Following the Vatican's controversial opposition this week to a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican envoy to the UN, has confirmed that the Holy See also refused to sign a UN document last May on the rights of the disabled because it did not condemn abortion or assert the rights of foetuses with birth defects.

The Vatican made its position clear today Wednesday as it marked the United Nations International Day of Disabled People. Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, said the Holy See's position was "already widely known". Archbishop Migliore said the Vatican supported the rights of the disabled, but could not accept a clause in the UN declaration affirming a right to "sexual health and reproduction" because "in some countries such rights include the right to abortion".

The Italian left of centre Democratic Party said that coupled with the Vatican's stand on gays, this showed a "return to obscurantism" under Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy See's position was also criticised by the Italian Federation for the Handicapped.

The Vatican statement on discrimination against gays meanwhile was criticised by France, which currently holds the Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers, as well as by Amnesty International and gay rights groups. La Stampa described the Vatican stand as "grotesque".

Diplomats said the proposed UN declaration, to be adopted on 10 December by the UN general assembly, called for an end to the practice of criminalising and punishing people for their sexual orientation, and was aimed in part at countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality can be punished by death.

However Archbishop Migliore said the Vatican was concerned that countries where gay marriage is banned would "come under pressure" to allow it, and could even be "punished" for no doing so.