U.N. Human Rights Protects Muslims But Not the Unborn
As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrated a birthday this month, it is worth noting how this documen
As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights celebrated a birthday this month, it is worth noting how this document—noble in its original intentions—is often reinterpreted by advocates of a host of issues, resulting in a laundry list of new rights claims and corresponding government responsibilities thrust upon the 193 U.N. member states. Two prime examples of this misuse concern the rights to life and religious liberty, natural rights often sacrificed to any number of social causes.
With regard to abortion, the right to life promised to “everyone” in the Universal Declaration (Article 3) is rarely applied to the unborn, while a right to health or an adequate standard of living (Article 25) has been expanded substantially to include a woman’s so-called right to access abortion services.
Anand Grover, whose full title is Special Rapporteur on the Right of Everyone to the Enjoyment of the Highest Attainable Standard of Health, has repeatedly made the case that decriminalizing abortion is essential to reducing maternal mortality and achieving women’s right to health. As Special Rapporteur—U.N. lingo for an appointed, and largely unaccountable, expert—Grover recently caused a stir among some member states when he issued a report claiming that legal abortion is tantamount to a human right. The report stated:
Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated…Creation or maintenance of criminal laws with respect to abortion may amount to violations of the obligations of States to respect, protect and fulfil [sic] the right to health.
A group of international leaders and experts recently unveiled the San Jose Articles as a tool to counter such efforts to create a new international right to abortion.
Concerning religious liberty, Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Nevertheless, these rights promised to individuals are at the center of a decade-long effort led by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to globalize laws against blasphemy and apostasy that are common in Islamic societies. The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society recently hosted authors Nina Shea and Paul Marshall for an event to discuss their new bookSilenced, in which they document this effort:
In 1999, some Muslim-majority states began to argue that the UN must condemn and prohibit what the OIC labels “defamation of religions,” particularly of Islam. They have acknowledged that these “defamation of religions” resolutions are meant primarily to shield Islam and Muslims from criticism. The “defamation” push effectively seeks to redefine human rights in five ways, by: 1. treating religious matters under hate speech bans as if they were akin to racial matters; 2. granting rights to religions themselves rather than to individuals; 3. creating a new right not to be offended in matters of religion; 4. claiming that freedom of religion stands in opposition to freedom of expression; 5. giving an expansive interpretation to the exceptions to the right of freedom of expression. (Silenced, p.206)
In building a case for a ban on the defamation of religions, its advocates paint Muslims collectively as victims of discrimination. In fact, the OIC has an Islamophobia Observatory, which publishes a monthly bulletin chronicling “manifestations of Islamophobia,” mostly in Europe and the United States.
All rights claims are not equal, and as the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights is stretched and twisted to encompass ever more social and economic rights claims—sometimes conflicting ones—natural human rights are at risk of becoming endangered.
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The main purpose for the United Nations (U.N.) is to resolve issues between countries through diplomacy before countries resort to military force and before conflicts escalate. Unfortunately, the U.N. has consistently failed this goal and will continue being useless for these several reasons.
First, the United Nations is primarily a forum for debate. As a result, the U.N. is an international organization where countries send representatives to argue for or against issues. These representatives are typically just spokesmen for their country's agendas and are relatively powerless in their own country. Furthermore, countries governed by non-peaceful dictators and regimes typically use these debates to delay and obfuscate issues in their favor. Over the fifty years that the United Nations has existed, these debates alone have not resolved a single issue. Second, the United Nations is unable to take direct and independent actions without support from its members. In other words, the U.N. is completely powerless and pacifistic. In a world filled with war-mongering dictators and suppressing regimes who know the U.N. lacks any real power, regimes are almost completely free to do whatever they want. Third, the United Nations has five nations that can veto any resolution that the majority of the U.N. members agreed upon. The countries with this veto power are China, France, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. These countries have this power because they were the founding countries of the United Nations that wrote the rules for the U.N. after World War 2. Unfortunately, this non-democracy fails for several reasons. First, only a true democracy among nations is unbiased and fair. The fourth and final reason why the United Nations is useless is terrorism. The U.N. does not formally recognize any country as a terrorist state. Furthermore, terrorists are not interested in the politics of debating in a public forum, such as the United Nations, to discuss and work out their issues. Therefore, the U.N. does not get involved in politics with terrorist groups. As a result, the United Nations is completely blind to terrorist groups, has no plans of address terrorism, and has no intentions of changing. The fact that the United Nations, as the largest international organization that promotes peace, is completely unable to address terrorism is further proof that the U.N. is ineffective. The United Nations has proven itself as a failure for its entire history and will continue being useless. Maybe if peaceful countries withdraw their membership and stop participating in the United Nations in protest, will force the United Nations to abandon its old methods of dealing with non-peaceful and non-humanitarian nations. Two more years after President Barry Hussein leaves office and the US will leave the United Nations.
THE UN, not again! The U.S. has been more than generous to Arab and Muslim nations in direct foreign aid, military assistance and other ways. Egypt receives about $2 billion of American taxpayer dollars every year, yet it still votes against American interests at the U.N. 79 percent of the time. Jordan, a "moderate" Muslim nation, receives nearly $200 million annually in U.S. foreign aid, but votes against America at the U.N. 71 percent of the time. Pakistan votes 75 percent of the time against the U.S. at the U.N. while pocketing nearly $7 million annually in foreign aid (in addition to the money it gets to supposedly fight al-Qaida). An even better example of the disconnect between American assistance and changed Muslim attitudes toward the U.S. is the Palestinian Authority. As former Israeli diplomat Yoram Ettinger writes for ynetnews.com, just since 2007, "U.S. foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority and to PA-controlled (nongovernmental organizations) reached nearly $2 billion, in addition to $3.7 billion contributed by the U.S. to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East since 1950." If the news has the word "United Nations" in it, it’s guaranteed, definite, surefire, cast iron, in the bag, clear cut, assured, straightforward, a sure thing, that it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.