Austin Ruse

We have arrived at a perilous moment in the life of the family. Long under attack by her enemies, the family seems now to be disintegrating all around us. In every country of the developed world, families are breaking up under a plethora of pernicious pathologies. The roots of the attack, and their result are easily enumerated by most of the current social science data. But I will focus on one institution with which I am most familiar, the United Nations, an institution that is increasingly at the forefront of the attack on the family.

It is my intention to begin forty years ago. It is not enough that we know the minutiae of the last UN document. It is not enough that lobby every UN meeting related to life and family, although we should. Since we have arrived at this moment not all at once, it is essential that must understand the roots of the attack. The planning of the anti-family forces has been concerted for more than four decades. Understanding this will also allow us to know that our fight will be a long one.

I will describe the advances the other side has made in UN forums and documents, especially those in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I will then describe the response of the pro-family world. Though we have arrived late in this fight at the UN, we have arrived and we have made a difference. I will end with good news, I will end with a vision of the future, I will present ideas toward a permanent United Nations pro-family bloc.

I begin in 1934 with a paper written by the husband and wife team of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal called “Crisis in the Population Question.” The Myrdals called the family “almost pathological,” “rootless,” “isolated,” and doomed to “disintegration and sterility.” They proposed, and I quote directly from Dr. Carlson’s essay, that the family must be replaced by a new social model, in which women would stand by men “as comrades” in productive wage labor, in which children would become a social or state responsibility, and in which antique notions surrounding “private life” and “home” would give way to state-guided social planning and cooperation. They also proposed striking down abortion laws, expanding the availability of contraception, wide-spread sex education for children, and using the state to set population targets and controls, and the elimination of distinctions between married and unmarried adults.[1]

Ideological fervor like this landed both Gunnar and Alva in high posts at the newly founded United Nations. He became head of  the UN Economic Commission for Europe. She was offered her first job at the UN as head of the Department of Social Affairs. This was followed a few years later with her posting as head of the Division of Social Science at the UN Economic and Social Council. According to Dr. Carlson, her purpose in those days was two-fold, the reconstruction of sex roles and population control. As you well know, these are the two essential issues for radical UN feminists to this very day. It is also interesting to note that even then, the principle target of attack for Mydal and her gang, was “Catholic governments” and “Catholic scholars” who believed there was no over-population crisis.

It should be noted that the Myrdal’s shared themselves lived on the far frontiers of marital understanding. They shared what they called a “companionate marriage” which seems to have been no more than what was known as an “open marriage” in the sexually promiscuous swinging seventies.

Alva Mydal’s work culminated in a paper she published in the late 1960’s in which she proposed that “No specific form of cohabitation should be rewarded through the tax system,” “benefits previously inherent in married status should be eliminated,” and “more protection should be provided to other forms of cohabitation.” It should give at least a little comfort to our friends from France that the disaster they have just encountered was planned a long time ago.

And this is the point I will repeat over and over. We did not arrive at his perilous moment all at once. This happened over the course of decades.  And neither should we expect that our victory will come quickly or soon. All the more reason that we remain steadfast, that our spirits do not flag with every defeat, nor soar too high with our victories. There is a phenomenon in our ranks called burnout, and this comes with feeling our loses too deeply, too personally. They wound us and discourage us. It is right to be sad, but not inordinately sad. Our movement is littered with those who have left over inordinate sadness. God does not want us to be sad because it is an aspect of the sin of sloth, a weariness to continue our long struggles. We should take the lead of professional politicians and learn a certain measure of dispassion. This will get us through the lows and even through the highs and will mean we will be prepared for the long march back through the institutions that have been taken from us.

After the Mydals, the greatest leap forward for our opponents at the UN was the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). While the Mydals were most influential for their day, the Cold War still kept their dreams in a small box. Moreover, there still existed grown up governments back then, governments who had not yet surrendered to the ethos of radical feminism and anti-family ideologies. By 1979, this was no longer so. And CEDAW proves it. What followed upon CEDAW proves it further.

There are quite sensible things in CEDAW, that women should be allowed to vote and to hold jobs and not be discriminated against in a number of other ways. Still, CEDAW began badly right in Article 1 which proposes that “discrimination against women shall mean any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on a basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.  This is the very kind of radical leveling and denial of natural distinctions that the Myrdall’s suggested forty years earlier. The Convention goes on to tell States Parties “to modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices based on the idea of inferiority or superiority…” Was my mother inferior to my father because he went to an office each day and she taught me how to read? CEDAW thinks so.

I regret to say that CEDAW is still not a bad as what has come in its wake. CEDAW established a committee that meets on a regular basis before which governments must appear and explain their progress in enacting CEDAW’s goals. Moreover, this committee has claimed for itself broad powers to reinterpret the words of the Convention, and goes on to demand that governments acceed to their new interpretations. Thus we have the CEDAW directing the government of Krygestan to legalize prostitution. The CEDAW committee has ordered the government of China to legalize prostitution even though the Convention expressly forbids the trafficing and prostitution of women. Moreover, and most egregiously, the Committee has ordered the government of Libya to reinterpret the Koran so that it falls within Committee guidelines.

CEDAW did not mention reproductive rights, but did say that women have the right to family planning services and to determine the number and spacing of their children. This is the immediate predecessor of all that came after.

Even with CEDAW, our side did not wake up the damage done by the UN until the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, the Cairo Conference. At that time, Pope John Paul II called forth people of all faiths to go to Cairo and to fight the Culture of Death. He knew that rumors of great danger whispered from that ancient city. More than 200 citizen lobbyists appeared out of nowhere, indeed from all parts of the globe. And these citizen lobbyist, who knew nothing about UN documents and nothing about UN lobbying braved a hostile environment and won significant victories. The most significant was stopping the feminists from their desire to make abortion an internationally recognized human right. Indeed, at Cairo, abortion as a method of family planning was strictly forbidden. Cairo not only saw the birth of the UN pro-family movement, it also saw the emergence of a new and very potent alliance between Catholic and Muslim countries. Our enemies call this an un-holy alliance. And so from their point of view it is, because it is from this alliance, new in the world, new to history, that our victory will come.

The most significant advance for the other side is one that our side has barely noticed but has long term ramifications for our struggle. At a UNFPA briefing for the European Parliament a few weeks ago, the UNFPA briefer explained that it was at Cairo that they changed the language they use to achieve their goals. As we all know, the eugenics movement changed its name after the Nazi horror and began explaining their goals in terms of population control. The goals did not change only the name. Population control became increasingly discredited as it sounded so very authoritarian, so at Cairo they changed their terms once again. Now all references to population control are replaced with the term “reproductive rights.” The desire is still the same, to weed out undesirables, but the marketing has changed.

Five years have passed and at a number of conferences our movement has grown older and wiser and more professional. There is a core group that has now worked together consistently over the past two years. There is a saying in sports that one must learn how to win. It is not enough to have the skills and the talent, one must actually learn how to win. I am happy to report that we have the skills and the talent and we are surely learning how to win.

Just his past spring, we celebrated the fifth birthday of our movement with significant victories in the five-year review of the Cairo conference. The very best news is that the other side has come to recognize our abilities. At a UNFPA prepcom in the Hague last February, they tried assiduously to keep us out. Indeed, out of 800 NGOs allowed accreditation, only six pro-family NGOs were allowed in, and this after a very serious struggle. And one of our number was beaten and thrown from the conference. His crime? Telling Muslims students that “sexual orientation” was a euphemism for homosexuality. Still, while most NGOs attended various NGO side-shows, our team was in a tiny conference room, leaning over the backs of diplomats, assisting with the drafting of the conference document.

I am happy to report that in the Cairo+5 process our side achieved several things that we had never done before and each achievement marks giant strides toward taking the advantage from the other side.

First, we took the initiative from the other side on a new piece of language. Our side has generally been content with scanning the document which the other side writes and trying to improve their language. This still remains the most important part of our work. But we will not win until we begin writing language and getting governments to introduce it for us. At Cairo+5 we did this for the first time. We wrote language, based on a new American law, that said specific forms of coercion in family planning would be forbidden. Specifically we named promised of food, clothing, medicine or shelter in exchange for accepting contraception, sterilization or abortion. This was introduced by the brave delegations from Argentina, Nicaragua and the Holy See. I am sorry to report that we lost, which gives the lie to the claims of our opponents that they are against coercion in family planning. But we learned a great deal about the process, principally we learned we have to start with a larger base of support than three delegations. But we are learning how to win.

Second, we published  a daily newspaper for the very first time. Traditionally, we have worked with fliers that we distribute to friendly delegations, and this will continue, but we have long known that the other side has no compunction about destroying our fliers whenever they find them. The cannot destroy newspapers, however, and so we published one each day during the conference. And the effect was electric. The other newspaper were so upset at just the appearance of ours, that they wrote about little else. They were incensed. The very good news is that the paper was read widely by the delegates. And many of them thanked us for it. In this way, we are learning how to win.

But probably the most important development for our side came during the fight over parent’s rights. The other side is deeply frightened of the 1 billion adolescents now living in the world, the largest such group in history. The other side is intent that this group not reproduce. The way to do this is to undermine their morals through the introduction of radical notions of adolescent sexual freedom that includes access to completely value free sex-education and the full range of reproductive technologies including abortion. While the first Cairo document mentioned these types of things, each mention was balanced with sensible mentions of the rights of parents. The drafters of the new Cairo document intended to leave parents out altogether. Indeed, at one point during the negotiations we counted 47 references to adolescent sexuality and not a single mention of parent’s rights.

This fight was led by the United States and the European Union. With two days left in the conference we were getting desperate. This debate occurred only a few days after the massacre of students at Columbine High School in Colorado, and the President of the United States was touring the country preaching to us about parent’s rights and responsibilities. This at the same time that his negotiating team was undermining parents in the Cairo document. So, we put together clips from his ongoing remarks and had the Vatican negotiator read them aloud to the conference. At the end, he turned the US negotiator and said, “this is what your President has to say about parent’s rights, what do you have against parents.” The US negotiator was unmoved.

So, we decided to get the US Congress involved. One of the great benefits to our permanent presence at the UN is that the other side can no longer operate in the dark. Moreover, we have established strong ties with the US House of Representatives and with the Senate. So, with two days remaining in the conference we drafted a letter to every Ambassador at the UN that condemned the US position saying it did not reflect the wishes of the American Congress nor of the American people. Within 24 hours we got 34 American Congressman to sign the letter, including the powerful leadership. And this is what we did with it. We broke all the rules of UN lobbying which forbids leafleting on the floor of a UN conference. We had our people fan out across the floor of the conference and we placed this letter in the hand of every delegate.  Something like pandemonium ensued. The afternoon session that day was delayed for 45 minutes while the delegates discussed the letter in small groups. The best thing, though, was the American delegation stood mute, silent, stunned. Indeed, they did not say another word in open session for two more days. And when they finally spoke, parent’s rights came back into the document. Not as much as we would have liked, but still they came back in. Disaster was averted and we have learned how to win.

In order to win the day at the UN we must continue precisely in this vein. And we begin by thinking like artists, like painters and poets. What do artists do but look at the ordinary things of life and see things most of us do not see. They see meanings and connections and then interpret them in ways that are understandable and meaningful. We must understand our work in precisely the same way. We must think and act creatively. We must know that a late night call to a Member of the German Parliament, or the French Parliament, or the American Congress can change the course of a whole UN conference. We must have the courage to knock on strange doors, upon the doors of foreign ministers, upon the doors of religious leaders we do not know, upon the doors of businessmen who can help our cause. We must see the connections that others cannot see and we must work on an enormous canvas, a canvas that encompasses the entire world. I know now that the fight in Kenya is my fight. My fight at the UN is France’s fight.

Before an artist begins to work in oils he must first learn to draw. We are at the drawing stage. Concretely this is what we must do. Although our main concern at the UN is the Group of 77, the negotiating bloc from the developing world, we need not concern ourselves with all 135 states. We don’t need them all, we only need a few. Therefore, I propose that we establish a permanent UN pro-family bloc of 12 states. And upon these 12 we lavish all of our attention. We must learn everything about these countries, not just at the UN, but everything about their domestic political and international situations. We must reach out to their NGOs, to their business leaders, to all of their religious denominations. We must reach out to their parliamentarians. We must reach out to their foreign secretaries, and even into their presidential suites. We must use our own parliamentarians, our own religious leaders, our own NGOs and business people to encourage these governments to defend life and family at the United Nations.

What we experience at the UN is an ever shifting alliance of states none of which can remain steadfast on all of our issues all of the time. We have never tried to change that. Our goal should be two-fold.  First, we must ensure that in selecting delegations to UN conferences that our permanent pro-family bloc will only choose delegations friendly to life and family. Second, we must ensure their foreign secretaries give these delegations specific diplomatic instructions to speak out. If our friends do not speak out, they may as well be absent.

I do not suggest that we force our views upon sovereign states. This is the specialty of the other side. I do suggest that we encourage them and defend them in doing what comes naturally to them and that is always to fight for life and family. Our friends in the developing world have been coerced long enough. It is time for us to come to their defense on a very broad scale.

This group would become a permanent negotiating presence within the Group of 77. They would negotiate together and they would speak with one voice. We do not need a majority, but we do need a concerted and brave few. Let us start with 12. If we find them, we can change history.

At heart this is a battle between free men and those in servitude. And history shows from the time of the ancient Greeks down to this very moment that free men will always eventually defeat the armies of slaves.

In the summer of 361 B.C., a Theban General gathered an army of 60,000

freemen, yeoman farmers, a democratic army of citizens and they marched south and east directly into the heart of the militaristic slave state of Sparta. And what they found was the heart of tyranny was hollow. They victory came quickly and it their victory rocked the ancient world.

In the summer of 1864 and American General named William Tecumsah Sherman gathered a force of 100,000 freemen, farmers and ranchers, and over the course of  a single month marched them through the heart of the slave holding south and they discovered that the heart of slavery was hollow. Their quick victory essentially ended the American Civil War, the bloodiest war in our history.

In the summer of 1944, together with Free French divisions, General George S. Patton gathered a force of 200,000 freemen and drove the hated Nazi army across the south of France like paper in the wind. They, too, discovered that the heart of slavery was hollow.

We are those free men. We struggles with our passions, yet still we struggle and in that struggle we are free. Our opponents have surrendered to their passions and therefore are enslaved. It is their intention to spread their slavery to every man, woman and child in every tiny hamlet all across the globe. And they have very nearly succeeded.

We, free men, must know that slaves will always be defeated.  It may not happen in our lifetime, but one day long hence, in the lives of our children or their children we know that the army of children of life will march in to the heart of the city of death and they will discover it is hollow. Their victory will come quickly. It will come all at once, almost effortlessly. And that victorious generation will look back with envy upon this generation. They will wish they could have been with us in these small rooms fighting a fight that seems so very desperate. This is our hope. This is our certainty.

I leave you with some lines from the great poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. An aged Ulysses urged his men on to one more voyage, one more battle, even unto death. In these words I hear the voice of God, urging us on, and he says,

“Come, my friends.
Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
And sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows,
For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset, 
And the baths of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isle,
And see the great Achilles whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides,
And though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.
One equal tempter of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

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