Personhood USA: McCain and Menendez caught in lie about U.N. disability treaty's effect on abortion

NEW YORK, Nov. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Senators John McCain and Bob Menendez claim in USA Today that ratifying the United Nations treaty on disabilities will not influence abortion laws in the United States, but Personhood USA warns that the treaty undermines personhood for unborn children and gives the United Nations power over domestic law.

Article 25 of the treaty guarantees free or affordable "sexual and reproductive health and population-based public health programmes." In 2009, then-Secretary Clinton confirmed to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "reproductive health includes access to abortion" in the treaty.

Senators McCain and Menendez write that ratifying "this treaty would hand no power to the United Nations or any other international body to change America's laws." They ignore previous instances where the United Nations bullied nations to expand abortion access under the treaty, such as Spain and Hungary. The United Nations even declared that Peru's protection of an unborn child with disabilities violated the treaty, calling Peru's pro-life law "cruel and inhuman."

"Ratifying this treaty allows the United Nations to dictate the extent to which the United States can protect human life in the womb," said Josh Craddock, Personhood USA's United Nations liaison. "Senators McCain and Menendez are lying when they say this treaty won't surrender American sovereignty. I've attended the U.N. meetings where this treaty is called a 'superseding instrument' over national laws."

Craddock continued, "This treaty is intended to prevent discrimination against persons with disabilities, but United States law already does that. Sadly, it just promotes abortion, which disproportionately targets children diagnosed with disabilities in the womb. We stand for the rights of unborn persons with disabilities by opposing this treaty."

Once ratified, the U.N. Convention on Persons with Disabilities would be considered the binding law of the land, co-equal with the United States Constitution. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing later this week.

SOURCE Personhood USA