As expected, UN pressures us to liberalise our abortion law even more

 

• Ireland appeared before the UN Human Rights Council last week
   
• As expected, several countries asked us to liberalise our abortion law even more
   
• Even totalitarian North Korea and China lectured us on our human rights record

As we mentioned in a previous e-letter, Ireland was due to appear before the UN Human Right Council. That took place last Wednesday and, as we anticipated, pressure was exerted on Ireland to further liberalise its already very permissive abortion law. Pressure was applied to push us in a more socially liberal direction in other areas as well.
 

The Irish delegation was headed by the Minister for Children, Roderic O’Gorman. After having considered the national report submitted by Minister O’Gorman, each country representative on the Council presented recommendations, for a total of 260. (They can be found here)

We will consider some of them under a number of headings.

 Abortion

The delegates from Austria, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland all urged us to use the upcoming three-year review of our abortion law to make it even easier to obtain a termination.
 

For example, the Austrian representative said: “Ensure that the three-year review of the Health Act 2018 on the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy is comprehensive and focused on providing a human rights-compliant framework for abortion, including by identifying and eliminating barriers impacting marginalized groups”.
 

The Danish delegate told us: “Ensure that the three-year review of the Termination of Pregnancy Act focuses on ways to expand access to voluntary termination of pregnancy, both in law and in practice”.
 

The Netherlands said: “Build on the steps undertaken in the area of sexual and reproductive rights by removing the remaining barriers to accessing safe and legal abortion services and making it practically available to all”.
 

Bizarrely, the Iceland representative asked us to, “Expand access to abortion and repeal the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act”, as it if this has not already happened in 2018.

 Schools

Surprisingly, no recommendation made reference to denominational schools or to the role of religion in education. The recommendations about schools were quite broad in their scope.
 

“Ensure fair access for all children to quality education” (Qatar);

“Prioritize equitable access to quality education opportunities at all levels” (Botswana);

“Consider introducing legislative guarantee of free primary and secondary education” (Ukraine);

“Improve the system providing children and their parents a real opportunity to choose from among religious, multi-denominational or non-denominational types of schooling and curricula.” (Czechia).
 

Gender
 

Germany and Norway recommended we review Article 40 of the Constitution, which covers fundamental rights, and Article 41, which deals with the issue of women in the home, to make them gender neutral. 

Israel asked to prohibit “conversion therapies”. Cuba and Cyprus wanted more efforts to reduce the gender pay gap. Israel also asked to prohibit “conversion therapies”. Only Panama mentioned sex education while Chile and Iceland raised the issue of intersex children, asking for a ‘rights-based’ care protocol.

 

Family
 

Only Egypt mentioned the natural family as “fundamental unit of society”. Paraguay asked for “additional support to families in situation of homelessness”.

 

Some of the recommendations to Ireland seemed to be totally spurious, particularly when we consider the countries that were presenting them. For example, Iran was concerned about “worrying reports on chronic sexual abuse against underage girls in schools” in Ireland. North Korea asked Ireland to “cease torture and cruel or inhuman treatment of children in places of reformatory and industrial schools operated by religion institutions.” Venezuela asked Ireland to “Provide an apology for the serious violations suffered by mixed race children in institutions or unsuitable families”. China asked us to consider the right of ethnic minorities.

  

Ireland has adopted all the recommendations, which basically means that we will take them into consideration and produce a response before the next session of the Human Right Council that will take place in February and March 2022. The Irish government has also committed to produce a voluntary ad interim report by the late 2023.