Pro-life advocates criticise UN for 'championing' abortion in Ireland

Pro-Life campaigners demonstrate outside the Irish Parliament in Dublin, Ireland in this file photo taken on July 10, 2013. Reuters

The United Nations has essentially endorsed the killing of innocent unborn babies, and pro-life advocates will not take this sitting down.

Pro-life groups and individuals are joining forces to criticise a recent ruling from the United Nations human rights committee which described the ban on abortions imposed by the Irish government as a violation of women's rights.

Niamh Ui Bhriain of Ireland's Life Institute, for instance, said that the U.N. committee's pro-abortion decision clearly runs counter to the international organisation's mandate to protect the powerless, particularly the unborn.

"Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, the U.N. has chosen, yet again, to champion abortion, and has trampled on the right of people with disabilities," Ui Bhriain told The Catholic News Agency (CNA).

The pro-life advocate also said that the U.N. body "seriously undermined its credibility by rushing to support abortion."

"Their reasoning is so distorted that it has lost all meaning," she said. "Abortion is inhumane, and the U.N. should seek to find progressive answers to assist women who are told their babies may not live for long after birth."

In its recent ruling seen to open the floodgates to more abortions worldwide, the U.N. human rights committee said that the Irish government subjected a pregnant woman named Amanda Mellet to severe emotional and mental pain and suffering in 2011, when she was told she could not have an abortion in Ireland.

Mellet's unborn child was said to be suffering from fatal congenital defects.

The U.N. panel said Ireland should introduce "accessible procedures for pregnancy termination."

"[Ireland] should amend its law on voluntary termination of pregnancy, including if necessary its Constitution, to ensure compliance with the covenant, including effective, timely and accessible procedures for pregnancy termination in Ireland," the ruling stated.

Michael Kelly, editor of the Irish Catholic newspaper, meanwhile said that the U.N. committee has effectively revealed its pro-abortion bias through this recent ruling.

"I'm afraid that the Human Rights Committee has exposed itself as effectively a pro-abortion lobby group, which, at the very least, calls in to question the body's right to comment on matters in relation to human rights," Kelly also told CNA.

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