2021 Human Rights Day - NDRL and NRLC Release Statement

On International Human Rights Day, National Right to Life and North Dakota Right to Life Remind the United Nations that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Protects the Rights of the Unborn Child; It Does Not Protect Abortion

WASHINGTON – Today, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and it’s North Dakota affiliate, North Dakota Right to Life, sent a letter to the Hon. Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Ambassador Nazhat Shameem Khan, president of the United Nations Human Rights Council reprimanding “human rights experts” from the United Nations.

These so-called experts have falsely declared the United States to be in violation of international law because of SB 8, the Texas law that protects unborn children whose hearts have begun to beat. Many of these same “experts,” in an unprecedented act, filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case which concerns Mississippi’s law that protects unborn babies after 15 weeks gestation.

The brief file by U.N. “experts” asserts that “international human rights law should guide the Supreme Court,” and it also claims that laws protecting unborn children are violations of “the United States’ obligations under the human rights treaties it has signed and ratified.”

But, as Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, noted in the letter, “[This claim by the so-called experts] is absolutely false. No United Nations treaty can plausibly be interpreted to require the legality of elective abortion. No right to abortion has ever been established in international law.”

In a move that clearly would violate the sovereignty of the United States, these so-called experts from the United Nations are trying to undermine U.S. law and self-government by making false claims about international law and the intent of treaties signed by the United States.

Tobias continued,

[The U.N. experts] have sought to do the same in many other countries as well. We will not stand for it…

At the National Right to Life Committee and across all 50 states, our mission is to advocate for the human rights of these vulnerable members of the human family. We will not stop until they receive the respect and protection they deserve.

The letter notes that the treaties and declarations signed and agreed to by the United States do the opposite of what the U.N. experts claim:

…the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights], the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)—support the equal protection of human beings at all developmental stages and in all conditions. The ICCPR states, “Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life” (Article 6.1). The CRC affirms that “the child … needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth” (preamble).

 The letter to the United Nations can be found here.

Sincerely,
McKenzie McCoy
North Dakota Right to Life