The rights of children highlights the need for public policies that support parents, a Vatican delegate has told the United Nations.

“The promotion and the protection of the rights of the child cannot be separated from measures to support and strengthen the family”, said the Deputy Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.

Addressing the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, Monsignor Robert Murphy remarked that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society”.

He therefore pointed to the need for policy makers to “provide programmes that support and complement mothers and fathers, rather than replace them”, to enable “children to flourish as human beings.”

Monsignor Murphy also reaffirmed the Holy See’s stance that children need safeguards also before birth, advocating in particular against abortion, including sex-selective abortion and eugenic abortion, that victimize girls and children with disabilities. In this regard, he further decried assisted reproduction, particularly in the form of surrogacy, that, he said “is incompatible with respect for the dignity and rights of the child.”