Catholics need to know fight for unborn is shifting ‘ominously’ into international law as UN scolds Poland...

Catholics encountering efforts by pressure groups to normalise and extend abortion are increasingly not only standing up publicly for what is right, but persuading others to join them.

The result is that secular elites are finding it more difficult to ram through such measures. This is heartening. What is less so is that, rather ominously, activists who see abortion as just another medical procedure and see opposition to it as religious bigotry have now shifted the fight onto the international law plane.

All this is exemplified by a report issued last week by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, or UNCEDAW. It is addressed to the government of Poland, which as an overwhelmingly Catholic country has so far held the line on the subject, and prohibits all terminations except those necessary for the mother’s life or health and those arising out of such events as rape.

Unfortunately, this UN document (available here), which in essence calls for the removal of all criminal restrictions on termination of pregnancy and more, has not received the attention it needs.

How, you might ask, does the UN come to be involved at all in demanding changes to Poland’s internal laws about abortion? The answer is convoluted, but important.

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