Friday Fax
Volume 8, Number 52 | December 16, 2005

Dear Colleague,

The high court of Colombia, under severe pressure from radical American and European pro-abortion lawyers, has rejected efforts to legalize abortion.

The pro-abortion lawyers used arguments that various UN documents that Colombia acceded to require Colombia to accept abortion. Radicals at the UN insist these documents do no such thing, but in the field they sing a completely different tune.

Spread the word.

Yours sincerely,

Austin Ruse
President

PS This marks the end of the eighth year of the Friday Fax. All praise goes to Mark Adams and Bradford Short who work very hard in putting it out. Also to all those, like Doug Sylva, who over the years made the Friday Fax what it is.
Colombian Court Rejects Suit Aimed At Legalizing Abortion

 
     The government of Colombia's high court announced last week they would not rule in a lawsuit that sought to change the South American country's laws forbidding abortion. The court's decision is a severe blow to an international coalition of pro-abortion organizations that was behind the lawsuit.

     Colombia's Constitutional Court said the suit presented by Madrid based lawyer Monica Roa did not contain sufficient arguments and failed to meet some legal standards. The suit was based in part on Colombia's ratification of two UN documents, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights.

     A Colombian pro-life organization, Red Futoro Colombia, said in a statement that the suit failed in part because it sought to decriminalize abortion in all instances. According to the statement, media reports made it seem as if the suit sought only to legalize abortion in cases of rape, when the health of the mother is threatened, and when the unborn baby suffers from a sickness that would result in the death of the child within days of delivery. But according to Red Futoro those three cases were only "a subsidiary request" to the lawsuit. "There was an attempt to focus the attention of public opinion and of the court itself on those extreme cases and the complaint argued as such, making mistakes and creating a series of incongruities such as those pointed out by the justices. This and other errors within the complaint were appropriately pointed out by various citizen presentations in the process," according to Red Futoro.

     Women's Link Worldwide, the organization that spearheaded the suit, announced they had filed a second suit that they believed would address the legal concerns of the Colombia's Constitutional Court. "We have adjusted this new suit to address all of the questions from the Constitutional Court. We are in a race against the clock. It wouldn't be right for the country to go on holiday while women are still dying. To delay this decision any further would be an unconscionable act and negligent to the extreme," Roa said.

     Red Futoro said the attention brought on by the suit, first filed in April, was good for the pro-life cause. "The public debate generated around the issue is a gain for the defense of life. We have continually shown how it was managed through a manipulation of sentiments, with false arguments that repeatedly diverted attention from the fundamental point of discussion: the inviolable right to life. This very intent to distract was the cause of the complaint's failure."
Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

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