The UN Protects People with Disabilities

“Can anything good come out of the United Nations,” I ask in the lede of my piece in the current Weekly Standard discussing that new UN treaty, which if followed—always a big if in these kind of things—would substantially protect the rights of people with disabilities. The article is currently only available to subscribers, but here are a few key paragraphs:

“The convention is a welcome reaffirmation of the principles that are ‘proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations which recognize the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.’ In a world growing increasingly utilitarian, an international declaration unequivocally affirming that human life has intrinsic moral worth regardless of capacities and attributes is most welcome.”

Since the treaty protects the right to life of disabled people, I note, “This could be very good news for Dutch infants born with serious health problems or disabilities, as the Dutch parliament is well on the path to formally legalizing eugenic infanticide. If the Low Countries ratify the treaty, as expected, Dutch diplomatic representatives should be asked to justify their “compassionate” policy of allowing the killing of disabled babies in the face of this new international convention requiring the lives of disabled people be protected.”

For reasons discussed in the article, US won’t be participating in the treaty itself, although we lauded its passage. Still, we helped negotiate it and I point out that some of the most important protections—particularly one preventing discriminatory withholding of food and fluids based on disability—were negotiated by conservative Non Government Organizations (NGOs), of which there are too few now standing up for the intrinsic value of human life in the international sphere dud to disdain for internationalism. I conclude:

“But such standoffishness is woefully shortsighted. Like it or not, many of the most important social and legal policies of the twenty-first century are going to be materially influenced by international protocols such as this one. These agreements are molded substantially behind the scenes by NGOs—most of which are currently leftist in their political outlooks and relativistic in their social orientation. This makes for a stacked deck. If conservatives hope to influence the moral values of the future, they are going to have to hold their collective noses and get into the game.”