(LifeSiteNews) — In September of 2018, abortion activists in Guatemala were pushing for looser abortion laws. Abortion is illegal in Guatemala except where necessary to save the mother’s life, making the small Central American country a primary target for both foreign and domestic abortion activists.
In response, over 20,000 people poured into the capital and marched to the legislature, sporting blue (the color of Latin America’s “Blue Wave” pro-life movement) and hoisting signs, photos of babies in the womb, blue balloons, and banners. The government backed down and abandoned the proposed legislation.
Guatemala’s commitment to protecting pre-born children has teeth. In 2017, a Dutch abortion ship with “Women on Waves” arrived to distribute illegal abortion pills. The Guatemalan military stated that the ship would not be permitted to operate, and that the army would adhere “to the Constitution regarding the preservation of human life and the laws in effect in our country.” The ship was placed under military custody and left shortly thereafter.
According to C-Fam, abortion activists are now utilizing their tried and true tactic of international pressure to undermine Guatemala’s pro-life regime. “A UN committee of human rights experts told the Government of Guatemala that its restrictive abortion laws must change,” reported Stefano Gennarini. “Unlike many non-binding recommendations of UN rights bodies, the opinion in this case is binding to a limited degree.”
The UN’s Human Rights Committee told Guatemala that its abortion laws “violate its human rights obligations,” an opinion that “is doubly controversial. Not only does the opinion call for legal abortion. It attempts to redefine the technical legal term ‘forced pregnancy’ to include any denial of abortion.” The committee used a case in which a 14-year-old girl was denied an abortion and complained of “being depressed and suicidal as a result.”
READ: UN absurdly claims abortion, not more babies, is the answer to the global fertility crisis
This is yet another example of abortion activists merely redefining terminology, definitions, and reinterpreting existing law to force feticide on pro-life countries. Indeed, Gennarini notes that this “is a highly provocative theory because it contradicts the existing definition of forced pregnancy in international law, one that was negotiated and adopted by states.”
According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, “forced pregnancy” is a technical term to indicate a specific kind of war crime. It is narrowly defined as “the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law.” The definition in the treaty was always understood to exclude abortion laws, because there is no international right to abortion. In fact, the definition of the Rome Statute expressly states that, “This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy.”
The Human Rights Committee, however, did not even reference the Rome Statue, instead stating that Guatemala must both “compensate the girl” as well as “make necessary changes to law and policy to ensure that all girls who are victims of sexual violence, including incest and rape, have effective access to services to interrupt their pregnancy.” In short, Guatemala must “decriminalize abortion and to ensure access to therapeutic abortion and comprehensive sexuality education.”
The Human Rights Committee’s opinion was published under the treaty procedure “individual communication,” and Gennarini notes that this is “binding, even though in a limited way”— Guatemala’s government must at least consider the opinion, which will likely “feed into ongoing negotiations of a new UN treaty on crimes against humanity by the legal committee of the General Assembly,” where the definition of “forced pregnancy” is a controversial part of negotiations.
Pro-abortion countries such as the UK, Canada, and institutions such as the EU want the existing definition dropped and replaced with a definition “that would include any denial of sexual and reproductive health services and information, including abortion, transgender-affirming care, and comprehensive sexuality education.” Having failed to legalize abortion and enshrine their sexual agenda in many countries via democratic measures, Western nations want to make abortion and the sexual revolution the price of participating in the international community.
Guatemala’s previous president, Alejandro Giammattei, was a vocal pro-lifer who called his country “the pro-life capital of Ibero-America.” The current president, Bernardo Arévalo, supports Guatemala’s pro-life regime, but less vocally so. This attack on national sovereignty and the right to life must be rejected, both in Guatemala, and by pro-life countries during upcoming UN treaty negotiations.
