Two recent European cases recognised abortion as a human right more important than freedom of conscience or the right to life. How did abortion become a "fundamental human right"?

Writing in the latest issue of the International Journal of Human Rights, Jakob Cornides of the European Commission argues that these cases exemplify the extent to which unelected bureaucracies have manipulated the language and concept of human rights to overturn established and accepted moral norms across a broad range of public issues.

[A]bortion is but one of several areas where such a slow ‘evolution’ of a human rights doctrine is taking place. Similar developments can be observed with regard to gay rights, euthanasia, cloning, the use of embryonic stem cells, and so forth. The fundamental question raised by cases such as those discussed below is thus not limited to the abortion issue—it concerns the credibility of the concept of ‘human rights’ as such, including the international, governmental and non-governmental institutional framework that has developed around them: What is the ontological basis of ‘human rights’? Is it at all possible to ‘make’ new human rights? Would this not logically imply that it must be possible, too, to abrogate the existing ones? If so, who can legitimately pretend to do so? Are the values that the innovators attempt to impose on us the result of a legitimate political process, or of a consistent philosophical reflection? Or do they just reflect the political agenda of a small and self-referential elite of enlightened technocrats that have somehow succeeded in occupying all available seats in all relevant committees and expert groups and now pretend to speak with universal authority? Who has appointed these experts? And why should we believe in what they are saying? [footnote omitted]

Manipulative bureaucratic "experts" have undermined and confused the concept of human rights to such an extent that it has lost legitimacy and credibility.  The law of human rights, argues Cornides, is in a state of crisis and, indeed, decadence.

The decadence into which human rights have fallen is attributable to an increasing estrangement between modern human rights talk and the perennial insights of moral philosophy, including classical (graeco-roman) and Christian thought as well as the philosophy of the era of Enlightenment. There is no common understanding of Human Rights any more, which, in turn makes it possible to manipulate them. Today’s innovators, while claiming to fight for the good cause of ‘enlightenment’, use obscure and dishonest strategies to attain their objective. They have made a habit of using manipulative and misleading language, obfuscating and denying reality, inventing and distorting statistics, putting subjective sentiments in the place of objective facts. Their talking and writing is not characterised by transparency, but by falsehood, mimicry and waffle; like all hypocrites, they hide their true intentions. Instead of saying that they want to impose new laws (like ‘abortion on demand’, or ‘gay marriage’) on society, they pretend that international law obliges them to do so, and that the new laws they are making represent the true and original sense of the relevant [Human Rights] Conventions, which, for unclear reasons, has remained hidden until today.

Thus is Pope John Paul II proved prescient.  In Memory and Identity, written shortly before his death, the pontiff warned against a “new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden than its predecessors which attempts to pit even human rights against the family and against man”.

One could readily argue that manipulated and debased notions of human rights have taken hold at Canada’s human rights commissions and are being pitted against such time-honoured and respected principles as freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  The war between real human rights and perverted images thereof is underway.

The full text of Jakob Cornides’s in-depth study. “Human Rights Pitted Against Man”, can be purchased for US$28 via this page, where also an abstract is posted.  A summary by Samantha Singson appears at the website of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.

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