US Republican Party feud against UN conventions for the rights of women and children

Shakesville has a post up pointing to the official GOP policy platform site, www.gopplatform2008.com.

The Republican Party platform includes the following:

We strongly support the long-held policy of the Republican Party known as the “Mexico City policy,” which prohibits federal monies from being given to non-governmental organizations that provide abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries. We reject any treaty or agreement that would violate those values.

That includes the UN convention on women’s rights, signed in the last months of the Carter Administration, and the UN convention on the rights of the child.

Yes, they explicitly and strongly oppose the UN conventions on the rights of children and women. You can read the full Conventions here:

* Convention on the Rights of the Child

* Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Although McCain’s party links its objection to these Conventions to its objection to abortion access for women, neither Convention speaks of abortion at all. Instead, the conventions make the following generalisms about family planning:

“2. States Parties shall pursue full implementation of this right [to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health] and, in particular, shall take appropriate measures: [...]

(f) To develop preventive health care, guidance for parents and family planning education and services. ”

and

“1. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: [...]

(e) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights;”

That’s it. That’s the big scary spectre of runaway civil rights doom that the Republicans have put so much effort into fighting.

In other words, official GOP policy is that:

* Children should not have access to preventive healthcare, family planning education or services;

and

* Women should not be permitted to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children, nor to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.

That’s what they’re voting for. That’s what they want. Just so we can have things perfectly clear.

As an aside, the GOP wants to extend Fourteenth Amendment rights to zygotes, embryos, and fetuses. This means that consider legal personhood should begin as soon as egg envelopes sperm. If that is the case, why are they not fighting to grant citizenship to those conceived within their borders?