Moral victories at the U.N.

New York -- The U.N. General Assembly has approved a non-binding, but politically important resolution, with an 84 to 34 decision (with 37 abstentions) to ban all forms of human cloning. Cloning is now seen as a violation of the dignity of women.

Costa Rica, the U.S. and pro-life groups took the lead to educate member countries that cloning would violate the human rights of both cloned embryos and women: the embryos would be created and destroyed at the will of scientists, and women would be treated as commodities in the harvesting of their eggs.

The Holy See applauded the U.N. decision but lamented that the resolution would not be binding on member nations. Slovakia, Croatia, Poland and Russia joined with Italy, Germany, and Ireland in voting for the ban. France, Spain, Great Britain, and Belgium, hoping to profit from cloning humans, voted against. Great Britain announced that it had already set aside 2 billion [pounds sterling] to fund biotechnical research, including human stem cell research. (Zenit files)

Abortion not a right

After the victory against the cloning of human beings (C.I., April 05, p. 30) another moral victory was obtained in March. As reported in our January issue (p. 32), just before President Bush's visit to Canada last fall, the Canadian government announced that it was increasing its contribution to a United Nations' program boycotted by Washington. Aileen Carroll, a "Catholic" and the Minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, announced a substantial increase in Canada's contribution to the U.N. Population Fund, which the U.S. has refused to support for the last three years because it encourages forced abortions and sterilizations in China.

Carroll proudly pushed the UN's "reproductive health program," a euphemism for birth control, abortion, condoms, and facilities and procedures which come under the umbrella of "family planning."

An international conference on equality for women, which opened at the end of February, found the U.S. campaigning for a declaration that women do not have a natural right to abortion--in opposition to those who assert that this was the clear message of the Women's Conference in Beijing ten years ago (Review and Appraisal of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the Outcome Document of the Twenty-third Special Session of the General Assembly). No UN document openly refers to abortion as a right, partly because some states are against it or, like the U.S., consider that it is up to each country to decide its own abortion laws.

The conference was attended by some 6,000 activists (Nat. Post, Mar 2), many of them arguing that abortion should be part of the family planning services which the UN offers around the world. Ellen Sauerbrey, U.S. senior co-ordinator on women's issues, denied the assertion that Beijing had established a fundamental right to abortion. She introduced an amendment but withdrew it after policy makers admitted that Beijing 1995 had not established a right to abortion. (Note: The bright young women Campaign Life has sent to UN meetings in New York and elsewhere--Tanya Granic, Samantha Singson, Anna Halpine and others--have found that most of their opposition has come from radical feminists in Canada's official delegation, all of them firmly committed to anti-life policies.)