UN: Catholic teaching on abortion may be a form of ‘torture’

GENEVA, Switzerland, May 5, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – During hearings that one participant described as “surreal,” United Nations representatives today suggested that the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion in the case of rape and incest constitute a violation of the UN Charter Against Torture.

Felice Gaer, the director of the American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, said the Catholic Church's 2,000-year-old doctrinal teaching on abortion may be responsible for nine-year-old rape victims giving birth.

“This committee has found repeatedly that laws that criminalize the termination of pregnancy in all circumstances can violate the terms of the convention" on torture, she said.

U.S. pro-life observers criticized Gaer's interpretation of the global document.

“From what I am reading, this is no more than UN propaganda trying to make the Catholic Church seem 'extreme' for not advocating for abortion in the case of rape or sexual assault,” abstinence speaker Pam Stenzel, who was conceived in rape, told LifeSiteNews.com. “It is not news that some members of the UN want abortion access for all women, including minors, and when access is denied they consider that a violation of 'women's rights.'”