Human rights and the unborn child / / by Rita Joseph.

• Author: Joseph, Rita.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Nijhoff eBook titles 2009
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (368 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

This challenging volume gathers a selection of the mass of material available from the major human rights instruments, from first drafts, legislative histories, and contemporary commentaries, from more recent scholarship as well as from the General Comments and Concluding Observations and Recommendations of the various treaty monitoring bodies relating to the topic of the unborn child. Contemporary reinterpretations of these documents are held up to the searchlight of historical context, including a reminder of the original purpose and meaning and the philosophical foundation of modern international human rights law.

Table of Contents

UDHR recognition of the child before birth : analysis of the texts -- UDHR recognition of the child before birth : the historical context -- Fundamentals of the universal declaration's human rights protection -- The inaugural human right : to be born free and equal -- What is "appropriate" legal protection before as well as after birth? -- The right to life and to the necessities of life -- Decriminalization : a treaty interpretation manifestly unreasonable -- CRC legislative history and the child before birth -- Selective abortion on grounds of disability -- European Convention (1950) and the unborn child -- American Convention on Human Rights : " ... in general, from the moment of conception" -- Reclaiming rights of the African child at risk of abortion -- Selective abortion : an act of violence and discrimination on grounds of sex -- Children's rights : " ... without any exceptions whatsoever" -- Ideologies must conform to human rights, not human rights to ideologies.