NGO Comments on the draft text
Draft article 8 – Right to Life

LSN Intervention

Landmine Survivors Network supports the retention of Article 8 on the right to life on the basis that the right to life is a fundamental principle of human rights law from which no derogation is permitted. While we support the formulation of the Working Group, we believe that serious consideration should be given to the proposal put forward by the delegation of India that reflects the approach taken in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A number of delegations have put forward proposals relating to the particular situation of groups at risk. We strongly support these proposals. We recommend that proposals for language on groups at risk would be more appropriately structured in the convention if placed in a separate article. Therefore, a new article should reflect the particular situation of persons with disabilities in armed conflict and natural disaster. In addition, we support the inclusion of a separate paragraph in an article on groups at risk that references the situation of persons with disabilities in rural or remote areas or in scattered populations. Precedent for such inclusion is reflected in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Proposal from World Federation of the DeafBlind
Lex Grandia

Draft Article 8
RIGHT TO LIFE

1. States Parties recognize and protect the inherent right to life of all persons with disabilities, and shall take all necessary measures to ensure its effective enjoyment by women, men, girls and boys in all stages of life.

2. The right to life also includes the right to survive.

3. Disability must not become a justifiation for the termination of life.

4. States Parties shall undertake effective measures to the prohibition of compulsory abortion at the instance of the State based on the pre-natal diagnosis of disability.

5. States Parties shall also prohibit all medical, biological and other experiments reducing the quality of life of persons with disabilities.

Intervention by (Australian) National Association of Community Legal Centres, People with Disability Australia Incorporated, Australian Federation of Disability Organisations

Mr Chairman:

Thank you for this opportunity to address the Ad Hoc Committee.

We strongly support the content of draft article 8 but seek the inclusion of additional statements elaborating this right as it applies to the specific circumstances of people with disability. We propose that a further sentence is added to the article as follows:

“These measures shall include:

1. Enacting measures to discourage the elimination of unborn children on the basis of their actual, suspected, imputed, assumed or possible future disability by:

a. Providing positive pre-natal information, and post natal support to parents of children with disability;

b. Prohibiting State and non-State actors from limiting or refusing social assistance on equal terms with others on the basis of a parental decision to bear a child with disability;

c. The provision of life-sustaining and life-enhancing medical and social interventions that will ensure survival of persons with disability;

2. Enacting protections against violence, abuse, and neglect of people with disability;

3. Eliminating policies and practices that result in the segregation and isolation of people with disability.”

The lives of people with disability are often regarded as inferior to those without disability. Genetic testing is most often used to detect chromosome variations that may result in impairment for the purposes of supporting selective termination on the basis of that impairment. In this respect the Human Genome Project, whatever the benefits it may offer people with disability, also represents a fundamental eugenic threat to the continued existence of many impairment groups. Much of the information that is made available to parents at the time of genetic testing and immediately following the birth of a child with disability is overwhelmingly negative and inaccurate, and induces parents to opt for termination or withdrawal of life sustaining treatments. There is a grave risk that both States and private actors – such as insurers – may deny social assistance to children with disability and parents where parents make a conscious decision to proceed with a pregnancy where disability has been detected prior to birth.

Medical and social interventions are often denied people with disability, or given secondary priority. In the absence of these interventions people with disability sometimes cannot survive.

People with disability are subject to significantly higher levels of violence, abuse, and neglect than other members of the community. All people with disability are at increased risk, but particular groups, including women and children with disability, indigenous people with disability and people with multiple and severe impairments, are at particular risk. People with disability are also frequently subject to segregation and isolation, which contributes greatly to their vulnerability to violence, abuse and neglect, resulting in an increased fatality rate.

For these reasons, it is vital that this convention create an obligation on States to take steps to ensure that people with disability enjoy this fundamental human right.

Thank you for the opportunity to make this intervention.