Anti-Rights Views: Holy See On The Outcome Document Of The United Nations Summit For The Adoption Of The Post-2015 Development Agenda

The Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations gave a statement ‘On The Outcome Document Of The United Nations Summit For The Adoption Of The Post-2015 Development Agenda “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda For Sustainable Development”’.

As an anti-rights actor, the Holy See criticises gender-related policies, contraception, family planning and sexual and reproductive rights agreed upon in the UN document. The following text is an extract from the statement.

“1. Regarding the terms “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights”, the Holy See considers these terms as applying to a holistic concept of health, which embrace, each in their own way, the person in the entirety of his or her personality, mind and body, and which foster the achievement of personal maturity in sexuality and in the mutual love and decision-making that characterize the conjugal-relationship between a man and a woman in accordance with moral norms. The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension of these terms.

2. With reference to the terms “contraception”, “family planning”, “sexual and reproductive health”, “sexual and reproductive rights”, “reproductive rights”, and any other terms regarding family-planning services and regulation of fertility concepts in the document, the Holy See reaffirms its well-known position concerning those family-planning methods which the Catholic Church considers morally acceptable and, on the other hand, family-planning services which do not respect the liberty of the spouses, human dignity and the human rights of those concerned.

3. With reference to “gender”, the Holy See understands the term to be grounded in the biological sexual identity that is male or female.

4. In relation to paragraphs 2 and 3 of this Statement of Position, the Holy See also reaffirms its reservations to the outcome documents of the International Conference on Population and Development, in Cairo and the Fourth World Conference on Women, in Beijing.

5. With respect to “education” or “information” on “sexuality”, the Holy See reiterates the “primary responsibility” and the “prior rights” of parents, including their right to religious freedom, when it comes to the education and upbringing of their children, as enshrined, inter alia, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In that sense, the Holy See wishes to underline the centrality of the family, “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” as well as the role and rights and duties of parents to educate their children.”