Weekly Human Rights News: 11/04/2025

This week’s human rights news includes two updates from our community work and a legal case on foetal rights. 

This week, we attended the second 2025 quarterly meeting for the London Human Rights Community Programme (LHRCP). At the meeting, facilitated by Just Fair, we met the LHRCP community groups in person to discuss the importance of participation in community work. 

Each of the community groups shared stories of how participation from people in their community, and people with lived experience have shaped and impacted their work. We also spoke about what needs to be done to improve participation, such as encouraging accessible ways for communities to access consultations, and to have their voices heard about decisions that affect them. 

It is exciting to see the LCHRCP taking shape, and to see the impact that using human rights is already having in community groups across London. 

Over the past four years, we’ve been running a UK-wide Community Programme, starting with a pilot programme in 2021 and followed by three years funded by the Baring Foundation. The programme aims to support groups across the UK to address social justice issues using human rights.  

As we come to the end of the programme, we’ve been thinking about the importance of human rights-based approaches in community work and the real-life impact this can have.  
 
Our new article shares some of the stories of success including participants contributing to research for a Parliamentary Ombudsman and a community group that used the resources created to challenge an inaccessible government consultation.

The High Court heard a case on foetal rights and blood-borne viruses 

PP was pregnant with her fifth child. She had previously been to hospital with a disorder which made led staff to believe she might have HIV or AIDS, which could be passed on to her unborn baby. The hospital wanted to make a plan to test PP’s baby as soon as it was born – either by testing umbilical cord blood or the baby’s blood. Testing the umbilical cord would show whether PP had HIV and, if she did, there would be a risk the baby did too. The baby could then be given treatment, which had the best chance of preventing HIV development if given within four hours of birth. However, PP did not consent to this testing.  

The hospital asked the court to make an order saying it was lawful to carry out the tests anyway, because it was in the baby’s best interests. However, the court said it could not make the order until the baby was born. This is because “an unborn child does not have a legal personality. It is part of the mother’s body and does not have independent rights.” 
 
PP, however, did have human rights – including the Article 8 right to private life. By testing the umbilical cord blood and revealing her health status, the hospital would be interfering with PP’s private life rights. This is a non-absolute human right, meaning the hospital could only interfere with it if there was a law allowing them to do so; it was for a good reason; and it was the least restrictive option available. Protecting other people’s rights can be a good reason for interfering with someone’s right to private life. However, in PP’s case, the court could not take into account the baby’s situation until after the baby was born and had rights of its own. It therefore said the hospital should make a new application after the baby was born. 

The hospital did, and a new court hearing took place within the hour. The court gave consent to testing the baby as it was “overwhelmingly in the baby’s best interest.” 

Read the judgment