EU Parliament Declares Abortion and Gay Marriage “Human Rights”
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

The European Parliament last week declared gay “marriage” and abortion to be fundamental human rights.

These designations were approved on March 12 as part of the “Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy” the group signed off on.

The parliament is infamous for espousing strongly “progressive” positions and pushing those extreme policies down to its member nations, working to make them the law.

According to the language of the report, it is “regrettable” that a woman’s right to control her own body “remain[s] an idealogical battleground.” Further, the parliament suggests that the individual countries legislatively protect the “right to access voluntary family planning and safe and legal abortion.”

Any attempt to deny a woman an abortion, says the parliament’s report, is a “serious breach of human rights.”

There is much in that statement that should offend everyone in the EU who believes that the unborn are human and possess rights — rights they are incapable of having defended by demagogues meeting in marbled halls who hand down progressive pronouncements that could result in the murder of millions.

Regarding the “rights” particular to homosexuals, the report recommends that legislatures throughout Europe “raise the issue of LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and intersex] rights in political and human rights dialogues with third countries and multilateral forums.” The parliament also presses for national governments to “support organisations [sic] defending LGBTI rights by empowering them to challenge homophobic and transphoboic laws and discrimination against LGBTI people.”

It is undeniable that there is an accelerating momentum globally and domestically speeding toward expanding the scope of sexually abnormal behavior. The very fact that the movement was once known as “gay rights” finds even that nomenclature too restrictive and exclusionary. Now, it would be “transphobic” (and some other sort of phobia, as well) to fight simply for the “rights” of homosexuals.

Legalized same-sex “marriage” is praised by the parliament, whose report points joyfully to the number of nations (17) where such acts are approved. In fact, countries where marriage is defined as the legal union of one man and one woman are, the report reads, are dealing with a serious “social and human and civil rights issue.”

In that vein, the reports singles out the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where “a bill constitutionally banning same-sex marriage is currently being considered in parliament.” As might be expected, the European Parliament’s report denigrates such legislation as contributing to “a climate of homophobia and discrimination.”

A story on the report’s approval published by Breitbart cites a statement made by advocates of traditional marriage:

The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe said that the resolution’s position on marriage “threatens the right of children to have a father and a mother.” It said children’s best interest should be considered, and their needs “should be respected” and “cannot be neglected in favor of adults’ desires.”

That statement strikes directly at the heart of the matter. The parliament’s declarations do nothing for the “rights” of the so-called LGBTI community. These people are humans and humans have rights regardless of their sexual orientation or surgical choices. In fact, there is hardly a day that passes without defense of these people echoing throughout palaces of power. Furthermore, the LGBTI community spends billions on lobbyists to promote their positions in parliaments, congresses, and courts around the world.

The unborn, however, have no voice — at least not one that can be heard. These most vulnerable of people must silently surrender to the whims and selfish desires of an ever expanding circle of protected classes.

Three hundred and ninety members of the European Parliament voted in favor of the report, known as the Panzeri Report. That was more than double the number of members who voted against it.

As state after state legalizes gay “marriage” and enacts slates of special rights for people represented by the other letters in the ever-lengthening acronym of sexual orientation, the movement heads away from traditional, timeless values and hurtles at breakneck speed toward total abandonment of the unborn and complete adoption of the radical LGBTI agenda.

Remarkably, the LGBTI lobby is not satisfied with the recommendations of the Panzeri Report. Activists are always pressuring governments to push back the borders of accommodations to their way of life. Take these paragraphs from a report called “Fight Discrimination in Europe” authored by Amnesty International:

Transgender rights, the right to be protected from homophobic and transphobic hate crime and discrimination in areas such as education and health are still not guaranteed under EU law. And there are still attempts to restrict freedom of assembly for LGBTI participants, and to discriminate against LGBTI people by introducing homophobic and transphobic legislation in Lithuania, an EU member state.

When all too often human rights seem to play second fiddle to other factors such as the economy, the EU needs to put human rights at the heart of all of its action, internally and externally.

At a recent LGBT Intergroup event, it was great to hear MEP Ulrike Lunacek acknowledge the importance of Amnesty International as a human rights organisation engaged in working for LGBTI rights. I felt proud to be part of the wider movement to combat discrimination, and I strongly believe that the positive steps we have accomplished have only been possible with the joint efforts of the LGBT Intergroup and civil society.

And, lest anyone believe this bloc is content to change Europe, consider this call to action by the same group:

We can and must continue to push the EU to do more. Only then can we concretely achieve better LGBTI rights across Europe and beyond. As part of my work for the Fight Discrimination in Europe campaign, I will continue to urge the European Parliament to keep working to advance LGBTI rights.

While some activists may be content to pressure lawmakers to accommodate their demands, as this reporter revealed last month, these advocates have allies in the United States that are pushing for a constitutional convention wherein these positions would not only be included in bills, but they would also become part of our very foundational document.

Rather than representing the best and most virtuous of ourselves and our common principles, Constitution 2.0, hammered out by pro-LGBTI representatives at an “amendments convention” would be an unrecognizable recitation of the most selfish desires of a small segment of our society.