For more information: Joshua Edmonds, (678) 597-8055, [email protected]

On International Human Rights Day, National Right to Life and Georgia Life Alliance 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 Georgia affiliate, Georgia Life Alliance (GLA) 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.

“As the leading pro-life group in Georgia, a state that made history by passing the first law to recognize fetal personhood in America, we bear a unique responsibility to condemn the U.N.’s continued refusal to recognize human rights of babies in the womb,” said GLA’s Executive Director, Joshua Edmonds. “We are honored to join National Right to Life Committee and our fellow affiliates around the country in calling the U.N. to refuse the influence of the abortion industry and join us on the moral high ground to protect all human life.”

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.

Founded in 1968, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), the federation of affiliates in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia and more than 3,000 local chapters, is the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization. Recognized as the flagship of the pro-life movement, National Right to Life works through legislation and education to protect innocent human life from abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Georgia Life Alliance is the largest pro-life group in our state and the only state affiliate to National Right to Life. Since being founded nearly a decade ago, GLA has worked diligently to renew passion in the fight for the sanctity of human life. With our team sharing more than 50 years of pro-life leadership experience, GLA has grown to be one of the most influential names in Georgia politics. We are leading the fight for life in elections, policy, and education statewide and have united the pro-life movement in our communities to champion the same vision for Georgia: to build a culture of life together for the preborn, the elderly, the differently-abled, women in crisis, and children in need of loving families.

###