Friday, February 02, 2007

Vatican Ignores Human Rights...Again!!

The Holy See will not approve a UN treaty on the rights of the disabled, because of 'unacceptable' language referring to legalised abortion and gender rights.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore (pic'd here), the Vatican’s permanent observer at the UN, has announced that the Vatican cannot accept the terms of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which won approval by the General Assembly in December.

While strongly favouring the rights of the disabled, Archbishop Migliore explained, the Vatican cannot assent to the treaty’s treatment of 'reproductive rights.'

That phrase has frequently been interpreted by UN officials as a call for legal abortion. Vatican delegations have expressed reservations about the use of the term in previous UN documents, notably including the statements issued by the Cairo and Beijing conferences in 1994 and 1995, respectively.

Because some countries now consider abortion an intrinsic aspect of 'reproductive rights', the archbishop explained, the Holy See is fighting against the inclusion of that phrase in the treaty on the disabled. As it stands, he said, the phrase is 'denying the inherent right to life of every human being', despite assurances elsewhere in the treaty.

'It is surely tragic,' Archbishop Migliore said, that 'the same Convention created to protect persons with disabilities from all discrimination in the exercise of their rights, may be used to deny the very basic right to life of disabled unborn persons.'

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Disclaimer

No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.

The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.

Sotto Voce