Whether the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who sadly withdrew her nomination for the post last week, or another qualified individual, the message from the Trump administration has already been made clear to bureaucrats at the global body that the United States will not be going along with radical abortion and gender ideologies that have driven its agenda in recent years.
At the beginning of its annual two-week conference on the Commission on the Status of Women earlier this month, the U.S. and Argentina objected to a political declaration that referenced “gender” but did not specify “women and girls.”
The document also contained language about “intersecting forms of discrimination,” which often refers to gender identity and sexual orientation. Surprisingly, the declaration left out references to sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights, and sexuality education, shocking the International Planned Parenthood Federation and causing outrage from the pro-abortion group Women Deliver. Women Deliver said these references were “sacrificed in a last-minute political bargain” that was “indefensible.”
These radical feminists booed when U.S. and Argentinian diplomats refused to sign on. During the Biden administration, these groups and their gatekeepers throughout the U.N. system had closed ranks against what they derisively refer to as “anti-rights” groups who attempted to oppose their agenda.
The “anti-rights” label has been used to describe those who argue that abortion is not a human right and has never been accepted as a right by the General Assembly or any other organ of the U.N. that actually negotiates documents. In practice, the “anti-rights” label has become a way for high-ranking U.N. officials to censor mainstream conservative positions. For pro-abortion and pro-LGBT organizations, the label is now routinely used interchangeably with “fascist” to justify the exclusion of their opponents in the debate.
Feminist U.N. bureaucrats have rejected conservative groups from holding official events during CSW, which this year focused on the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was to assure “gender equality and the empowerment of women.”
Amid the conference, diplomats from Hungary representing the 26 European Union states asked member states to erase references to “motherhood” in U.N. negotiations and replace the term with “parenthood.” Rejecting the very concept of motherhood is part of the EU’s campaign to promote gender ideology and so-called “rainbow families.” The EU also asked the U.N. membership to recognize “women in all their diversity,” a code word for transgender-identifying individuals.
The EU claims that mentioning mothers discriminates against women who are not mothers. At other times, it claims that motherhood language promotes gender stereotypes about women as mothers. But its intention was always clear: to erase all sex-specific language about mothers and fathers in public policy, as is the case in the document systems of many Western countries.
Meanwhile, pro-life groups that support motherhood and the unique dignity of women were rejected from giving remarks during plenary sessions of the CSW. Speaking slots were instead given to pro-abortion groups such as Catholics for Choice and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
An Austrian parliamentarian likened the “anti-rights” groups to male supremacy and slavery, declaring that “anybody who’d try to push back, that is my personal enemy.”
A side event panelist said there is no point in engaging with “extremists.” When a Center for Family and Human Rights volunteer asked how productive it has been so far to label pro-life voices as “anti-rights” or “fascists” simply for sharing a different view that seeks to protect human life from conception, the panelists replied by stating that they cannot compromise on “human rights.”
Another C-Fam volunteer was kicked out of an event sponsored by Sweden titled “Religion, Rights and Resistance: How to Reclaim Gender Equality in Times of Backlash.” Sweden is a notably secular country, where belief in God is at among the lowest levels in Europe and where only 5% of members of the Church of Sweden attend church services. At the CSW, Swedish events pointed to faith-based organizations as important entry points for abortion and changing social norms.
One event proposed redefining “families” to encompass any household or relationship configuration. When an attendee pointed out that social science shows that children fare best when raised by their own parents, a panelist responded by saying that what children need is not a mother and a father but “two types of energy” — masculine and feminine — but “it doesn’t matter from where that energy comes … maybe they can get lucky, they can get three parents or four parents.” Another attendee later denounced that question as “racist.”
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The groups that have historically championed the family and faith in U.N. settings have also been targeted to have their funding sources cut off. At one parallel event, a panelist discussed “anti-rights research” into groups that are “hubs for anti-gender [and] anti-abortion rhetoric.” She called on her allies to “get these groups to be finally defunded.”
The attacks against pro-family groups will likely not end during the Trump administration. Still, it feels like the cavalry has arrived, and the pushback against these radical abortion and gender ideologies at the U.N. has much-needed reinforcements.
Rebecca Oas is Associate Director of Research at the Center for Family and Human Rights, an organization dedicated to defending life and family at international institutions.
