David QuinnIn demanding changes, the Human Rights Committee is exceeding its authority, writes David Quinn
The UN Human Rights Committee has issued its report about Ireland following our recent appearance before it in Geneva. If the report was any more one-sided it would fall over. It might as well have been written by the editorial-writer of The Irish Times.
I’ll come to what it has to say about abortion further on, but first of all let’s have a look at what it has to say about some other issues.
For example, it comments on the Magdalen laundries, symphysiotomy, the mother and baby homes, corporal punishment, ‘gender recognition’, our schools, our blasphemy law, and religious oaths among others.
The report was issued only a week after our appearance before the committee. That meant it was issued with unseemly haste.
Basically, it gives the very strong impression that it was heavily based on the reports of the Irish organisations that suited it, above all that of the left-wing lobby group, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties which is lavishly funded from the United States.
Focus
The bias of the committee is shown by the very issues it choose to focus on. Why single out Ireland over our Magdalen laundries when other countries had similar or identical institutions?
Why single out Ireland over the mother and baby homes when once again other countries had similar or identical institutions?
Why focus on the predominance of denominational schools here but say nothing about countries where the education system is completely dominated by the state?
Why single us out over the use of symphysiotomy when to this day it is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an alternative to caesarean sections in certain circumstances?
Looking in a bit more detail at this last issue, from media reports on the matter we could easily come to believe that symphysiotomy was essentially a cruel and barbaric procedure invented by the Catholic Church because of its opposition to contraception and that it was unique to Ireland.
In fact, it was used in only a tiny minority of births even at its peak during the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, something the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has confirmed.
It appears to have been used here on a somewhat more widespread basis for a time than in other Western countries. But that alone shows its use extended beyond Ireland and as mentioned it is recommended by the WHO today in certain limited circumstances.
The institute also reports that we do not know whether it results in more complications than ordinary delivery.
Consent
On the issue of consent, the institute says that in the past it was assumed that when a person entered hospital they were consenting to whatever emergency treatment a doctor deemed necessary.
Of course, as with any other medical procedure, symphysiotomy should only be carried out when absolutely necessary. Women who underwent symphysiotomy unnecessarily should be compensated.
The committee demands that a thorough State investigation into the Magdaen homes be carried out. But Martin McAleese already drew up a report on behalf of the State. Why is that ignored? It is because its conclusions were too nuanced for the committee members and the relevant Irish NGOs?
And again, why has the committee not recommended similar investigations in other countries?
With regard to ‘gender recognition’ (that is, declaring someone who is physically male to be really a female and vice versa), the committee complains that a married person whose new gender has been officially recognised by the State cannot stay married because now they would be married (in the eyes of the State) to someone of the same gender.
The only way to overcome this is for the State to recognise same-sex marriage. But let’s note that the European Court of Human Rights has recently confirmed that there is no right to same-sex marriage in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights, while by no means infallible, is a far higher human rights authority than the UN Committee on Human Rights.
Turning now to the subject of abortion, the committee finds grave problems with our abortion law. It wants us to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, ‘serious risks to the health of the mother’ (as distinct from her life) and fatal foetal abnormality.
These changes would lead to abortion on demand and would require a constitutional referendum. Don’t rule this out in the next few years.
In demanding these changes, the committee is far exceeding its authority. Nothing in any UN document creates a right to abortion and as I argued last week in The Irish Catholic, the various documents cited by this UN committee, and others, are subject to many and conflicting interpretations. There is absolutely no requirement to interpret them in ways congenial to the editorial-writers of The Irish Times or the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
Human Rights
Indeed, no single, authoritative interpretation of human rights exists. Whenever organisations speak of ‘human rights’, what they mean is their own interpretation of human rights.
Simply declaring something is a ‘human right’ does not make it so. When the UN Committee on Human Rights comes down so hard in favour of one particular interpretation of human rights it simply loses authority.
Indeed, few other Western countries take these UN reports as seriously as we do. That alone says something.
