Europe: Abortion to be a “human right”?

We lacked only this last confirmation of how wickedly obtuse people have become.

This is perverse.

From CNS:

EU May Declare Abortion a ‘Human Right’

(CNSNews.com) – European lawmakers this month will vote on a measure that promotes abortion as a fundamental human right, while taking aim at the conscientious objection rights of pro-life doctors and health workers.

Critics see the move as an attempt to dictate abortion policy to individual European Union governments, despite an acknowledgement by leading E.U. institutions that there is no consensus on the matter across the 28 member-states.

The controversial draft report, which is being promoted by socialist members of the European Parliament (MEPs), was passed last month by the legislature’s committee on women’s rights and gender equality.

According to supporting documents, 20 E.U. member-states legally permit abortion on demand, while six others have limitations which are either interpreted broadly (Britain, Finland, Cyprus) or restrictively (Ireland, Poland, Luxembourg). Malta prohibits all abortions. (The 28th and newest member, Croatia, had not joined the E.U. when the legislation was being drafted.)

Even in countries where abortion is legal, the report states, it is often made unavailable “through the abuse of conscientious objection or overly restrictive interpretations of existing limits.”  Other obstacles include “medically unnecessary waiting periods or biased counseling.”

(Some E.U. countries have compulsory waiting period of up to seven days and pre-abortion counseling, either for all women or in some cases for adolescents only.)

The measure would therefore require member states to “regulate and monitor the use of conscientious objection so as to ensure that reproductive health care is guaranteed as an individual’s right, while access to lawful services is ensured and appropriate and affordable referrals systems are in place.”

An explanatory note complains that objectors deny women information about and access to “lawful interruption of pregnancy.”

[…]

Can you read the signs of the times?

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24 Comments

  1. Justalurkingfool says:

    A “human right” to take the life of a defenseless child? This is to take an axe to one’s roots. It is utter madness!

  2. Lin says:

    It certainly is “utter madness”. But I fear our country is not far behind on this issue. When I go to the March for Life in DC each year and participate in other pro-life activities, there seems to be some hope that the tide will turn in God’s time. Satan has a firm hand on the pro-choice faction world wide. We must pray, fast, and do penance!

  3. Traductora says:

    This is beyond upsetting. What they are essentially saying is that murder of a defenseless person by a more powerful person is a “human right.”

    In other words, if that person is not yet born, or born handicapped, or has been rendered powerless by an accident or illness, or has gotten too old to be powerful…it is a human right of the powerful to kill them.

    The Pope needs to go out there right now and stop this.

  4. Ella says:

    The bitter fruit of the contraceptive mentality- how hideous it is!

  5. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    The attack on conscience and being freely able to act upon it is one of the main ones on many ‘battle fronts’ (and has been to some considerable, and growing, extent for a quarter-century at least, in my experience).

    This adds good detail on the matter reported here:

    http://www.europeandignitywatch.org/day-to-day/detail/article/european-parliament-will-vote-on-report-that-wants-to-gravely-diminish-freedom-of-conscience.html

    Note this, too:

    http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/10/07/20/14/doctor-investigated-for-refusing-abortion

    while on another front:

    http://www.crisismagazine.com/2013/gay-persecution-of-christians-the-latest-evidence

  6. StJude says:

    Lord have mercy on us.

  7. inexcels says:

    Western nations defeated the evils of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, then outlasted the Soviet Union through the Cold War…. only to enshrine horrors even worse than those committed by the vile regimes they defeated. The West may have won its major wars militarily in the 20th century, but it has grievously lost its wars morally. With what this civilization has become, I cannot call myself proud to be part of it.

  8. Nan says:

    I thought human rights applied to everyone, male or female? Abortion inherently applies only to women. Men of the EU should sue for gender-based discrimination. After all, nobody’s giving them the right to kill their children.

  9. anilwang says:

    Nan, be careful about pressing this logic. In this day and age it would mean that an abortion/infanticide must happen if the man involved wants it…even if there is conscientious objection on the part of the woman:

    http://www.lifenews.com/2013/08/30/bro-choice-men-prove-abortion-is-the-ultimate-exploitation-of-women/

  10. Priam1184 says:

    It is atrocious that abortion will officially be declared a ‘human right’ but our politics have de facto treated it as such for quite a long time now. Our world is dying. Pray the Rosary every day.

  11. Imrahil says:

    In one of the 20 states where abortion is, here, said to be legal, it is not.

    Abortion in Germany is illegal by Constitution.

    It is let free of punishment upon previous counseling, for the sake, or the ostensible sake, to combat it better this way.

    Still that’s illegal to me; the supporters here did not get their facts right.

    That said, the power of the Euripean Parliament is rather limited.

  12. Eonwe says:

    Even though the ideas that have led to legalized abortion (moral relativism, utilitarianism, a lack of following morality/Christianity to its logical extent, materialism etc…) are taking more of a hold on our culture, I have to agree with Lin. The Pro-Life movement among the young is very strong and I have seen it growing ever since I have been in high school (40 Days for Life, Youth Pro-Life groups, etc…). The legal status of abortions will probably continue to affect our personal lives more (boo HHS Mandate), but I think that this will spark the Pro-Life movement even more. As Saint Paul says, “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound.”

  13. Siculum says:

    The European Union is merely following the model of the UN, where the proposal to make access to artificial contraception and abortion a “universal right.” At the same time, many in the UN would like the Holy See “demoted” from its permanent observer status, even though it is a sovereign nation-state, and brought down to the level of any other NGO (non-governmental organization). This would have great implications for the Holy See, as it currently is allowed in top-level open sessions of the General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council, and the United Nations Economic and Social Council to observe their work and provide a sound moral voice to the secular nation-states involved.

    Because the Church’s pro-life and pro-traditional-family stances are deemed “extreme” by many around the world today, we’re actually being lumped with the fundamentalist Islamic nation states and terrorist organizations, who happen to share some similar stances (but apply them…shall we say…more brutally). Following that, isn’t it curious as to why the Deutsche Bank Italia cited concerns that the Holy See could be funneling monies to terrorist-type organizations, and we went through this whole IOR “transparency” thing this past year?

    I don’t have any sources at hand, but I think we all could do our own research, and find something of a pattern here.

  14. JoseTomas says:

    Nemo iustus coram Domino

  15. Johnno says:

    More Doctors and medical professionals refuse to perform abortions. So therefore they must be forced or lose their jobs. This is what that is about. You have no freedom of conscience, or freedom fo religion. You must serve the idol Baal, the World Government has spoken!

  16. If abortion is a “human right” what happens to the most fundamental right of all, the right to merely exist? Abortion, the most abhorrent of murders, opens the door for murder to satisfy ANY motivation the mob-rule decides. The “enlightened” liberal mind is idiotically naive.

  17. Joseph-Mary says:

    The ‘right to life’ has already been taken away in the US….and 60 million abortions later, it is still protected and poised to grow even more, funded by tax dollars. And then there is euthanasia and also what is called ‘involuntary euthanasia’ which is, of course, murder too. Then there will be the disabled, the mentally ill, and etc. We did not learn from Nazism and communism.

    May God intervene! I know His justice will not be pretty but, how long O Lord?

  18. Kathleen10 says:

    I’m with you, Joseph-Mary. I pray for God’s return, as Fr. Z. mentioned in his discussion of the Collect. I’m wholly tired of this world and it’s horrible evils. It can only be borne with hope in the Lord.
    inexels point is interesting too. I don’t know where abortion began, but I just heard it began in Russia. Our Lady of Fatima spoke to the errors from Russia, which I always assumed was purely atheism. But the United States has become the champion of abortion, to our shame. People like Hillary Clinton have made sure it is forced upon smaller nations if they receive our dirty money. If you want our help, you must accept our sickness.
    I don’t want to add negativity, truly, we have enough already. So forgive me, but I have been reading about a very dark movement, that is getting more press lately. I first heard of this being more openly proposed about a year ago. In WND (World Net Daily I think) there is an article by Matt Barber. He is writing about a conference held in the last year, where there were professionals, professors, and so on, openly promoting sexual activity between adults and children. Again, I apologize for mentioning this disturbing concept. But if you read the article you will see what we need to be vigilant about. The next step for gay activists is removing the age of consent, or mention of relationships being between “consenting adults”. There are actually people who are claiming it is right and good, healthy for children, to be in sexual relationships with adults, and these arguments are gaining traction!
    So I do ask God to help us. We are in dire times. Evil has a firm hold on America, Europe, and only God can help us.
    In the meantime, we must all stay vigilant to any discussion of “consent”, and do whatever we can, at at time we can, to draw a line in the sand and positively say, NOT THIS. Our children, you may not have.
    One of the professors teaches at Johns Hopkins, believe it or not. I have written and complained to them some time ago when this all became public. I encourage all, if time and energy permits, to do the same. The article by Matt Barber is disturbing, but we can never allow such perversions to remain unchallenged, and as we have seen, the more openly disorder is argued, the more quickly the culture becomes impatient with dissent, equating disapproval with bigotry and mindless “hate”. These will predictably be used in order to gain approval or at least acquiescence on this issue as well. This is the natural culmination of the homosexual movement. Having their way with children with cultural endorsement will be the pinnacle of their achievement, and they can then relax and enjoy the complete destruction of civilization that they have brought about.
    Again, I am sorry to mention this. It is so ugly. But we must be informed or we will be useless to protect the innocent children we all want to protect.
    God help us.

  19. Gratias says:

    In an interview published last month Pope Francis said that the Church “cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods… We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the Church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

  20. pannw says:

    Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them.

    I have an idea how poor Lot felt.

  21. Lin says:

    @Absit Invidia…… The “enlightened” liberal mind is idiotically naive.
    That is a great line and how true! The liberals I know personally are not religious. Perhaps that blinds them from the TRUTH!?! One of my liberal friends told me recently that I was a bigot for fearing Sharia law. I am not sure how she made that leap and I told her so and she quickly changed the subject. I find that the only defense they can offer up for abortion, gay marriage, etc., are to recite the Democratic talking points. And of course conservatives would let people starve in the streets. I thank GOD for my faith, hope, and understanding every minute of every day. And wonder often, why am I so blessed!

  22. Legisperitus says:

    Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

    Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

  23. Spaniard says:

    Welcome to Europe. It is already a women’s right in Spain

  24. Midwest St. Michael says:

    Abortion to be a “human right”?

    Yes, and to those who espouse this sentiment I look at them and say, “I am glad your mother did not have this so-called ‘right.'”

    MSM

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