Sign our petition asking U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to say NO to abortion at the United Nations

The right to life is constantly under attack at the United Nations.

Pro-abortion activists have long pushed for making abortion a human right. They have long advocated for including language calling for the provision and legalization of “safe abortion” and “post-abortion care” services in U.N. publications and conference statements. They have been hard at work to undermine the work of U.N. human rights bodies, specialized agencies, funds, programs, and other U.N.-affiliated international organizations to serve their ideology.

Lately, the attacks on the right to life in the U.N. system have grown both in frequency and severity as pro-abortion activists have pushed ever closer to achieving their goal of creating a legal obligation on states to legalize abortion on-demand.

U.N. treaty-based bodies like the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women have been abusing their mandates by pushing for abortion access on unsuspecting state parties.

These bodies have now gone so far as to call sexual and reproductive health, including the provision of “safe abortion,” a “human right.” They have called on independent countries to legalize abortion under expansive terms.

It is time to stop the abortion activism at the United Nations. We are asking United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley to defend the right to life for the unborn across the United Nations system using the full range of diplomatic avenues available.

Sign our petition now to ask U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to say NO to abortion at the U.N.

It is important that we take a stand now for the right to life for all. Pro-abortion activism is evident across much of the United Nations system.

Charter-based human rights bodies, such as the Human Rights Council, routinely subject independent states to rebuke for having pro-life laws that prohibit abortion.

Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, including a number of independent experts and special rapporteurs, have attempted to place pressure on pro-life countries to legalize abortion under a variety of circumstances.

The World Health Organization (WHO), a specialized agency of the U.N., regularly publishes manuals and other publications which instruct health care professionals on how to perform abortions. The WHO regularly advocates for access to “safe abortion.”

Many other U.N. specialized agencies, funds, and programs like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNAIDS, UNESCO, and the World Bank have published, co-published, or contributed to U.N. publications calling on independent states to legalize abortion. One such publication declares:

Laws should also be enacted to ensure women’s reproductive and sexual rights, including the right of independent access to reproductive and STD health infor­mation and services and means of contraception, including safe and legal abortion and the freedom to choose among these^[i]

Treaty monitoring bodies such as the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee against Torture, and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights now routinely call upon state parties to decriminalize and legalize abortion.

Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) states that treaties should be interpreted “in good faith” and according to “the ordinary meaning” of the text “in light of its object and purpose.” Although no international human rights treaty drafted through the United Nations system guarantees a “right” to abortion, several treaty monitoring bodies have attempted to progressively reinterpret these treaties. In doing so, treaty monitoring bodies have placed considerable pressure on countries to decriminalize and legalize abortion under a variety of circumstances.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has a strong and long history defending the right to life. As Governor of South Carolina, Haley signed into law numerous pro-life bills including the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act and the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, prohibiting all abortions after 20 weeks, including in cases of rape or incest. In 2012, she signed into law a bill that prevents Affordable Care Act subsidies from financing health care plans that include coverage for elective abortion and in 2016, she signed a similar measure prohibiting elective abortion coverage in the State Health Plan. In 2015, then-Gov. Haley opened an official investigation into Planned Parenthood after the scandal broke where it was alleged that the organization was trafficking in aborted baby body parts.

During her Senate confirmation hearings, Ambassador Haley promised to defend the right to life at the United Nations. “I am strongly pro-life, so anything we can do to keep from having abortions, or to keep them from not knowing what is available, I will support,” she  said. Under Ambassador Haley’s leadership, the United States delegation to the Human Rights Council has refused to recognize abortion as a component of reproductive health.

Between Ambassador Haley’s stellar pro-life record and her mastery of political tact, the years ahead may be the best opportunity we have had in a generation to significantly roll back pro-abortion activism at the United Nations.

And it could not have come at a more crucial time.

In recent years, pro-abortion activists throughout the U.N. system have become increasingly bolder in pushing for a universal “right” to abortion. In 2005, the Human Rights Committee for the first time declared a country in violation of an international human rights treaty for not providing access to abortion.^[ii]

In 2016, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No. 22, calls on independent to states to commit to “repealing or reforming discriminatory laws, policies and practices in the area of sexual and reproductive health…to liberalize restrictive abortion laws; to guarantee women and girls access to safe abortion services.”^[iii] General Comment No. 22 further calls upon state parties to provide information for abortion services, to remove legal penalties for persons who break the law with respect to abortion, to repeal laws requiring parental consent for abortions performed on minors, and to require that states ensure “universal access” to abortion.

Recently, the Human Rights Committee has found Ireland (not once, but twice)^[iv] and Argentina^[v] to be in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under the complaints procedure outlined in treaty’s Optional Protocol. The Human Rights Committee claims that Ireland and Argentina were in violation of their obligations under the treaty for no other reason than because abortion is illegal in those countries.

In 2017, the Human Rights Committee approved of the first reading of the draft for General Comment No. 36 which would redefine the ‘right to life’ to mean that state parties “must” legalize abortion in cases of health, rape, incest, fetal disability and “in situations in which carrying a pregnancy to term would cause the woman substantial pain or suffering.”^[vi]

We therefore call upon Ambassador Nikki Haley to use the full power and influence of her office to fight for and defend the right to life for every human being including the unborn child, the elderly, the infirm, the disabled, women and children. We call upon the United States mission to the U.N. (USUN) to use all diplomatic avenues available to combat pro-abortion activism across the entire United Nations system.

We call upon Ambassador Haley and the entire USUN to pay special attention to the upcoming elections for treaty body members in 2018 for the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It is imperative that the new members elected to treaty monitoring bodies respect international law with respect to the correct interpretation of treaties as encapsulated by the VCLT and that treaty monitoring body members respect the right to life for the unborn and other vulnerable members of the human family without qualification of any kind.

Sign our petition now to ask U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to say NO to abortion at the U.N.