the Mc Cafferty report which had halted their plans for forcing medical personnel to carry out and participate in, the killing of unborn babies regardless of their strongly held convictions.

We are investigating the legal implications of the Committee’s decision and will report further on this in due course.

New Threat to Ireland's Pro Life position from Council of Europe

Council of Europe Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg during his visit to Dublin last week demanded that the Irish Government should respond to the decision of the European Court of human Rights decision and legislate for the introduction of abortion in Ireland.

The following press release by Dana Rosemary Scallon challenges Hammarberg's demands

Council of Europe Commissioners should keep out of Irish Constitutional affairs and mind their own business. 

Commissioner Hammarberg, while visiting here last week, demanded that the Labour / Fine Gael government legislate for abortion. His meeting was hosted, according to reports, by Labour leader and Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore; Fine Gael’s Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and was also attended by members of some chosen groups.

It is not the job of Council of Europe Commissioners to act as tourists going around Europe promoting abortion. An unelected Commissioner has no right to bully and intimidate the Irish people or seek out politicians who would provide an “open door” for their agenda.

Both Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore must know full well that last year’s ECHR opinion is not binding on Ireland. The question is why did they not tell him so?    Also why did they miss the opportunity to tell him that the Irish people, as Ireland’s Attorney General has previously stated, have spoken in 3 referenda rejecting abortion?”

 Regardless of their own personal opinions it is a duty of Ministers to represent the democratic views of the Irish people. We are a Sovereign Nation and the people, under Ireland’s Constitution, make all decisions relating to this matter.

We are dealing with nothing more than an opinion of the European Court which has no legal authority and whose decision is not binding on Ireland. An Taoiseach Mr. Enda Kenny must tell the Council of Europe Commissioner that this matter can only be decided on by the Irish people and that he will also uphold his election promise not to legislate for abortion.

European Victory for the Right to Conscientious objection

We have pleasure in reporting that an attack on the right of conscientious objection to abortion by medical personnel was roundly defeated this evening in the Council of Europe.



The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted on a report, the original text of which recommended a crack-down on medical personnel who refuse to be complicit in the provision of abortion and other unethical procedures.



Senator Ronan Mullen from Ireland and Luca Volonte of Italy, led the counter attack in the assembly by proposing amendments which totally reversed the effects of the report, from a pro-abortion attack on conscientious objection to a defence of conscientious objection.
The pro-life amendments were duly accepted and Christine McCafferty, the report's British author together with her fellow pro-abortion assembly-members were therefore forced to vote against their own report.



Anthony Ozimic, communications manager of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), commented: "This evening witnessed an incredible victory for the right of staff in medical institutions to refuse to be complicit in the killing of unborn children and other unethical practices.

"SPUC is immensely grateful to the large number of our supporters who lobbied the assembly in recent months, as well as to Senator Mullen, Mr Volonte and the assembly-members who supported them", concluded Mr Ozimic.


We at European Life Network echo Anthony Ozimic's comments and add that this was a real example of all european pro-life groups co-operating successfully to defeat the anti life agenda

In the debate Senator Mullen pointed out that:
the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the rights of unborn child;
there is no human right to abortion, whereas conscientious objection is a basic principle of human rights;

Pope Benedict xvi points out the dangers of moral relativism to Council of Europe delegation

Pope Benedict XVI in an address to members of the Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was very forthright in pointing out the risks associated with moral relativism, particularly the risks of attempting to process values, rights and duties without basing them on an objective rational foundation common to all peoples. He also reiterated that these principles must be faithfully maintained when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage -- rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman.

Extract from the text of Pope Benedict’s address

[…]I have pointed out the risks associated with relativism in the area of values, rights and duties. If these were to lack an objective rational foundation, common to all peoples, and were based exclusively on particular cultures, legislative decisions or court judgments, how could they offer a solid and long-lasting ground for supranational institutions such as the Council of Europe, and for your own task within that prestigious institution? How could a fruitful dialogue among cultures take place without common values, rights and stable, universal principles understood in the same way by all Members States of the Council of Europe? These values, rights and duties are rooted in the natural dignity of each person, something which is accessible to human reasoning. The Christian faith does not impede, but favors this search, and is an invitation to seek a supernatural basis for this dignity. I am convinced that these principles, faithfully maintained, above all when dealing with human life, from conception to natural death, with marriage -- rooted in the exclusive and indissoluble gift of self between one man and one woman -- and freedom of religion and education, are necessary conditions if we are to respond adequately to the decisive and urgent challenges that history presents to each one of you.


“GUARANTEES WORTHLESS” SAYS IRELAND FOR LIFE

Ireland for Life have issued the following statement on the effect of the so called guarantees on the Lisbon Treaty

“No to Lisbon is the only means of ensuring the continued protection of the right to life of the child embryo, in Ireland. On the same day as the referendum, the other EU institution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will vote on a pro-abortion report (‘Document 11992’) ,” said the organisation’s spokesperson, Mrs. Mary Thornton.

The “guarantees” are not part of the Lisbon Treaty nor any other treaty and they have no legal effect in EU law. Declaration 17 on Primacy in the Lisbon Treaty clearly states that

“the treaties and the law adopted by the EU on the basis of the treaties have primacy over the law of the member states.”

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘The Charter’), which is attached to the Treaty, confers extensive rights upon the ECJ. The Charter, which Lisbon makes legally binding on all member countries under Article 6 of the Treaty, will have primacy.

Last June, the European Centre for Law and Justice in a written opinion stated the following;

“If the European Court of Justice were to decide that abortion is a right in interpreting The Charter of Fundamental Rights, it would appear that this decision would be binding on Ireland”

. Abortion could be claimed to be a fundamental human right.

On January 14th, 2009, the European Parliament including Irish MEPs approved a resolution urging states to recognise abortion rights among other so-called ‘rights’. The Catania Resolution was based on the provisions of The Charter.

The fact is that the ECJ would not recognise any protocol which had not already been attached to the Lisbon Treaty. Most seriously of all; what would happen in the intervening period between the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and the possible ratification of an accession treaty sometime, perhaps, in the distant future?

On this basis, Ireland For Life is calling for a ‘No’ vote in this week’s Lisbon referendum

New attempt to create a so called right to abortion

On 2 October next, on the very day when the people of Ireland are being bullied into voting – again, for the second time – on the ratification of the EU Treaty of Lisbon, the other european institution the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will vote on a pro-abortion report (‘Document 11992’) entitled ‘Fifteen years since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action’. The Committee of Ministers are being encouraged to start the development of a European Convention ‘to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights by 2015’. (Please see more about this on www.spuc-director.blogspot.com, 19 September 2009)

Now, we all know that it is acknowledged that ‘reproductive health and rights’ is the culture of death code word for ‘abortion’. It doesn’t sound as bad as saying ‘abortion’, but that’s what it is. Abortion is not about health, it is not a human right and never can be. On the contrary it is a human wrong, it is the slaughter of the innocent

Here is yet another example of the ‘creeping agenda’ of the pro-abortion/anti-life/anti-family agencies in the European Institutions, be it the Council of Europe or the European Union. Recently, I outlined the situation in Lithuania, when an EU Parliament motion censuring that country for daring to incorporate into their national laws a prohibition on the promotion of pornography, homosexuality, etc., for young people, and in schools, was carried by a majority of 349 to 218 votes by European parliamentarians, with 46 abstentions.
And, at the beginning of this year, the Catania Report (promoting abortion, and homosexual unions, etc. throughout the European Union) was comfortably passed in the European Parliament.

Back to Ireland, and the Treaty of Lisbon – of what worth are the so-called guarantees on the right to life (of the unborn?), the family, taxation, etc. These guarantees, promised by the Heads of State of the EU, are supposed to come into effect sometime in 2010, or 2011 maybe, when they will be attached as a Protocol to some future accession treaty – perhaps that of Croatia. But the guarantees are not binding in EU law, and they don’t change one jot of the Treaty of Lisbon. It’s the same Treaty that was rejected by the Irish people last year, and virtually the same document as the Constitution for Europe that was rejected by the French and Dutch people in 2005.

Something to think seriously about.

Council of Europe Vote

The Council of Europe has passed the pro-abortion resolution on child abandonment by 39 votes to one. Only 65 members of the Council turned up and just 40 took the trouble to vote on this most sensitive of issues. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children described the Council of Europe as ‘out of control’ in a press release, whilst John Smeaton, SPUC’s national director was quoted in a news bulletin as saying:

“What kind of world do politicians live in where they call for the abortion of children in order to avoid their abandonment at birth? Quite apart from the cruel fate of the children aborted, this policy will result in the abandonment of the mothers who are being aborted, and the continuation of the social problems which the report claims to address. The resolution's title describes abandonment as the first form of violence yet this is untrue. The first form of violence is abortion.”

What should have been an entirely child-centred resolution has been devalued by the addition of a pro-abortion ideology that had no place in such a resolution.

The European Centre for Law and Justice

As I reported last week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is today debating a draft resolution: Preventing the first form of violence against children: abandonment at birth.

The European Centre for Law and Justice has published a memorandum on the resolution, expressing concern about ‘the underlying promotion of abortion as a preventative alternative to abandonment.’ It states:

Whereas the aspiration of preventing abandonment of infants is an honorable and necessary societal goal, the ECLJ is extremely concerned with the politicization of the Draft Report and the unnecessary promotion of “abortion rights”.

As ever, a laudable aspiration is being hijacked to promote unethical polices that are outside the competence of the Council of Europe.

Resolution on Abandonment and Adoption of Children

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is scheduled to debate a draft resolution adopted by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee in March, "Preventing the first form of violence against children: abandonment at birth", on Friday next June 27th. The goal of the resolution is to consider ways to reduce the numbers of children abandoned at birth in member States and to protect the rights of abandoned children, such as the right to determine their origins.

There are many good aspects to the resolution such as the promotion of support for pregnant women in difficulty. However, this is also a pro-abortion resolution which pushes issues such as sexual rights and reproductive health services. In essence abortion is regarded as a preferable option to a later abandonment when in reality both options are completely unacceptable. There also seems to be confusion in the report and the text of the resolution between criminal abandonment and legitimate decisions to place children for adoption.

See John Smeaton's blog for more information on the resolution and how to contact the representatives of your country on the Council.