I was told at the time of the Cairo Conference that a Vatican statement on abortion had warned that governments could impose contraception and abortion on people. Is there such a warning? A.P. Ontario

In fact such a warning was given six years before the Vatican Declaration on Abortion. In 1968, the encyclical Humane Vitae (On Human Life),after discussing and condemning abortifacients, sterilization, contraceptives and abortion, went on to say:

“Finally, grave consideration should be given to the dangers of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a Government which in its attempt to resolve the measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen. Therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may be giving into the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.”

Today, we can see how this has come to pass, as governments- local, national, and even international – have imposed their will on the people: India and Brazil have had millions of forced sterilizations; millions of women in Pakistan were conned into accepting IUD’s; China, under its rule of one child per family, has forced abortion. In their efforts to impose an international population control on third-world countries, the United Nations, with the aid of its agencies and NGOs such as the World Bank, has tied development aid to Latin America and Africa to acceptance of abortifacients, sterilization, and even abortion.

I know that an unborn child has some legal rights. Can you explain these. L.M. Manitoba

Laws vary from country to country, and, as we know all too well, from year to year depending on the courts. There are two kinds of law that still protect the preborn child’s rights: law of property and tort law.

English common law formed the basis of law in Canada, the USA, Austrailia, New Zealand and Britain. For centuries English common law of property has recognized that the preborn child is an autonomous human being, and that the word “child” includes the “conceived but not yet born.” In 1795 an English Court interpreted the ordinary meaning of the word “children” in a will to include a child in the womb: “An infant en ventre sa mere, who by the course and order of nature is then living, comes clearly within the description of children living at the time of his decease”

Three years later, in 1798, when this decision was challenged in another court, the judges endorsed the earlier judgment: “Why should not children en ventre sa mere, be considered generally as in existence? They are entitled to all the privileges of other persons.” In reply to an argument that such a child was a non-entity, the court said: “Let us see what this non-entity can do,” and proceeded to list the rights. In more modern language the court said the preborn child:

a)can inherit property, estates, and the titles that go with estates

b)have a guardian

c)be appointed an executor

d)may secure his/her property and interest by an injunction.

In modern times, and in some jurisdictions, a preborn child has a claim to workers’ compensation, as does a posthumous child.

A second group of rights come under tort law. Tort is a breach of duty imposed by law, whereby some person acquires a right of action for damages. Thus a preborn child has the right to be protected against willful or negligent injury, and to receive damages if imjury is incurred. W. Prosser, an authority on tort law said: “… the unborn child in the path of the automobile is as much a person in the street as a mother.” Many courts have succeeded in limiting the damage done to their babies by mothers who are on drugs or alcohol.

It is interesting to note that, in the last decades, tort law has been increasingly supportive of the personhood of the child in the womb (especially by comparison with decisions of the US and Canadian Supreme courts). Further, these rights have been awarded for injuries sustained in the first week of life.