When a Human Rights Committee abandons human beings...by Cora Sherlock

To listen to some abortion advocates over the past few days, you would be forgiven for thinking that we were dealing with a court with full jurisdiction and authority over Ireland. This is not the case.  The UN Human Rights Committee (HRC) is simply that – a Committee.  It does not have the right to impose its views on Ireland.

The Committee came to its conclusion based on its interpretation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and specifically Article 7.  That provides that “no-one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”.  This is the headline which is receiving blanket coverage in the Irish media and is being used by abortion advocates to push the case for a referendum to remove the 8^th Amendment which guarantees that unborn babies have an equal right to life under Irish law.

There are two important points to be borne in mind.

The first is that the HRC simply doesn’t have credibility to discuss “torture” in the abortion issue. This is because of how it constantly ignores other instances that would stand out as examples of extreme torture, caused by the abortion procedure.  For example, the case of babies who survive abortions when they’re not meant to.  Melissa Ohden spoke about this sick phenomenon in Dublin last weekend and the situation where, (in her words), “babies born alive after botched abortions are abandoned as they gasp for breath and struggle to stay alive.”

This happened to 66 babies in one year alone according to official records in England and Wales.  It happened to over 400 babies in Canada over a 10 year period.  This type of inhumane treatment of newborn babies amounts to “torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” by anyone’s reckoning – except maybe the HRC.  They have certainly never publicly challenged this practice.  They have never criticised the countries that have allowed this horrific abuse to take place.  They have simply stayed silent.

Silent too has been Amnesty International, who were once a watchdog for all those who threatened the rights of human beings.  Instead, they have fallen in line with a twisted notion of “human rights” which allows international bodies to push for laws that will allow lives to be ended.

This brings us to the second reason why everything this Committee says should be considered as a partisan comment.  They don’t look at the bigger picture.  There is no mention in their report of any rights that unborn babies might have.  As far as the HRC is concerned, the baby’s rights count for nothing.  This is despite the fact that Article 6.1 of the ICCPR states that “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.”

This is a very strong statement of the right to life of “every human being”, and one that doesn’t distinguish between “born” and “unborn” human beings.   Article 6.5 provides for the death penalty to be imposed on some individuals but notes that it is not to be carried out on pregnant women. Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty (and I oppose it), anyone reading this section of the ICCPR will see that its authors made a distinction between pregnant women, and non-pregnant women.  They recognised that there was another human being involved – an unborn baby who could not have taken part in any crime and who should not have their life ended via the death penalty.

The Preamble to the ICCPR talks about how “the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” 

Yesterday’s comments prove just how far the HRC have drifted from genuine human rights.  Their viewpoint is so narrow that they have completely ignored the Article in the ICCPR which highlights the most basic human right, the right to life. The unborn baby doesn’t even get a look in.  His or her rights are completely ignored. There is no attempt to acknowledge the fact that a pregnant woman and her baby are two individuals who are each entitled to rights under the law.

The Irish Constitution doesn’t have this kind of narrow focus.  Thanks to the 8^th Amendment, it protects the lives of all human beings in Ireland. In that sense, it is far more in line with the true intention of the ICCPR and what should be the goal of international human rights protection the world over – protecting the lives of every human being, born and unborn. It’s a sad state of affairs when this kind of positive protection is criticised by a Committee claiming to speak out for human rights. 

RTE isn't an abortion lobby group and it's time for its presenters to accept that fact...by Cora Sherlock

For the second time in 6 months, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has upheld a complaint against the Ray D’Arcy Show on RTE Radio 1 for their treatment of the abortion issue. 

As they criticised the biased and one-sided nature of the interview, the BAI said that it was “set out so as to encourage support for the Amnesty International campaign” on making abortion more widely available in Ireland. 

The reaction has in Ireland has been swift.  Pro-life supporters were quick to comment on the Pro Life Campaign facebook page and contact the office to say how happy they were that the BAI was doing its job – highlighting items of extreme bias where public funds were being used by RTE to promote one side of a very complex and sensitive debate.

Predictably though, there was a lot of anger from prochoice activists who could not accept that RTE has breached the Code – despite the fact that this is not the first time (a complaint was upheld against the Ray D’Arcy Show for an interview with Colm O’Gorman of Amnesty Ireland when the Amnesty research was being launched). 

Despite the tone of some of these comments, there is no mystery or conspiracy here.  RTE is a publicly funded entity.  Everyone pays for it through the licence fee.  It doesn’t have the freedom that private organisations do and whether some prochoice activists like it or not, it is bound by the BAI Code of Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality in News and Current Affairs.  Section 4.22 of that Code places an obligation on broadcasters to ensure “that the audience has access to a wide variety of views on the subject of the programme or item”.  And now, for the second time, the BAI has found that the Ray D’Arcy Show has failed to meet what most people would feel is a reasonable standard for a station that relies on public funding. 

On the first occasion, the complaint concerned an interview with Colm O’Gorman.  When upholding that complaint, the BAI went so far as to say that the presenter Ray D’Arcy “endorsed the views of this interviewee and was articulating a partisan position.”   They also found that the anecdotes and human interest aspects discussed on the show were “highlighted with a view to supporting the objectives of Amnesty International, which is to bring about a change in the Irish Constitution.”  If this concerned any other group or topic, there would be huge outcry about RTE taking a position so obviously.   But many abortion advocates were shocked at this earlier decision, just as they are at the latest one.  Seeking some other explanation, they are unable to accept that RTE could have adopted a partisan position, or that the BAI should uphold a complaint when this happens.   

It never seems to occur to those picking holes in this decision that entire groups of people in Ireland are completely side-lined by RTE's biased approach. Families who were pressured to have abortions when told their babies wouldn't survive for very long or not at all, women whose lives were drastically affected by abortion regret, people who have direct experience of the positive effects of the 8th Amendment - these are all ignored by programmes that adopt a pro-abortion mindset.  These people are obliged by Irish law to pay the licence fee to RTE - aren't they entitled to feel that their experiences will be reflected on-air?  

This ongoing bias is a very serious matter.  It clearly wasn’t dealt with or even properly addressed by RTE back in January when the complaint against the interview with Colm O’Gorman was upheld.  Here we are, nearly 6 months on and another complaint has been upheld by the BAI.  This has to stop.  RTE is not an abortion lobby group and it cannot allow its presenters to act as if the repeal of the 8^th Amendment is within its remit.

These two decisions are book-ending a period of 6 months when the topic of media bias has been coming up again and again from pro-life supporters around the country. The cat is out of the bag. People are talking about media bias and that won't stop until both sides of the abortion debate are being fairly dealt with on the airwaves.  

No-one is asking for a bias in favour of the pro-life position. That doesn't help anyone either.  What we need is a national broadcaster that is responsible enough to recognise abortion for the complex and sensitive issue that it is and to work to represent all view points fairly.  It's not difficult if the will is there.  The time has well and truly come for RTE to address this serious issue before its credibility as an impartial and fair-minded broadcaster is gone for good.