UN Committee Says Nicaraguan Pro-Life Laws
Violate Torture Convention
By
Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.
The United Nations (UN) committee charged
with monitoring compliance with the
Convention Against Torture has declared that
Nicaragua’s full protection of fetal life
violates the country's obligations under the
Convention. This is the first time this
committee has reviewed Nicaragua since that
government outlawed abortion for any reason
three years ago.
The torture committee is the fourth UN
committee to pressure Nicaragua with respect
to its laws protecting unborn life, joining
the committees charged with monitoring the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women, the
International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights.
Critics are increasingly concerned with what
they view as the politicization of the
treaty monitoring system by committees
charged with oversight. Neither the
Convention Against Torture nor any other UN
treaty mentions abortion, and it was not
contemplated when such treaties were
negotiated and ratified that countries were
committing themselves to altering domestic
legislation on abortion.
In contrast, the Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
has conscientiously construed its mandate as
focusing on actual instances of racial
discrimination. Because of its refusal to
expand its mandate beyond the scope of the
treaty that created it such as by engaging
in abortion advocacy, CERD has been
criticized by some in the human rights
establishment.
Among the human rights lobbyist
organizations that have increasingly lent a
voice to abortion advocacy in the developing
world is Amnesty International, which
abandoned its previous neutrality on the
issue in 2007. In a shadow briefing to the
torture committee, Amnesty asserted that
Nicaragua's legislation banning all
abortions was equivalent to government
commissioned “torture” or at least “cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment” banned by
the Convention.
Amnesty also claims that Nicaragua's law
"causes women and girls to die," an
assertion disputed by pro-life critics.
Carlos Polo, Director of Population Research
Institute’s Latin American Office and a
close observer of maternal health
developments in Nicaragua, notes that "the
best indicator of what is happening in any
country regarding bad practices in
gynecological and obstetric services are
rates of maternal mortality." Polo points to
statistics compiled by Nicaragua’s Ministry
of Health showing that maternal deaths have
decreased since Nicaragua tightened its laws
on abortion.
In comparison with Amnesty’s efforts to link
abortion restrictions with maternal death
regardless of what the evidence shows, even
the unambiguously pro-abortion Center for
Reproductive Rights (CRR) has begun to shy
away from making such claims. In a recent
submission to the ICESCR committee, CRR
criticized Brazil for emphasizing lack of
access to abortion as "the most salient
cause" of maternal mortality, pointing
instead to its failure to provide emergency
obstetric care. CRR went so far as to praise
Sri Lanka for reducing maternal mortality –
a country that CRR elsewhere acknowledges as
having one of the most restrictive abortion
laws in the world.
In addition to Nicaragua, the torture
committee has in the past pressured Chile
and Peru, whose constitutions protect unborn
life.
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