C-Fam’s Best of the UN in 2024

By | January 2, 2025

NEW YORK, January 3 (C-Fam) The threats to life and family this year were many and unprecedented. The good news is that the good guys were able to push back on several bad international agreements this year. And we had help from brave Africans as well as from surprising new places.

1. 30 Years After Cairo Conference, Abortion Language Rejected in UN Negotiations

Traditional countries blocked any mention of abortion and homosexual/transgender issues in declaration marking the anniversary of the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development. When the conference first used the term “sexual and reproductive health” as a euphemism for abortion it seemed inevitable that abortion would become an international right. Thirty years later, abortion is proving more contentious and controversial than ever.

2. Brave African Delegates Fight Abortion in Landmark UN Family Resolution

This year was also the 30th anniversary of the International Year of the Family, an initiative promoted by John Paul II and his right-hand man at the United Nations, Renato Cardinal Martino, who passed away earlier in the year. Ever since, the General Assembly has adopted an annual resolution on the family. It is one of the few that has never been infected by abortion and gender ideology. Western countries tried to add abortion language in this year’s resolution. They failed thanks to the courage and conviction of the Ambassador of Burundi to the United Nations.

3. UN Czar for Women’s Issues Turns Against Prostitution and Transgender Ideology

The cracks in the gender juggernaut are starting to show. More and more self-avowed feminists are breaking away from transgender orthodoxy. In her latest report to the General Assembly, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Reem Alsaleem, called on states to stop allowing “men who self-identify as women” to compete against women and girls in sports. She said it was a form of violence. Earlier in the year, she presented a report in the Human Rights Council against prostitution. Sadly, Alsaleem is very pro-abortion, even unsettlingly so.

4. Italy’s Meloni Fights Abortion Extremism at G7 Summit

Italian diplomats were able to nix any explicit mention of “access to safe and legal abortion and post abortion care” in the final statement of this year’s G7 Summit held at Apulia, Italy. They were able to do this even though both Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden were insistent on retaining the abortion language from last year’s G7 Summit. Will Meloni help to stop the EU from exporting abortion and gender ideology, or will she give cover to EU bureaucrats like Hungarian and Polish conservatives have done until now? It is too early to tell.

5. Trump’s Election Encourages Pro-Lifers Around the World

Will Trump’s second term be as pro-life as his first? It is a question that pro-lifers have been asking with increasing anxiety since Trump began to advocate for aggressive neutrality from the federal government on the issue of abortion. Based on what Trump did in his first term in the White House, conservatives around the world were very excited when Trump won the U.S. election in November. Trump is arguably the most pro-life U.S. president ever. No other U.S. President ever denounced UN abortion overreach or tried to stop it like he did. Will he demand strict neutrality on abortion from the UN system as he did in his first term? Will he go further?

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