Friday Fax
Volume 9, Number 12 | March 10, 2006
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Dear Colleague, We report today on the pro-life legal response to radical feminist efforts to force the country of Colombia to legalize abortion on demand using UN documents. We will be watching this case closely.
Spread the word. |
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Pro-Life Groups Submit Briefs to Colombian
Constitutional Court
By Bradford Short
In early February several pro-life groups filed Amicus Curiae briefs with the Colombian Constitutional Court, which is hearing a case on whether Colombia will be forced to legalize abortion because of the supposed demands of international law. As reported in the Friday Fax in December, a suit seeking to decriminalize abortion has been filed by Madrid-based lawyer Monica Roa in the Colombian Constitutional Court with the support of pro-abortion NGOs in the United States. The legal theory of the suit generally rests on the widely discredited claim that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights together compel Colombia to legalize abortion. Last December that suit was effectively quashed by the Colombian Court but only on technical grounds. Almost immediately after that ruling from the Colombian Court, which was adverse to their interests, various pro-abortion groups and Roa filed follow-up lawsuits that were supposedly cured of the defects in the original suit. A number of very prestigious pro-life lawyers submitted briefs to the Colombian Court including Valparaiso University Law School legal philosopher, Richard Stith; Harvard legal theorist Mary Ann Glendon; and William Saunders, a Harvard Law graduate and constitutional lawyer at the Family Research Council in Washington. Saunders told the Friday Fax that the Colombian episode is more of the same from the pro-abortion groups. "Once again, it is the strategy of the pro-abortion groups to pretend that" there "are international standards that require legal abortion." Saunders pointed out that there is no international "hard law" — such as treaties — and no international "soft law" — such as customary international law — which requires the legalization of abortion anywhere in the world. Saunders addressed the issue of rape and incest saying that the Colombian Constitutional Court should understand that even though rape and incest are terrible crimes, "it compounds the injustice" of those crimes to kill the resulting unborn child. The Colombian Court is in the process of considering the case and the decision will not be delivered for weeks, or even months. On April 2, pro-life leaders are planning to lead a procession through the streets of Bogotá to protest this attempt by international pro-abortion radicals to force legal abortion on a sovereign democracy. |
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Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic
Family & Human Rights Institute). Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required. Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute 866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427 New York, New York 10017 Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291 E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org Website: www.c-fam.org |