Precious Life's Petition

Precious Life has accused two human rights bodies of hypocrisy for ignoring the human rights of unborn children. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Consortium are "doing unborn children out of their rights".

The Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Consortium are running campaigns encouraging people to respond to a Government consultation on what should be in a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. The government plan to start the legislation process for the Bill of Rights after 1st March. The Westminster Parliament - who are continually trying to extend the murderous 1967 Abortion Act to this pro-life country - will make the law creating a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland and the only input our local Assembly will have is it "...may be asked for its views."

Homes across Northern Ireland are currently receiving brochures the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Consortium. These so-called human rights groups also have newspaper ads and billboards littered with expressions like '...Don't be done out of your rights'; '...human rights for all' and '...protect everyone'.

Of course, all right-thinking people would support a Bill of Rights that protected 'everyone'. But the hypocrisy of the Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Consortium is that they do not want a Bill of Rights where everyone’s rights are protected ...they want the rights of unborn children to be deliberately excluded. They have done unborn children out of their rights.

Their literature also includes vague terms like the 'right to health'. Again, any right-thinking person would have no objection to the right to health. But around the world, it's a classic pro-abortion tactic to try to legalise abortion under a so-called 'right to health'. Abortion is not health because killing isn't healing. There is a real danger that an ambiguous term like 'a right to health' in a Bill of Rights could be used to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland through the back door.

The Human Rights Consortium is made up of Trade Unions and non-governmental organisations. Its hardly surprising they have ignored the rights of unborn children when their membership includes organisations that support the killing of unborn children - the Family Planning Association (FPA), and Amnesty International. The Human Rights Consortium has received funding of over £1.5million from an American organisation called the The Atlantic Philanthropies, which has also given funds of £1.8million to the FPA and Brook ‘Child-Sex’ Centre.

When the Human Rights Commission - an old enemy of unborn children - presented its advice to the government on what rights should be in a Bill of Rights they said the right to life of unborn children should not be included. In their current literature they even have the audacity to make reference to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This international treaty states clearly: 'The child …deserves special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, BEFORE as well as after birth.' But the Human Rights Commission would deny any protection or safeguards for a child before birth.

Precious Life had a long running petition campaign calling on the Human Rights Commission to ensure the human rights of unborn babies were protected. But the Commission ignored the views of the thousands of people across Northern Ireland who signed our petition.

We will be demanding that the government accept the thousands of petitions we collected, as individual submissions to their public consultation. Our petition states that every human being possesses the same basic rights and foremost amongst them is the right to life itself – for on that, all other rights depend. A Bill of Rights must ensure that the human rights of all – including unborn children - are fully and firmly protected in law, policy and practice.

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