Amnesty for Babies campaign

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) has not been implemented for all children. The Convention is often unjustly reinterpreted to limit its scope just to children who have been born. The Amnesty for Babies campaign is promoting the rights of unborn children through a petition to the international community, to be presented in 2010. Explanatory briefing

What you can do

Please print copies of the petition and ask other people to sign it. Then return the completed petitions to the postal address on the forms. (Please note that this general petition, open to ordinary citizens, is distinct from the legislators' petition and the scientists' & physicians' declaration launched previously.) We hope that people in various countries will gather signatures in public places (e.g. high streets, squares), outside houses of worship, among friends etc. National and regional organisations around the world are invited to become co-sponsors of the petition - contact us to find out how.

Signatories by Country

Click here to see who has signed the legislators' petition according to country.

Signatories by Name

Click here to see who has signed the legislators' petition according to name.

Abortion and human rights

There are some rights which the state has authority to confer (such as citizenship) but there are also fundamental rights of human beings. Fundamental rights, including the right to life, are inherent to, and derive from, the dignity of the human person. These rights are not bestowed by governments but must be recognised by them and protected in law. The right to life and equality is enshrined in a number of international human rights instruments.

Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins the articulation of the human values to be defended in terms of human rights. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person."

There is no agreed basis for dividing up the human family into persons and non-persons, but there is an agreement from science that from fertilisation we all share a common humanity, that we are all members of the "human family", to use the Declaration's words. Full briefing