United Nations delegates today approved a world treaty guaranteeing the rights of people with disabilities. But pro-family experts say what is intended for good could wind up being misused for evil.
Thomas Jacobson, Focus on the Family Action's representative to the U.N., said the idea behind the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is good -- even though it deals with an issue that should probably be left up to individual nations. But the international body has raised to an art the use of phrasing that appears to mean one thing, but is regularly interpreted to allow abortion and euthanasia.
Some of the language in the treaty, he said, is extremely pro-life. For example, the preamble talks about "the inherent worth and dignity" of all people, including those with disabilities -- while other sections guarantee the right to life and to family, at least on the surface.
However, there are also some serious pitfalls, Jacobson said.
"It's ironic that a draft convention (treaty) designed to protect persons with disabilities could actually be used -- if it is misinterpreted in certain ways -- by countries that want to do exactly the opposite," he said.
Jacobson cites Article X of the convention, which reads: "State parties reaffirm that every human being has the inherent right to life, and shall take all necessary measures to ensure its effective enjoyment by persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others."
Note carefully, Jacobson said, that the treaty doesn't say that "every person with disability" or "every preborn child with a disability" has the right to life.
"It says 'every human being,' " he noted. "In some countries, like the United States, preborn children are not considered lawful human beings and are not protected by the laws."
The treaty also could be interpreted to mean that if a nation allows any preborn babies to be aborted, it must allow disabled or deformed babies to be aborted.
Another problematic provision, dealing with home and family, says that persons with disabilities have "the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children" -- and it requires nations to provide whatever means are necessary to exercise these rights.
"The only way you can control the spacing of your children, if you are pregnant, is to eliminate the child you don't want," Jacobson said. "That could be twisted for abortion."
Moreover, for the first time in U.N. history, this treaty would make access to "sexual and reproductive health services" an international human right.
"Sadly, the World Health Organization, other U.N. entities and a number of countries interpret that language to not only include contraception, but also abortifacients and abortion," Jacobson noted.
He said while many nations in the U.N. oppose abortion, it often ties aid to the acceptance of abortion as a form of "reproductive health care."
The treaty language could be misused by some nations to justify other highly questionable practices, far beyond abortion and euthanasia.
"If you are a disabled person in the Netherlands, they guarantee your sexual and reproductive rights and services," Jacobson said. "Part of those 'services' is the fact that once a month a disabled person is provided with a prostitute. That is not the intent of this treaty. But that's probably how the Netherlands will interpret this."
Bill Saunders, human-rights counsel for the Family Research Council, said one might think that nations wouldn't ratify treaties that have such loopholes.
"The weird thing is that nations will ratify treaties in which the language is not explained, and for which the parties have different interpretations as to what it means," Saunders told CitizenLink. "It becomes problematic when the treaties call for treaty-monitoring bodies. Usually they are committees of 'experts', usually from the left, and they will typically say the language means something different than what you thought it did."
Because the General Assembly has approved the disability treaty, the U.N. will make it available for ratification by nations in March 2007.
"If nations are going to ratify this, they should put in certain qualifiers," he added. "They should say, 'We are ratifying this document with the understanding that it is designed to protect the inherent worth and dignity of every human being -- including those who are not yet born.'
"They should also say that 'No article of the treaty shall be used to justify the termination of a preborn child who is disabled, or to euthanize any disabled person, at any point in life.' "
