United Nations Population Fund: Contraception a Human Right?

The language of "human rights" is notoriously empty of substantive content.  Unfortunately, such language has a wax nose, and it can be bent in all sorts of directions.  

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - The language of "human rights" is notoriously empty of substantive content.  Unfortunately, such language has a wax nose, and it can be bent in all sorts of directions.  

If removed from the greater edifice of the natural moral law and placed in the hand of some progressive bureaucrat, the language of human rights is one of shapeshifting.  Human rights can take the most protean and monstrous shapes. 

Unfortunately, the United Nations is not immune from shapeshifting human rights so that human vices can be promoted under the guise of the good.  To paraphrase Madame Roland, "O human rights, what crimes are committed in your name!"

In the United Nation's Population Fund's (UNFPA) Annual Report published on November 14, 2012, and entitled "By Choice, Not by Chance: Family Planning, Human Rights and Development," Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, the executive director of the fund, described family planning-which is code for artificial contraception-as a universal human right.

"Family planning is not a privilege, but a right.  Yet, too many women-and men-are denied this human right," Dr. Osotimehin said in a statement that announced the report.

"Family planning is a human right," wrote Dr. Osotimehin.  "It must therefore be available to all who want it.  But clearly this right has not yet been extended to all, especially in the poorest countries.  Obstacles remain. Some have to do with the quality and availability of supplies and services, but many others have to do with economic circumstances and social constraints." 

By this latter, Dr. Osotimehin certainly has in mind the Catholic Church and the natural moral law.  He has previously commended Melinda Gates, and her decision to use Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to expand the reach of artificial contraception in the heartland of Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in direct contravention to the Catholic Church's moral teachings.

Dr. Osotimehin seeks to spend an extra $4.1 billion a year to make family planning available to anyone who wants it.  "Family planning is still more akin to a privilege enjoyed by some rather than a universal right exercised by all."

Dr. Osotimehin is morally obtuse:  "Women who use contraception are generally healthier, better educated, more empowered in their households and communities and more economically productive. Women's increased labor-force participation boosts nations' economies."  He is oblivious to how contraception tramples traditional values, social conventions, and, what is more, the natural moral law. 

He does not seem to care about the vice such contraceptive technology institutionalizes and normalizes, and how it mars human sexuality.  He is nothing but a mouthpiece for a secular liberal worldview. 

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Let us hope that Archbishop Chullikatt, the Holy See's Permanent Observer to the United Nations condemns this overreaching by the United Nations.

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas.  He is married with three children.  He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum.  You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.

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