U.S Senate Defeats CRPD Treaty That Would Promote Abortion

The treaty needed a two-thirds vote for approval and the Senate voted 61-38 to approve, which fell short of that requirement. Democrats voted for the treaty while most Republicans voted against it.

Heritage Action released the following statement from CEO Michael A. Needham, “We congratulate the Senators who stood for American sovereignty by refusing to ratify this treaty.  While today’s vote is important, it does not mark the end of the fight.  Bad treaties never die in Washington and Heritage Action will remain vigilant.”

Rick Santorum, the former presidential candidate who led much of the fight against the treaty, also praised the vote that defeated it.
“If it weren’t for you, the U.S. Senate wouldn’t have defeated the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ,” he told his supporters by email. “Your petition signatures (over 20,000!), phone calls, emails and tweets about CRPD’s flaws made the difference.”
“Now, that CRPD is defeated, we know that United Nations won’t have oversight of how we care for our special needs kids. This treaty would have given the U.N. oversight of the healthcare and education choices parents with special needs kids make. Had it passed, CRPD would have become the law of the land under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, and would have trumped state laws, and could have been used as precedent by state and federal judges,” he said.

The International Right to Life Federation says pro-life groups oppose this legislation because it leaves open the potential for the international community to permit sterilization or abortion for the disabled. The  terminology, found in Article 25, requires, “free or affordable health care including the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based health programs.”
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