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This panel’s topic deals with the family in the global context. Perhaps it will be helpful if I speak about
how I came to work on this issue.
I am
a human rights lawyer. In the
mid-1990’s, while working at a secular human rights organization, I saw what
was being done to the family in the name of “human rights” at the Beijing
Conference on women. (I was advising an
American governor about the issues surrounding this meeting.) In Beijing, as you may know, a radical
anti-family (and anti-life) agenda was being promoted as somehow in the
interest of women. This experience of
seeing how an inadequate and bad faith view of “human rights” was being used to
undermine the family and to support a “right” to abortion motivated me to re-focus
my work on the defense of the family and of human life. Thus, I have come to the Family Research
Council where I am Human Rights Counsel and Director of our Center for Human
Life & Bioethics.
In
2001, I was privileged to be appointed to the United States delegation to the
United Nations Special Session on Children.
This was the first UN delegation under America’s new president, George
W. Bush. During my tenure at the UN, I
was pleased to meet and to get to know another of today’s speakers, Cardinal
Renato Martino. The Holy See has been
under withering attack by Europe and the U.S. during the Clinton administration
on issues such as abortion and population control and the re-definition of the
family. I think they were glad to have
some reinforcements from the U.S. delegation show up!
One
of my primary intentions during this time was to take action to rebut a legal
argument that was being made in the United States by feminist, anti-life
forces. They were arguing that through
“customary international law” an international “human right” to abortion and to
homosexual marriage was being recognized.
I am
pleased to say that the U.S. delegation took very significant action, so
significant in fact that it should render it impossible for the feminist
lawyers to continue to argue there is a customary international law right to
abortion and homosexual marriage. What
did the U.S. do? It simply issued a
statement. Not remarkable in itself
since statements are issued by most nations at most conferences. However the U.S. had never issued any
statement in which it distanced itself from the assertions being made by the
feminist lawyers. Now it did. The U.S. delegation stated that the language
in the declaration to be issued by the Special Session in no way advocated or
endorsed abortion. This was important
because some of the terms in the document were precisely the ones the feminist
forces were arguing had “by international agreement” been accepted as endorsing
a right to abortion. The U.S. made
clear no such consensus existed.
Further,
the U.S. statement reiterated the positive language from the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights that supported the natural family. The U.S. understood, it said, all language
related to “families” in the declaration in this manner.
Thus,
the U.S. action, alone, shows there is no international consensus in favor of
abortion and homosexuality.
Of
course, the U.S. does not alone hold these positions. As mentioned, the Holy See has been under siege for years at the
UN because it stands strongly for life and family. Often the Holy See was, from 1994 to 2000, without allies - that
is, except for the Muslim nations.
Those countries stood valiantly for the family and life at the U.N. One of their leaders is another of this
panel’s speakers, Maktar Lamani of the Organization of Islamic Conferences,
whom I was also pleased to meet and to work alongside at the UN. I can tell you without hesitation that if it
had not been for the courage of the Islamic nations and that of the Holy See
there would be an international right to abortion and homosexual marriage, and
your courts and your governments would be legally obligated to provide it.
The
international effort to defend and to promote the family has always been an
interfaith effort. At a regional World
Congress in Washington, DC, in 2002, I was a speaker, as was Rabbi Daniel
Lapin, a true “lion of Judah,” a great defender of the family. That day I witnessed one of the most
inspiring things I have ever seen.
Ambassador Lamani, a Muslim, and Daniel Lapin, a Jew, embraced each
other, on the stage, in the cause of the family. Rabbi Lapin is also a speaker here today.
Sometimes
the Holy See and the Islamic countries had another ally – Latin America. But Latin America’s support waxed and
waned. Sometimes Latin American
countries took courageous pro-life, pro-family stands; sometimes they
didn’t. During the Special Session on
Children, the Latin American nations were represented by the “Rio Group”. And the Rio Group did not stand for clear
language against abortion and homosexuality.
(The Mexican representatives at the UN even prevented Anna Teri Aranda,
who was the head of the delegation, from meeting with us on the U.S.
delegation!) This is a shame, and it is
action untrue to the traditions of Latin America.
The
future lies with Latin America. I am
convinced of it. When I was at the UN,
I remember vividly meeting young people from Mexico. These young people were, I believe, working with an organization,
the World Youth Alliance, founded by another member of our panel, Anna
Helpine. I was in the midst of heated
negotiations, trying to protect life and family. It was sometimes discouraging.
But then I met these young people.
They encouraged me to keep trying!
Their support inspired me.
This
is what Latin America can, and should, bring to the international arena. Latin America has a strong pro-life,
pro-family culture. If its citizens
insist that their representatives at the UN represent that culture truly, then
the balance will shift at the UN. No
longer will the Holy See and the Muslim states and the US under the Bush
administration stand alone. They will
have all of Latin America with them.
That would be “globalization” in the service of the family which would
benefit all of humanity! |
