Radio Transcript

LIFE ISSUES NO. 1342

U.N. HABITAT CONFERENCE - Part II

Yesterday I began to describe to you the happenings at the United Nations meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, in June. Supposedly an international meeting to discuss housing for underdeveloped nations, it quickly turned into something else. It didn't take long for the conference to discuss and agree upon wording in its declaration relating to the problems of forced evictions, the right to housing and other related problems in the underdeveloped nations. It moved from that quickly to intense pressure from the industrialized North to impose a feminist, population control, pro- abortion ideology on underdeveloped nations, to insist on reproductive rights and population control.

On the one side was the Clinton delegation from the U.S., a similar one from Canada, and again one from the European Union which was made up of 15 Western European countries. On our side were the G-77 group of nations made up of 131 developing nations from around the world.

The first three United Nations conferences - Rio, Cairo and Beijing - had gone a long way toward having the U.N. and the Northern countries officially adopt policies of stringent population control, of intense pressure to legalize abortion, of destruction of the family, removal of parental rights, the denigration of religious and cultural values, and had moved toward an intense concentration on reproductive rights (that means homosexual, abortion, and gender run wild). But this conference, entitled "Habitat", to everyone's surprise, ended up by stopping that juggernaut cold.

The developing countries refused to bow before the pressure of the North for a re-definition of "family" to include "families" (read homosexual). This conference once again guaranteed respect for the religious, ethical and cultural values of the member states. This conference reaffirmed the importance of parental guidance and control of their children, rejected sex clinics in schools, and rejected reproductive rights.

Our secret weapon here, and I believe the catalyst that made it all work, was a heterogeneous collection of pro-life, pro-family leaders from around the world. All told, there were 50 or 60 of us there, some for a few days, most for the entire two weeks. The leader of our group was Mr. John Smeaton, Executive Director of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child in London. I could easily name 10 or 15 more out of the group who were simply indispensable as well as being brilliant, indefatigable, and extremely effective. Every one of these people was a pro-life leader, a veteran, deeply dedicated, with probably no exception deeply religious, and every one capable of thinking on their feet. A small office was set up in a hotel room, a copy machine rented, and tens of thousands of copies generated that produced a constant stream of information spread throughout the delegates during that two-week time. There was a continuing coordination through that office room, and through Mr. Smeaton, and through the small and larger meetings that occurred through the day and every evening.

More tomorrow.

[08/27/96]