Submission to the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on abortion and the proposed bill of rights

29 August, 2000
John Fleming, PhD, director, Southern Cross Bioethics Institute, Adelaide, Australia Warwick Neville, BA, LLB, STD, solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Australia

List of contents

Human rights and the common good
Bills of rights
Abortion, women, children and the law
The ethos of life in Northern Ireland
Draft clause for the Northern Ireland bill of rights

Human rights and the common good

The acknowledged value of each person

A sense of solidarity with, and of duty towards, one's neighbour--particularly the poor and the vulnerable--is characteristic of human moral aspirations. This sense transcends racial, religious, and cultural boundaries, it expresses itself in the laws of civilized societies, and it effectively recognises the value of each human being.

From this acknowledgement of human dignity flows a whole range of fundamental human rights. All the world's religious and philosophical traditions have regarded rights to life, food, clothing, health and the like as deriving from the recognition of the inherent dignity of each human person.

The philosophical and religious basis for laws protecting human rights

Aristotle and many others rejected the modern notion that the law of a political community should be merely a guarantor of one person's rights against another. He holds that the purpose of law is to foster virtue in the community for its common good.

Aristotle states that: "sound politics and good law aspire not only to help make people safe, comfortable, and prosperous, but also to help make them virtuous. It is, above all, the belief that law and politics are rightly concerned with the moral well-being of members of political communities."¹

The philosopher also states that: "any polis which is truly so called, and is not merely one in name, must devote itself to the end of encouraging goodness. Otherwise a political association sinks into a mere alliance, which only differs in space from other forms of alliance where the members live at a distance from one another ... a polis is not an association for residence on a common site, or for the sake of preventing mutual injustice and easing exchange. There are indeed conditions that must be present before a polis can exist; but the presence of all these conditions is not enough, in itself, to constitute a polis. What constitutes a polis is an association of households and clans in a good life, for the sake of attaining a perfect and self-sufficing existence.... It is therefore for the sake of good actions, and not for the sake of social life, that political associations must be considered to exist."²

The commitment to fundamental human values, expressed in this century as inviolable human rights, has been a feature of all the major world religious traditions. In codes of medical ethics which have emanated from various cultural and religious traditions, there has always been an insistence on a profound respect for human life, so that killing patients, including the unborn, is excluded as gravely immoral.³

Modern statements of human rights

In the aftermath of the second world war, and in the light of the human rights violations under the third Reich, the world once again enunciated the basis of human relations in terms of fundamental values expressed as human rights.

The centrepiece of the charter of the United Nations is the connection between the recognition of the inherent dignity of all members of the human family (and of the inviolable and inalienable human rights which derive from that recognition) on the one hand, and peace and justice within and among nation states on the other.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the first of several international instruments promulgated by diverse bodies which have consistently stated, as a feature of international law, that the inherent and inviolable dignity of every member of the human family must be the foundation for any examination of individual and communal rights and responsibilities.⁴

Origins of human rights

There are some rights which the state has authority to confer (such as citizenship) but there are also fundamental rights of human beings.

Fundamental rights, including the right to life, are inherent to, and derive from, the dignity of the human person. These rights are not bestowed by governments but must be recognised by them and protected in law. Fundamental rights may find expression in rights recognised and defined by courts and the legislature, though those same organs of the state may circumscribe them.

The current Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) Draft Strategic Plan does not distinguish fundamental rights from those that the state may confer.

Bill Of Rights

Definitions

Below are some definitions that are not present in the NIHRC Draft Strategic Plan. Doubtless such matters will be dealt with in later consultations.

Bills of rights

A bill of rights is the formal codification of rights which members of a community, and the community itself, uphold as being fundamental. Such a bill seeks to preserve and/or to extend rights of persons in civil society.⁵ According to some, a bill of rights could deter the legislature from abrogating the rule of law, and from overriding the rights of minorities and individuals.⁶

Entrenched or non-entrenched bills of rights

A bill of rights can be entrenched or non-entrenched, or in the form of a charter of rights. An entrenched bill of rights usually requires adoption or alteration by referendum. A non-entrenched bill of rights would be able to be adopted or amended by the ordinary processes of parliament without a referendum.

Charters of rights

A charter of rights is a statement of standards that provides a touchstone of basic principles to which reference can be made, notably by courts, to determine certain kinds of right. It lacks independent legal force.

Bills and charters of rights and the constitution

Entrenched bills of rights have legal authority equal to the constitution. Like a constitution, an entrenched bill of rights is an instrument of paramount law. A non-entrenched bill lacks such status.

While a charter of rights cannot supplant or compete with the operation of the constitution, it can become an active legal instrument. A charter could be used as a point of reference for decision-making in a range of areas on which the constitution, or legislation, was silent or deemed inadequate by the judiciary. A fortiori would this be the case with a bill of rights, entrenched or non-entrenched.

International scrutiny

Bills of rights invariably expose a country's decisions, institutions and citizens to international scrutiny. The explanation box on page 15 of the NIHRC Draft Strategic Plan says: "As a result of the Human Rights Act 1998, people in the UK will, from 2 October 2000, be able to lodge such a complaint in their local court or during an appeal to a higher court. UK judges will then have to treat the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] as if it were a basic UK Act of Parliament with which all other laws have to comply. If a person is unhappy with the view of judges in the UK, he or she will still be able to take the case further to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg."⁷

Limitations of bills of human rights

Although a bill of rights can protect certain rights, there is no guarantee that it will not emasculate other rights. Some have queried whether such an instrument constitutes a ceiling of minimum international standards or a floor for national action.⁸

Insofar as a bill of rights will specify certain rights, it could make those rights prior to those which, for whatever reasons, are omitted. Bills of rights can also define rights in a way that may, in time, prove inadequate.

The NIHRC Draft Strategic Plan and the unborn

The Draft Strategic Plan refers to:

consultation with "the most marginalised and disadvantaged people in Northern Ireland" (page 15)
"Victims' Rights" (pages 19 and 20)
the rights of children (page 21)
the rights of persons with a disability (pages 22 and 23).

Each of these references can properly be taken to refer to the unborn.

Categories of rights

Most bills of rights contain categories or classes of rights. For example, civil and political rights would include the right to vote, the right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. Among economic, social and cultural rights would be the right to nutrition, health and education.

A hierarchy of human rights

The International Theological Commission has suggested a hierarchy of human rights. For some, religious liberty is the most foundational of rights, while for others, the equality of all persons is pre-eminent.⁹ Whichever view one takes on this, all rights inhere in all members of the human family and are all predicated upon the right to life. Without life there can be no rights.

Some rights have been incorrectly presented as fundamental rights. In the United States the right to life of unborn children has been pitted against and subordinated to expectant mothers' rights to exercise authority over their bodies. In fact, the right to life is a fundamental right, while the rights of self-determination and autonomy are, at least, secondary rights that are subject to necessary qualification.¹⁰ The unborn child has not been accorded any protection in the United States by a bill of rights.¹¹ Australia has achieved a similar result without a bill of rights. In both instances, judges were the final arbiters.

Roles of politicians and judges

Bills of rights tend to shift power to customarily unelected judges who are free to interpret cases by reference to precedent and/or to a bill or charter of rights. Some politicians, while outwardly protesting at such a shift, may be unwilling (or unable) to deal with sensitive issues. They might prefer the judiciary to decide hard cases where a political or legislative solution is unfeasible or hard to obtain.¹²

Delay caused by a charter of rights

The introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada has resulted in a proliferation of cases before the courts and a consequent lengthening of time before judgment is delivered. It has also caused problems for the administrative arm of government.¹³

Abortion, women, children and the law

Introduction

Since every abortion involves three people-a father, a mother and a child-a bill of rights should address the rights of all involved. The NIHRC's Draft Strategic Plan rightly refers to "Equality" as a "core value."¹⁴ The recognition of such equality should mean that every member of the human family in Northern Ireland, from the unborn to the frail elderly, would be treated equally, particularly before the law.

Existing international instruments

International instruments of long standing, most notably the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), refer to women's contribution to the welfare of the family and to the development of society. CEDAW speaks of the "social significance of motherhood and maternity." There is also a long-standing international repudiation of the execution of pregnant women.¹⁵

Other international instruments, such as the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide¹⁶ and the 1975 Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons¹⁷, afford protection to the unborn by not excluding them.

International instruments, particularly CEDAW, refer to the need for equality between men and women in relation to the responsibilities of the family and the raising of children. It ought therefore to be formally recognised that fathers as well as mothers have a right to ensure the protection of their unborn children.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child refers to the necessity of the state to protect children before as well as after birth, precisely because of their completely vulnerable condition. In any proposal for a bill of rights, this protection, recognised by international instruments, must be paramount.

The ethos of life in Northern Ireland

The law as it stands

"The law on abortion in Northern Ireland is governed by a combination of statute including the Offences Against the Person Act (1861), the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 1945 and case law (R v. Bourne (1939). Therapeutic terminations are carried out in Northern Ireland on strictly medical grounds (e.g. to save the life of the mother) irrespective of the stage of pregnancy."¹⁸

Organisations against the extension of the Abortion Act

The following organisations oppose the extension of the 1967 Act to Northern Ireland:

Democratic Unionist Party
Free Presbyterian Church
Northern Ireland Unionist Party
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
Roman Catholic Church
Social Democratic and Labour Party
Ulster Unionist Party

Rejections of liberalisation of abortion laws

On 29 February 1984 the Northern Ireland Assembly voted by 20 to 1 against the introduction of the Abortion Act or any like legislation to Northern Ireland. Eighteen of the 19 local authorities which debated the issue also voted to oppose such a move. In June 1990 the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion urging the British Parliament to reject an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which sought to impose the '67 Act on Northern Ireland. The amendment was defeated by 267 votes to 131.

Before the Bill was debated 7,000 personal letters protesting against the extension of the '67 Act were delivered to 10 Downing Street by Ann Widdecombe MP and two pro-life activists from Antrim. During the debate the health secretary, Kenneth Clarke, stated that the secretary of state for Northern Ireland received more than 2,000 letters objecting to the proposal. Consequently, the government issued a whip and many Conservative MPs who would otherwise have supported the amendment voted against it, including the current shadow secretary of state Andrew Mackay.

During the debate in the House of Commons 21 June 1990 the leader of the DUP, Rev Ian Paisley, said: "The overwhelming opposition is amazing, because it stretches from the Unionist parties to the nationalist SDLP. It stretches from the churches to the students' union of Queen's University, which in no way could be called a conservative or right-wing body."

For the government Mrs Virginia Bottomley stated: "To the best of my knowledge no Northern Ireland member of parliament has ever called for changes in the Northern Ireland abortion laws. Similarly, all the sounding of opinion [has] made it very clear that there is no will for such a change."

On Tuesday 20 June 2000 the new Northern Ireland Assembly adopted a motion reiterating the stance of the previous Assembly with regard to abortion on demand and the extension of the Abortion Act 1967. This followed the rejection of an amendment to refer the matter to the Assembly's Health Committee by 43 votes to 15. There was insufficient opposition to the motion to force a count and the motion was carried by acclaim.

Quotations showing elected representatives' consistent opposition to abortion

"The vast majority of people in the Province, be they Catholic or Protestant, are implacably opposed to the extension of the 1967 Act to Northern Ireland ... My own experience is that the vast majority would not consider abortion."¹⁹

"No issue which came before the assembly aroused so much public reaction. I got hundreds of letters on the matter. If the British Government do give in to British Medical Association pressure and try to extend the Act here, it will be vigorously opposed in the assembly and on the streets of Northern Ireland."²⁰

"Let me state clearly and unequivocally that the greater number of people, of all traditions, in Northern Ireland are totally opposed to abortion and would view with dismay any further promotion of the deadly abortion culture."²¹

"There is enormous cross-party support to keep the law as it stands and prevent transfer of the killing machine from Britain to Northern Ireland. It is a misconception to say that women here are being denied a right. It is not a right for anyone to take a life."²²

A DUP statement said it was unfortunate that motherhood had been devalued by the Standing Advisory Commission on Human Rights and urged that Protestants and Catholics must unite to stop any attempt to legalise abortion on demand in Northern Ireland. The document adds that abortion cannot be justified medically, cannot be justified ethically and cannot be justified morally because "abortion is always murder."²³

"The Northern Ireland Unionist Party is committed to [the] biblical principle of the sanctity of human life. The understanding that human life is sacred is the basis of Christian morality. This understanding is also the bulwark of a civilised society. The Northern Ireland Unionist Party is therefore opposed to abortion and to the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. Under the provisions of this Act 4,600,000 abortions have taken place in the United Kingdom since 1967. This is killing on a massive scale. The so-called "pro-choice" position is that it is a woman's right to kill her unborn child. There is no moral basis for such a claim. The "pro-choice" mentality is a corrosive influence on civilised standards. The Northern Ireland Unionist Party is pledged to protect the life of the unborn child."²⁴

The culture of death and the violent death of children

For all the violence of the troubles, the number of children killed or injured by violence in Northern Ireland is less than anywhere else in the UK. Child deaths as a result of violence are at 0.0 per 100,000, which means that the rates are too low to quantify.

By contrast, a league table produced by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children of child murders among the world's most developed nations list England and Wales as the fourth highest with a rate of 5.5 per 100,000. Most such children are killed when they are less than one year old.

In 1991 the Northern Ireland Health Minister Jeremy Hanley stated that "during the period 1980 to 1989 there was only one recorded maternal death resulting from an illegal abortion" in Northern Ireland.²⁵ However, between 1991 and 1993, five women in Britain died as a direct result of complications following legal abortions. In recent years the lowest rate of maternal deaths from all causes-including abortion-in the UK has been in Northern Ireland. The evidence clearly demonstrates that there is no foundation to the claims of the pro-abortion lobby that illegal, so-called back-street abortions, are being carried out in Northern Ireland.

A leader in the Irish News of 15 May 1991 stated: "Earlier this week a British High Court judge ruled that a 12-year old girl should undergo abortion against her mother's wishes...Capital punishment was abolished in the early 1960s...And yet all these years later we have another judge, sitting in secret session, condemning a life to be snuffed out before it has properly begun. This is a tragedy and a scandal. You can tell much about a society by the way it treats its most defenceless members: the elderly, the sick, the handicapped and the children. A society that sanctions and encourages abortions is a selfish, uncaring society...This scandalous affair will go down in legal history, not so much because a judge and a crowd of social workers overruled a mother's heartfelt wishes, but because it is a symbol of how the noble principles of justice become perverted in a society that does not care."

External pressure to accept liberal abortion

Rev Ivan Foster, the Free Presbyterian minister, has said: "Thankfully there has been no real demand here for abortion...indeed, any attempt to foist English abortion legislation on the North would be met by a remarkable alliance of nationalist and unionist opposition."

The National Abortion Campaign Bulletin of July 1990 stated: "The vote at Report Stage on extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland was decisively defeated, as expected and until women in the Northern start agitating for change themselves it will be hard to raise this issue in the immediate future. Unfortunately, we understand that the NI Abortion Law Reform Association has collapsed, and one reason why we are anxious to increase our resources is to give help to any revival of NIALRA or other pro-choice group that may arise."

Pressure to overturn the Province's existing laws come largely from the British pro-abortion lobby who wants Westminster to impose permissive abortion legislation on Northern Ireland.

In 1998, an English pro-abortion MP Brian Sedgemore asked the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether the Northern Ireland Bill could "affect the right of this house to impose the Abortion Act 1967 on Northern Ireland"²⁶ In a letter to The Guardian of 14 July 1998 Mr Sedgemore had complained that devolving responsibility for abortion to the Northern Ireland Assembly would "ensure that abortion will remain forever illegal in Northern Ireland."

On 20 July, the secretary of state told Parliament that the power to determine Northern Ireland's abortion laws would remain with Westminster.²⁷

Surveys of public opinion

The 1990 British Social Attitudes Survey compared public opinion in Northern Ireland with Great Britain on a variety of issues. It concluded that in Northern Ireland "there is much greater opposition to abortion, particularly where an abortion might be for social reasons."

It further remarked, "Conservatism in respect of sexual mores certainly makes Northern Ireland culturally distinct from Britain. But that distinctiveness is founded on the greater importance of religion in the province, not on denominational differences."

On 11 November 1994 the Birth Control Trust, part of the English abortion lobby, published the second of two highly questionable surveys purporting to show a majority of people in Northern Ireland to be in favour of liberal abortion. For example it said that "79% of those questioned support legal abortion where this is necessary to protect the physical or mental health of the mother".

However, the stating that an abortion was necessary in these circumstances would suggest that the mother was seriously ill or suicidal. The Registrar General's figures for Great Britain for 1993 showed that, out of 178,930 abortions, only two were carried out "in emergency--to save the life of the women" and only one "in emergency--to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the woman". Such abortions were legal before the 1967 Act and are legal already in Northern Ireland. Questions about social abortion and abortion on demand found only a small minority of support.

Mr Colin Frankcome, the long-time English campaigner for abortion on demand, has published a survey claiming 70% of doctors favoured liberalisation of abortion law in Northern Ireland. However the survey only sampled 123 Ulster GPs.

The only extensive survey of medical opinion was carried out in 1987. Dr Sean Ferguson wrote to 2,585 doctors in the province to enquire about their attitudes to the extension of the Abortion Act. 1,575 doctors responded of whom nearly two-thirds opposed extension. No survey of medical opinion since has been as comprehensive.

A public opinion poll published on 22 February 2000 and carried out by Queen's University and the University of Ulster for the Belfast Telegraph claims only 38% of voters wished to see abortion liberalised in Northern Ireland.

A poll on social issues published in the Belfast Telegraph 10 March 2000 claims 60% of 25 to 45 year olds disapprove of abortion with 26% approving and 14% undecided.

The strength of opposition to liberal abortion in Northern Ireland.

Even the pro-abortion lobby acknowledges the extent of opposition to abortion in Northern Ireland.

When moving the amendment to extend the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland, Lord Houghton said: "It seems that if there is a significant shift in public opinion in Northern Ireland, the Government would respond to that. It may be that there are difficulties in public opinion expressing itself in Northern Ireland on this matter-Why so much liberal opinion in Northern Ireland is suppressed it is difficult to understand, but there is an ethos about Northern Ireland which I am sure would be unpleasant for many of us...We can only conclude, therefore, that there is something very peculiar about Northern Ireland."²⁸

Speaking of her regrets on leaving office as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr Marjorie Mowlam, who voted to extend the '67 Act in 1990 in line with Labour Party policy, stated that she was sorry about: "...not finding a suitable moment to introduce a review of abortion law in Northern Ireland...Progress is hampered by lack of support across the parties in Northern Ireland for change in this area--big impediment--as it's called democracy."²⁹

Draft clause for the Northern Ireland Bill of Rights

This draft clause would give effect to the rights referred to in this submission.

Rights of individuals

The recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of peace and justice in Northern Ireland³⁰.
Every member of the human family is entitled to have his or her inherent dignity and inalienable rights protected in law³¹.
Every human being has the right to life, which shall be protected by law³².
No one is to have his or her rights and freedoms curtailed or infringed by reason of his or her sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, social origin, property, birth or any other status³³.
Everyone has the right to have his or her personhood recognised in law³⁴.
Every child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth³⁵.
Every child has the inherent right to life³⁶.
The state shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child³⁷.

Rights of families, women and children

The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State³⁸.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection³⁹.
The role of women in procreation should not be a basis for discrimination but that the upbringing of children requires a sharing of responsibility between men and women and society as a whole⁴⁰.
No pregnant woman shall be executed⁴¹.
The State shall ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary, as well as adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.⁴²

References

Generally, see Robert George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), especially Chapter 1.
Politics, III. 9. 1280b.
Cf, The Daily Prayer of a Physician (1793) [Jewish]; Kholasah Al Hekmah (1770) [Islamic Persia]; Seventeen Rules of Enjuin (C16 AD) [Japan]; Liber Regius (Kamel Al Sanaah al Tibbia) (C10) [Persia]; The Oath of Asaph (C3-7 AD) [Hebrew]; Caraka Samhita (C1 AD) [India]; The 10 Commandments (Exodus 20) (C13-15 BC).
See the following representative texts and the discussion of international instruments, human dignity and related concepts: H.J. Steiner & P. Alston, International Human Rights in Context: Law, Politics, Morals, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, (Fifth Edition), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Ch.XXV; A. Cassese, Human Rights in a Changing World, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994); K.E. Mahoney & P.L. Mahoney (eds.), Human Rights in the Twenty-First Century: A Global Challenge, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993); G. van Bueren, The International Law on the Rights of the Child, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1995); P. Alston (ed.), Promoting Human Rights Through Bills of Rights: Comparative Perspectives, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Ideally, particularly in the natural law tradition, a bill of rights is an attempt to define and to protect the conditions necessary for human flourishing. See, e.g. J. Maritain, Christianity and Democracy & The Rights of Man and Natural Law, (trans. D.C. Anson) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986); J. Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, [reprint] 1986); Y.R. Simon, The Natural Law Tradition - A Philosopher's Reflections, (ed. V. Kuic) (New York: Fordham University Press, 1965, 1992); R.P. George (ed.), Natural Law Theory: Contemporary Essays, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); id., Natural Law, Liberalism and Morality, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996). More generally, see Law and the Ordering of Our Life Together, (ed. R.J. Neuhaus) (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989) and A. Dyck, Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities: The Moral Bonds of Community Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1994).
See the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Sir Anthony Mason's discussion, "A Bill of Rights for Australia?" (1989) 5 Australian Bar Review 79-90. The Chief Justice has suggested elsewhere that persons generally, and perhaps minority groups in particular, would be better protected by the courts than by the legislature.
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Draft Strategic Plan: 1999-2000, p.15.
See, for example, Andrew Clapham, Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, "The European Convention on Human Rights in the British Courts: Problems Associated with the Incorporation of International Human Rights," in P. Alston (ed.), Promoting Human Rights Through Bills of Rights: Comparative Perspectives, op. cit., 95-157 at pp.134-146.
International Theological Commission, Propositions on the Dignity and Rights of the Human Person, 1983, in International Theological Commission: Texts and Documents, 1969-1985, (ed. M. Sharkey) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989) 251-66; see especially Section 1.2, "The Hierarchy of Human Rights." Logically, these rights are predicated on the right to life.
For example, there is no fundamental right to abuse drugs of addiction, not only because of the harm that they cause to the individual but also because of the harm which they cause to others. See Whitner v State of South Carolina (No.24468: Supreme Court of South Carolina, 15 July, 1996. In that case a mother who ingested crack cocaine during her pregnancy, and whose child was born with cocaine metabolites in his/her system, pleaded guilty to criminal child neglect.
The history of the judicial path that culminated in the Roe v. Wade decision of the United States Supreme Court legalising the right to terminate the life of children in utero, is succinctly set out by Mary Ann Glendon in her Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse (New York: The Free Press, 1991) 58-60. For a discussion of the same issue in other countries, see Glendon's Abortion and Divorce in Western Law, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
A good example of this is the position concerning abortion in certain states in Australia (Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria) where, as a matter of statutw law, abortion is illegal, but under common law, exceptions have been developed to allow it. See K A Peterson, Abortion Regimes, (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1993), chapter 6 "The 'Judicial' Model", pp. 129-48.
Attorney and Adjunct Fellow of Law at the Australian National University, Frank Brennan SJ was a Fulbright Scholar in Washington DC in 1995-96. Part of his research at that time concerned an assessment of the operation of the US Bill of Rights. After being an avowed supporter of and advocate for a bill of rights, his close study of the US operation of such a bill persuaded him that such documents were not the panacea they are usually promoted as being. See his Legislating Liberty, (Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1998). In a previous address, Brennan noted that, in the three year period between 1990 and 1993, there had been more than 4000 charter cases in Canada; he cited Professor Hammond in the following terms: "...[the Canadian Charter has placed] an extraordinarily heavy burden on Government and government departments who have the very difficult task of trying to ascertain what is presently in conformity with the charter and what is not." R.G. Hammond, "The Bill of Rights and the Canadian experience," (April 1987) New Zealand Law Journal 132 at p.133. F. Brennan SJ, Catholic Social Teaching and Contemporary Australian Proposals for Bills of Rights, 1993 Newman Lecture, Mannix College, Monash University.
See pp.9-11.
See the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) Art.6(5). The Travaux Préparatoires of the ICCPR states that the express intention of this article was inspired by humanitarian considerations, and by consideration of the interests of the unborn child. Indeed, the innocent ought not to die with the guilty. Generally, see M. Bossuyt in the Guide to the Travaux Préparatoires of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987).
See Article II.
See Articles 4 & 10. See further, J. Fleming & M. Hains, "What Rights If Any Do the Unborn Have Under International Law?" (1997) 16 Australian Bar Review 181.
Mr John McFall, Northern Ireland Health Minister, House of Commons Written Answers, 4 November 1998
Dr Joe Hendron SDLP health spokesman and Belfast GP, current chairman of the health committee of the new Northern Ireland Assembly
Sean Neeson current leader of the Alliance Party speaking following the 1984 assembly debate
South Belfast MP Rev. Martin Smyth, health spokesman for the UUP, quoted by Irish Independent 7 March 1995
South Down MP Eddie McGrady quoted in Belfast Telegraph 29 March 1995
Irish News 17 May 1995
Cedric Wilson MLA Leader Northern Ireland Unionist Party, press statement, 29 September 1999
letter, 21 January 1991
Hansard, 20 July 1998
Hansard, 20 July 1998
Hansard, 21 February 1990
Belfast Telegraph, 13 October 1999
Cf Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Cf Universal Declaration of Human Rights, European Convention on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 2
Cf Universal Declaration of Human Rights Articles 3 &7, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 6, European Convention on Human Rights Article 2
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 2, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 2(1), European Convention on Human Rights Article 14
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 6, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 16
Convention on the Rights of the Child Preamble, and cf the protection given to the unborn child in the forbidding of the execution of a pregnant woman, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 6(5), International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Article 10
Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 6(1), European Convention on Human Rights Article 2 and cf footnote 3
Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 6(2)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 16(3), International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Article 10(1), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 23(1)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25(2), International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Article 10(2)(3), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 24, Declaration on the Rights of the Child Preamble & Principles 2, 4, & 8, Convention on the Rights of the Child Preamble & Article 3
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women Text
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 6(5)
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women Article 12 (2), and cf International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Article 10(2)