By Tony Gosgnach
The Interim

The anti-life, anti-family UN agenda continues unabated. 

Last month, The Interim examined how the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was being used by some UN figures as a vehicle to showcase a “universal human right to abortion.” In the last several weeks, the observance of International Women’s Day has served as another pretext for UN ideologues to reiterate that principle.

On International Women’s Day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson stated the now-familiar refrain that “human rights are women’s rights too and the United Nations must be the uncompromising guardian of women’s rights.”

Robinson lauded various UN documents that have dealt with women, and had thigh praise for the 1995 Beijing Declaration, which included the phrase that “the human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.”

Robinson concluded by issuing a call for immediate action on the implementation of the UN’s version of human rights, adding: “It is past time to move from fine words to firm action by international organizations, national and local governments, and civil society to ensure that the rights of women everywhere are fully honoured.”

These developments, and others, led United Families International founder Susan Roylance to release a report last month that outlined a UN plan for the enforcement of its views on women’s rights, including unfettered access to abortion.

Roylance’s report noted that the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women is part of the effort. The CEDAW is an international treaty that may soon be up to ratification by the U.S. Senate. The U.S, delegation to the UN announced an extensive campaign beginning March 11 to “educate” U.S. senators on the treaty, in order to win their support for the pact.

Roylance warned that the UN was working on the final wording of an optional protocol on CEDAW. “This optional protocol would be another international treaty, which would establish a legal body within the UN to enforce the provisions of the CEDAW, ” she said.

Compliance

“This committee would have the power of a court, to require nations to bring all  of their laws in compliance with CEDAW, once the optional protocol is ratified,” she added. “The greatest danger of the optional protocol is the power of this second international treaty to overturn national sovereignty in areas of family and social law.”

Roylance said the optional protocol would also give the new UN legal committee the power to enforce “obligations” upon any person, organization or enterprise within a nation signing the CEDAW. It is the provision for enforced compliance against individuals that Roylance finds most worrisome.

At a press conference, Aloisia Woergetter, chair of a UN Commission on the Status of Women working group, confirmed that CEDAR was moving to forbid reservations to the protocol. The protocol “would establish a right of petition for individual women to appear before the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women,” she said, inferring that a woman who felt her “right” to am abortion was being compromised could bring her case to the UN.

Such a petition would “trigger an inquiry procedure by which the Committee could address serious of symptomatic women’s rights violations.” Woergetter said the final wording of the protocol will not be finalized until next year.

Intense debate

The Catholic World News Service reported recently that intense debate on abortion and contraception surrounded a UN commission as it examined a plan for a special session of the UN General Assembly to review the Beijing women’s conference in the year 2000.

Mainly Moslem countries, including Iran and Sudan, battled Western nations during the debate. The news service reported that the chair of the commission overruled objections and allowed to let stand language that spoke of rights to “reproductive freedom” by “girl children” apart from their parents’ wishes. A pro-life victory in the skirmish was the removal of a condemnation of “forced pregnancy” (that is, restrictions on abortion) from the final document.

Latin American countries were said to have tired of talks about “reproductive rights” and weren’t involved in the after international agencies and feminist groups told them not to take part.

In a related development, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that “not a cent” of U.S. dues owed to the UN would go to abortion-related endeavours if the U.S. paid its $1.3 billion in arrears.

Roylance,  at United Families International, responded that Annan’s offer was “laughable” and not true. “The whole UN system promotes the concept of abortion and population control,” she said.