Article 12. No one shall be
subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family,
home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such
interference or attacks.
This Clause protects mothers from having their newborn infants
taken and withheld from them by hospitals and maternity homes,
a policy instituted in many nations from 1950 onwards in order
to attempt to prevent unwed mothers from bonding with their
babies and thus increasing the chances of surrender of the infant
for adoption to meet the growing demand
for babies.
This Clause is not restricted to applying solely to adults,
and thus infants are simliarly protected from being robbed of
their natural families.
Article 16. (3) The family
is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled
to protection by society and the State.
A mother and her newborn child together are a family, and entitled
to protection by Society and the State.
Article 25. (1)
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social
services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood
in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood
are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether
born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
This clause guarantees an unwed mother and her child adequate
social assistance such that poverty should never force her to
surrender her child to adoption. Poverty of single parents in
any developed nation constitutes an intentional government policy
of financial coercion designed to dissuade the poor from having
children, with the end result of punishing those children who
are born to poor families.
