UN Committee Moves to Block Pro-Lifers

By | December 1, 2022

NEW YORK, December 2 (C-Fam) The NGO Committee of the UN Commission on the Status of Women has issued participation guidelines which will have the effect of blocking pro-life and pro-family groups from an upcoming UN conference.

Executives of pro-life and pro-family groups believe the guidelines were created precisely to keep them out of the upcoming Commission on the Status of Women.

Called “Virtual Safety Guidelines and Principles”, the NGO Committee claims they are to ensure “everyone has a fulfilling experience during the NGO CSW Virtual Forum.” Their goal is to “make this platform as inclusive and productive as possible…”

Some guidelines are not controversial such as “build a culture of excellence, compassion, integrity, and honesty.” Also, “allow everyone to participate. Don’t dominate the conversation and honor time limits” and “show empathy toward other participants.”

But then there are requirements to acknowledge “sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, transphobia, global North domination and other institutional forms of oppression exist.” Some of these are largely the ideologically loaded words and phrases of the sexual left.

Participants may also not use “offensive language related to gender, gender identity, and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, physical appearance, political affiliation, age, race, national and/or ethnic origin, immigration status, language, religion, or indigeneity.”

Participants are required to “use welcoming and inclusive language.” Presumably this means using someone’s “preferred pronouns”, a requirement that would compel speech and therefore violate the religious freedom of orthodox Christian believers.

And then there is the ban on “deliberate intimidation”, an admonition that seems only to work one way. Last year at a CSW preparatory event sponsored by UN Women, the governments of Denmark and Costa Rica and NGO CSW, C-Fam’s Executive Vice President came under attack by a global abortion group. A representative from the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) called for the expelling of all “anti-rights infiltrators” from the United Nations.

While the guidelines seem to deal only with a virtual platform for the upcoming Commission on the Status of Women, one of the largest and most important commission meetings at UN headquarters, when C-Fam applied to host a parallel event at the upcoming conference, these guidelines were attached.

The NGO Committee of the CSW is a creature of UN Women, which is a massive bureaucracy with a government board made of UN Member States. So, it appears the guidelines are coming from governments. The problem with this is that many if not most UN Member States would never go along with some of these guidelines and would therefore not be allowed into the NGO part of the Commission.

The Commission on the Status of Women is an annual meeting of UN Member States that in pre-covid years brought thousands of non-government participants. The 5,000 participants tend to come from radical feminist groups, but pro-life groups have participated, too. Besides the negotiation among Member States, there are dozens of panels produced by non-governmental groups. Over the years, pro-life groups have been allowed to host panels, but it has become increasingly difficult as ideological feminists have cracked down on dissenting views.

Now, it appears they are couching dissent as a danger to other participants and seek to cancel pro-life and pro-family voices altogether.

Pro-life and pro-family NGOs are considering their course of action which is expected to include at least a formal complaint to UN Women. Pro-lifers are not hopeful UN Women will care. After C-Fam’s Lisa Correnti was harassed last year, UN Women did not even acknowledge the complaint.

Pro-lifers hope that UN Member States will intervene.

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