After a 10-day “investigation,” a team of pro-abortion feminists styling themselves United Nations “experts” on “gender discrimination” slammed the United States, painting the nation and its system of constitutionally limited government as an alleged bastion of oppression against women. Touting their findings as “shocking” and “myth-shattering,” the UN gender delegation called on the U.S. government to ratify more UN agreements and even to adopt a constitutional amendment that was already roundly rejected by the public. It also condemned efforts by the American people and their elected representatives to protect the lives of unborn children despite the Supreme Court’s lawless usurpation of power in Roe v. Wade. At least one American official, though, promptly hit back at the radical UN “experts” and vowed to resist their constitutionally illiterate “intrusion” into U.S. life and governance.
In its “preliminary” findings, released ahead of the formal report that will be presented to the dictator-dominated UN “Human Rights Council” next year, the UN delegation repeatedly attacked the United States and its system of government. “In global context, U.S. women do not take their rightful place as citizens of the world’s leading economy,” the group claimed, decrying various alleged evils such as the thoroughly debunked “wage gap” supposedly affecting American women. “In the U.S., women fall behind international standards as regards their public and political representation, their economic and social rights and their health and safety protections.” At issue, of course, is the UN’s Orwellian view of “human rights” as revokable privileges defined in international agreements and bestowed by governments, versus the traditional American view of unalienable individual rights as endowed upon each individual by God and protected by government.
Just as alarming as the UN’s radical attempt to redefine the very concept of rights — even in America, where people have largely enjoyed real rights for over two centuries — are the globalist/feminist delegation’s demands upon the American people and their elected representatives for massive, systemic changes across the United States. Apparently confused about the constitutional process, for example, the Big Government-loving UN “experts” bemoaned the fact that the United States had still not ratified a radical UN treaty known as the UN Convention on the Elimination of All of Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), despite the Obama administration committing to it twice. “Resistance to ratification of CEDAW reflects the opposition of a powerful sector of society to the Convention’s formulation of women’s international human right to equality,” the UN “experts” claimed without identifying this “powerful sector of society” opposed to the dictator club’s vision of “equality” or pseudo-“human rights.”
Of course, America’s Founders and the Supreme Court have always been clear on the issue: The U.S. government cannot expand its powers beyond those delegated to it in the Constitution merely by ratifying a treaty. So even if the Senate were to ratify the UN CEDAW scheme purporting to drastically empower the federal government across all areas of life, it would still be illegitimate. However, the UN team, perhaps starting to understand that, also called for a constitutional amendment that would authorize the envisioned drastic expansion of federal power under the guise of securing pseudo-“equality” for women at the barrel of a federal gun. The proposed amendment supercharging federal powers, deceptively known as the “Equal Rights Amendment,” was killed decades ago by an alliance led by conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly and her grassroots group Eagle Forum.
But now, the UN wants to resurrect it. “This political resistance [to UN CEDAW] has also consistently blocked efforts to pass an Equal Rights Amendment, which would entrench women’s right to equality in the U.S. Constitution,” claimed the UN “experts,” deceptively seeking to unleash more federal power under the guise of pursuing their notions of government-enforced “equality” in everything from military conscription and jobs to biology and family life. “We strongly urge ratification of CEDAW and adoption in the Constitution of women’s right to equality and non-discrimination as defined in the [UN] Convention.” It was not immediately clear why the UN, widely ridiculed as the “dictators club” by American critics, believes it should be demanding changes in the governmental system of a member state. The UN Charter, though, does not authorize it.
Even if taxpayer-funded UN lobbying to fundamentally transform America on this issue or any other were legitimate, critics have long decried efforts to impose the sort of radical feminist policies envisioned by the UN delegation. “A lot of people don’t understand what feminism is…. It is about power for the female left,” explained Schlafly, who was instrumental in defeating the UN-advocated constitutional amendment, adding that feminism had made American women unhappy. “They have this, I think, ridiculous idea that American women are oppressed by the patriarchy and we need laws and government to solve our problems for us. They have made their close alliance with the Obama administration. And they’re always crying around about things like the differences between men and women are just a social construct. So they’re really in a fight with human nature…. I believe that American women are the most fortunate people who ever lived on the face of the earth, [and] can do anything they make up their minds to do.”
In another attempt to divide Americans along manufactured collectivist lines, the UN team also subdivided women into separate “victim groups,” each supposedly requiring federal and UN protection from imagined gender inequality. “The U.S., which is a leading state in formulating international human rights standards, is allowing women to lag behind,” complained the UN “experts” after their 10-day investigation, lamenting the alleged “overall picture of women’s missing rights” in America. “While all women are the victims of these missing rights, women who are poor, belong to Native American, Afro-American and Hispanic ethnic minorities, migrant women, LBTQ [lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer] women, women with disabilities and older women are disparately vulnerable.”
Despite their status as alleged “experts,” the UN bureaucrats made clear that they are nothing of the sort when it comes to the U.S. Constitution or the limits it imposes on federal power. For instance, union activist and radical academic Frances Raday, who also leads the “Concord Center for Integration of International Law,” railed against the fact that the U.S. government has not defied the Constitution that authorizes its existence by imposing mandatory, paid maternity-leave policies on American companies. “This is unthinkable in most other societies,” she complained. Also unthinkable in most other societies is a system of government that starts out by recognizing the unalienable God-given rights of individuals, as America’s founding documents do, and then severely limits the coercive power of government in order to protect those individual rights.
True to its long and disgusting tradition of trying to equate support for the killing of unborn children, including infant girls, with “women’s rights,” the UN experts also blasted the American people and their elected officials for struggling to protect the lives of pre-born babies from abortion. “These take the form of unjustified medical procedures, such as compelling women to undergo ultrasounds or to endure groundless waiting periods, withholding of early pregnancy abortion medications, imposing burdensome conditions for the licensing of clinics, which have resulted in the closing of clinics across the country leaving women without geographical access to sexual and reproductive health services,” declared the rabid pro-abortion activists masquerading as impartial “experts.”
The UN activists also demanded a new law that would, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, purport to prohibit states from regulating the killing of unborn children in any way. If approved, the unconstitutional statute would also purport to require all hospitals and insurance providers to participate in the slaughter. The UN also called for more federal tax funding of abortionists and for forcing healthcare workers to provide abortions in defiance of their conscientious objections, including those based on their faith. The preliminary report also attacked the First Amendment for allowing free speech in political campaigns; praised ObamaCare; called for legalizing prostitution, apparently a “human right”; blasted the “rhetoric” of some U.S. politicians the UN dislikes; pushed tax subsidies for businesses owned by women; sought more “sex education” and pro-abortion propaganda in school and beyond; decried the alleged “lack of gun control”; and called for “special measures” to counteract voters’ decisions on who will represent them.
The UN team, formally known as the “UN Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice,” is part of the UN Human Rights Council. As The New American has exposed repeatedly, the widely ridiculed outfit is dominated by brutal regimes, with many of the world’s worst mass-murdering dictatorships sitting proudly on it. Name a communist or Islamist dictatorship, and chances are, it is either serving or has served in a leadership capacity on the council. The UN outfit has also repeatedly condemned America for, among other issues, protecting the right to keep and bear arms, free speech, the system of federalism, and more. Ironically, perhaps, the UN “Human Rights Commission” had to be disbanded and re-established under its current name after the brutal regime of Libya’s late Moammar Gadhafi was selected to lead it.
For perspective on the UN’s supposed credentials to judge the state of women’s rights in the United States, consider that, in 2015, the brutal Iranian mullahs were handed a leadership position at the UN agency responsible for “gender equality” and “empowering women.” Starting on January 1, the Islamic regime in Tehran, infamous for its oppression of everyone but especially women, will serve on the executive board of the UN “Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women,” also known as UN Women. Before that, the Iranian regime was in 2011 handed a four-year term on the Commission on the Status of Women. The Islamic regime ruling Pakistan, among the worst violators of women’s rights on Earth, also secured a spot on UN Women’s executive board this year. Others include the dictatorships and regimes ruling Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Somalia, Venezuela, and more. Even the Communist Chinese regime, infamous for forced abortions and special “black” gulags for female political prisoners, sits on the board, as well as the UN Human Rights Council.
Last year, meanwhile, under the guise of promoting “gender equality,” the UN outfit released a report pushing global abortion on demand, more sterilization programs and population-control schemes, massive government interference in family life, and much more. Especially important to the “equality” pushers is the ability for women to kill their own children in the womb at taxpayer expense — supposedly justified under the pretext of everything from “sustainable development” and alleged overpopulation to “gender equality” and “human rights.” “Ground sustainable population policies in sexual and reproductive health and rights, including the provision of universally accessible … comprehensive sexuality education and safe abortion,” the 2014 UN Women report demands, prompting fierce criticism from pro-life activists and others around the world.
The UN “experts” visited multiple states, including Texas, Oregon, and Alabama. And at least some officials are speaking out. Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler, for example, blasted the UN report and pointed out some of its many flaws. “We all are against violence against anyone, but the court systems and law enforcement are perfectly capable of handling that,” said Zeigler. “We don’t need the help of the UN.” Noting that the report would not “sit well” with the people of Alabama — the state legislature voted unanimously to ban UN Agenda 21 — Zeigler said the UN had “no business” interfering in his state. “They should be going to Syria or many, many other places besides Alabama,” he said. “The U.N. is preparing to try to dictate to Alabama what we must do on abortion … and other ‘progressive’ issues. I will monitor this developing situation and report back. I will also coordinate a strategy for how we can resist this UN intrusion.”
The best way to resist the UN intrusion is for the U.S. government to simply withdraw from the UN and stop funding it. Already, an Alabama congressman has sponsored the solution in Congress. If approved, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2015 (H.R. 1205), would end U.S. membership in and funding of the UN, would withdraw the U.S. government from all UN treaties, and would evict the dictators club’s headquarters from U.S. soil. As UN globalists make increasingly outlandish demands on the American people and their constitutional system of self-government, the American people should respond by demanding that the U.S. get out of the UN.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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