Respecting the treaties

"The legal protection of the dignity, right to life and integrity of every human being from conception in those areas under the EU’s jurisdiction in which such protection is relevant". This is the aim of the Citizens’ initiative entitled "One of US" officially registered by the European Commission, on May 11th. The initiative, which must be backed by at least one million signatures of EU citizens to become a legislative proposal to the Commission, refers to various Eu Treaty provisions.Promoters. The "One of Us" initiative is positioned within a broad pro-life horizon, which includes, associations, movements, pro life centres, social volunteers, disseminated throughout Europe. The main goals stated by the promoters and now registered in the EU are: "The dignity and integrity of the human embryo deserve respect. This was stated in the European Court of Justice’s judgement in the Brustle case, which defines the embryo as the commencement of the development of a human being". In order to "guarantee in its competence centres where the life of human embryo is at stake, the EU must ban and stop funding activities involved in human embryo destruction especially for research, aid to development and public healthcare". The list of promoters and people tasked with the initiative include: Patrick Gregor Puppinck, Filippo Vari, Josephine Quintavalle, Jakub Baltroszwicz, Manfred Liebner, Edith Frivaldszki e Alicia Latorre. Many European MP also back the initiative. Collection ongoing. The "One of Us" initiative was first publicly presented at the European Parliament, in Brussels, during the "Week for life" on March 26-29, a couple of days before the European Citizens’ Initiative came into force (April 1). The new participatory democracy tool created by the Lisbon Treaty, which gives citizens the right to propose legislations to the Commission on matters where the EU has competence to legislate. After last week’s registration (all material, information and initiative’s operational steps can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome) the signature collection kicked off together with many national and local events to arise Europeans awareness on the goals of "One of Us". The next deadline is to be able to collect the necessary signatures needed for the proposal: the organizers expect to collect more than 20 million signatures from the 27 adhering countries.Draft legal act. Analysing the registered text many "considerations" lead back to the initiative’s starting point. "The aim pursued by the initiative is within the European Union’s competence domains, where abortion is excluded, and does not include Member States’ competence domains" ( necessary juridical premises) ; "art 2 of the European Treaty sets the basis of the Union "on protection of human dignity (…) equality (…) and human rights"; according to art. 1 of Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union "human dignity is inviolable" and art 2 states that "everyone has the right to live". Furthermore: "The Union must be inspired by a specific standard when it acts in fields concerning human life from its conception and this standard must be such to include the right to life of all human beings at least according to a precautionary principle".Treaties. Furthermore "the recent European Court of Justice’s ruling on October 18, 2011, in the Brüstle case against Greenpeace clearly shows that life starts with fertilization and protecting human dignity excludes from patentability any process which either implies or requires the destruction of human embryos, considered as any human ovum fertilized or whose division and further development has been stimulated by parthenogenesis". Considering "the principle of consistency, this standard should guide the EU’s actions in its areas of competence, where protection of human embryo is at stake". These areas are, also according to the Treaties, public healthcare, education, intellectual property protection, funding for research and cooperation development. Thus integration proposal to some Community laws highlighting that no EU funding can be allocated to research that destroys human embryos; Union aid in the international field "must not be used to fund abortion, either directly or indirectly"; thus organizations which promote or practice abortion must be excluded from EU funding.