Human life has an absolute value.
"Every human being has the right to respect for his/her life from its beginning until its natural end.
"Every human being has the right to be born of a man and a woman.
"These rights must be specially safeguarded in medical and biotechnological applications, as well as in the context of research."
The words are those proposed by Europe's Catholic bishops to be included in a legally binding EU charter of fundamental rights currently being drawn up by a convention set up by EU leaders. And their purpose will be all too familiar to Irish readers, another absolutist attempt to ban abortion and also euthanasia.
Yet, in truth, the climate of public opinion in the rest of Europe is such that these aspects of the church's submission are likely to get short shrift.
Indeed, when the secretariat of the Brussels-based Commission of Bishops of the European Community (Comece), drafted its "pro-life" amendment to the EU treaties few among its members, experienced in the ways of the EU, clearly had any serious expectation that it would be agreed.
Abortion rights are widely recognised throughout the EU, and any serious attempt to roll them back would precipitate a major revolt in most states. And, although euthanasia legislation is going through only two legislatures, Brussels and The Hague, the prospect of getting the unanimity of member-states required for any treaty change to agree a ban would be impossible.
But a submission on human rights by the Catholic Church to the EU's Convention on Fundamental Rights would certainly look strange without such a clause, and there is in the second part of the draft clause a prize that can realistically be won in the form of a ban on human cloning and the setting of ethical limits to biotechnology.
Hence the emphasis of the covering explanatory memorandum from Comece; the words "abortion" and "euthanasia" are not even mentioned:
"Right to life - It should be self-evident that this is the most important of all the fundamental rights. However, as a result of scientific advances, developments could result in certain abuses that undermine human dignity. For instance, current cloning techniques have shown that it is becoming possible to reproduce life without any merging of gametes, i.e. without an egg having been fertilised by a sperm.
"Taking into account developments in scientific research, it is becoming an urgent matter to lay down absolute respect for human life and dignity."
But the purpose of the language is also unequivocally to prohibit abortion and euthanasia, as a spokesman for Comece made clear to The Irish Times. And the explanatory memorandum also makes clear the proposed treaty provisions are by no means aspirational: "The rights included in Comece's proposal have been drawn up in the desire to give them binding legal force."
The spokesman emphasised that the church accepted there could be a case for "passive euthanasia", the withholding of medical treatment that would needlessly prolong life, and that it accepts that where a physical threat to a pregnant mother exists her life should be seen as having priority.
But, Irish legal sources insist, reflecting the long and bitter experience of rows about such constitutional provisions, the drafting of the submission does not make such caveats explicit.
They argue that a court which accepted the Catholic definition of human life would interpret the phrase "human life has an absolute value" and the reference to "respect for his/her life from its beginning until its natural end" as an absolute prohibition on abortion and euthanasia.
The submission has been made to a convention tasked to draft an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights by December (not to be confused with the Inter-Governmental Conference which has the same deadline but an institutional reform agenda).
The convention, established by EU leaders at Cologne last June, is an ad-hoc body of 62 members; 15 representatives of governments, one of the Commission, 16 MEPs and 30 members of national parliaments. It is chaired by the former German president, Mr Roman Herzog.
The Government's representative is the former minister and EU commissioner, Mr Michael O'Kennedy TD, backed up by the former legal adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mahon Hayes. The Dail is represented by the former PD leader, Mr Des O'Malley TD, and Fine Gael's Mr Bernard Durkan TD.
The Comece submission also seeks to establish a number of other rights which it argues are not sufficiently copperfastened by the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and other international conventions and charters.
It wants special protection for the family as "the natural and fundamental element of society" and urges the provision of a clause recognising "the right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to raise a family".
The paper makes no reference to divorce but insists that "in the event of dissolution of the family, the law shall make the necessary provisions to ensure proper protection of the children, solely in their interest and for their wellbeing". The submission proposes strengthening the protection of free speech by entrenching the rights of churches, the guarantee of the right to political asylum, the right of access to healthcare, and protection against discrimination on the grounds of health, disability or genetic attributes.
The right to rest and leisure, particularly on a Sunday, should also be protected, Comece says. And it argues for the right to proper social protection against want and to adequate social security benefits.
