Posted on 06/17/2007 5:45:53 AM PDT by cpforlife.org
Abortion The First Human Rights Abuse
Torture, political imprisonment, sexual slavery, genocide these are a few of the examples one would think of when it comes to human rights abuses. These are heinous abuses that not only Catholics, but all people of good will should fight. But in this list of atrocities, many people can forget that abortion is the earliest and most fundamental attack on human rights.
Until recently, Amnesty International documented and decried Chinas policy of coercive abortion as a human rights abuse. But earlier this year, Amnesty International changed its generally neutral stance on abortion in favor of a policy supporting abortion rights for any woman who becomes pregnant as the result of rape, sexual assault, or incest, or where a pregnancy poses a risk to a woman's life or a grave risk to her health. Health can and has been interpreted very broadly, and so this new policy opens the door to abortion on demand. By pitting womens rights over the right to life of the unborn, this policy will increase the injustice unborn babies suffer worldwide everyday.
A mothers womb should be the place where the smallest of Gods children are nurtured and protected, but abortion advocacy makes the womb a place of violence and bloodshed. Human rights groups like Amnesty International should fight to protect the beginning of life as much as they fight to stop the abuses affecting those already born, since the right to life is the foundation for every other human right.
Amnesty Internationals new policy fails to recognize not only the dignity of the child, but also the reality that many women suffer mentally, emotionally and physically after abortion. The regret from taking part in the death of their child can leave lifelong sorrow. People often dont consider that men can suffer too. Men who encouraged or who didnt have the power to stop the abortion can also be greatly impacted by the loss of their child.
Amnesty International should reconsider their new policy. If they attack the fundamental right to life, the foundation for all other human rights, then they have no credible grounds to stand upon to promote other human rights. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
As a people of faith, we have to work to prevent human rights abuses from occurring, most importantly, in the womb. We must strive to increase respect for human life from conception to natural death, to prevent abortions and the suffering of men and women. We must all work together to protect those unable to speak for themselves, born or soon to be born.
Ken Ong is Staff Assistant to the Executive Director at the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
PING, FYI.
It is the ultimate “hate crime” as well.
“America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts — a child — as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.”
Mother Teresa (Wall Street Journal, 2/25/94)
Yes it is.
The UN is now explaining to the third world that abortion is a violation of a woman's rights.
Sounds strange, the details are here.
“A mothers womb should be the place where the smallest of Gods children are nurtured and protected, but abortion advocacy makes the womb a place of violence and bloodshed.”
First off you have to believe in God. Since in a totalitarian state both mother and child belong to the state and not God, abortion does not become an act of immorality.
The act of abortion in the US is due to the left wanting to create this type of state.
We need to keep fighting the fight.
Excellent blog you have. Keep up the excellent blogging!
Spot on!
“The act of abortion in the US is due to the left wanting to create this type of state.
We need to keep fighting the fight.”
Agreed! But there’s more...
Amnesty International is a non-religious Human Rights - Civil rights group. Abortion is a Human Rights - Civil rights matter, if you are not allowed to be born all other rights are meaningless.
See:
Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
“... because life is all there is and all that matters, and
abortion destroys the life of an innocent human being.”
Opinion from a pro-life Atheist
http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/Parliament/8383/atheist.html
An Atheist Argues Against Abortion. David Hunt, PE.
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/pe_20040228.html
It is not only the ultimate discrimination, it is the ultimate way to usurp God’s sovereignty. Believing themselves wise, they became fools ...
Amen to that Marvin. And have a Happy Father’s Day!
Thank you, brother, and the same blessing to on this your Father’s Day.
The language is remarkably consonent with the Declaration of Independence. The rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are "inalienable" rights. They are not conditional rights granted by a sovereign government to its subjects, but inalienable rights, with which all men are "endowed by their Creator."
To be exact: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Mothers have no more right to terminate the lives of their innocent children than sovereigns have the right to terminate the lives of innocent subjects. Indeed, "subject" is not an American concept. The proper term is "citizen." The purpose of the state is to help citizens to come together to protect their inalienable rights from unjust usurpation over what belongs only to God.
I don't know whether Mother Teresa is speaking here as a Catholic or as a student of the American Constitution, since on these points the two converge and use similar language, for both are based on natural law theory and the Judaeo-Christian moral tradition and the understanding of man's nature as a creature of God endowed with certain freedoms.
Excellent points (as usual) Cicero.
I think that it’s an excerpt from her speech at the DC Prayer breakfast at which the Klintons and Algores were attending?
They were frozen by her words as I have read from that event.
hmmmm—fresh brewed aromatic wonderful rich flavorful coffee--awesome...
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