|
The conference on population began the first week in September, 1994. No rain had fallen in Cairo since Marchwhich is normal for this desert cityand the trees of Cairo looked like giant dusty artificial plants. It was rumored that Cairo was chosen as the site for the U.N. population conference to impress upon the participants the horrors of living in an overcrowded Third World city. If this was the intention, it failed. Cairo may be hot, poor, and dusty, but it pulses with life and excitement. Tourism is Egypt's number one business, and the Egyptians know how to treat guests. The hotels were well run, the food fantastic, and, for those who took time off from the proceedings, the tourist sites fascinating. The Egyptian people were very aware of the issues being debated. The waiter at the Flamenco hotel summed up the Egyptians' attitude to the population conference by saying, "Yes, they will come and talk, it won't affect us. Next year there will be a million more Egyptians."
In the weeks before the conference, the Western media had reported threats from Islamic extremists who considered the conference an affront to Islamic principles. A number of people canceled their travel plans. Some profamily attendees wrote their wills. Others came ready to die if that was what was required. To their surprise they found that the Egyptian people were universally friendly, the streets safe, and the conference well run. A woman who left her pocketbook in a church went back an hour later to find it untouched. After a hard day of lobbying, they could retire to beautiful world class restaurants, look out over the Nile, and watch the setting sun turn the city's ever-present haze wild shades of red and purple.
Alerted by John Paul II, profamily, prolife people from around the world had decided to attend the Cairo conference. It was not an organized effort, just concerned individuals from the U.S., Canada, Guam, the Philippines, Kenya, and the countries of Latin America. A young man from Canada happened to have two weeks vacation and the money, so he decided at the last minute to come to Cairo to see if there was anything he could do. A Canadian doctor and his wife came because he was Egyptian by background and felt that his knowledge of the
language might help. Since many profamily people decided to come after the deadline for applying for NGO status, they asked local papers and sympathetic periodicals to send them as correspondents. Many arrived knowing almost no one and not sure what they could do, but, as the days passed, they were able to make contacts and coordinate their efforts.
Typical of the profamily forces was Dee Becker from Delaware, who decided at the last minute to come to Cairo. When she arrived, she saw an immediate need for coordination among the profamily forces. Appropriating a table in the press lounge, she set up shop, took messages, watched briefcases, and distributed flyers.
The conference was held in a modern well-appointed convention center, the NGO Forum at a large sports center, which is part of the same complex. The entire complex backed up on the street where Anwar Sadat was assassinated, and the pyramid-shaped monument dedicated to Sadat could be seen from the convention center. Although the buses avoided driving by the reviewing stand where he was shot, the taxis did not-a grim reminder that violence was always a real possibility.
The Egyptian government took the threats from Moslem extremists seriously. Security was extremely tight. All the entrances to the conference complex were equipped with x-rays and metal detectors. Streets in front of the hotels used by delegates were barricaded, and the entrances guarded. Soldiers were stationed every hundred yards along all the major highways, and a guard with a small machine gun rode on every conference bus. In spite of the precautions, or perhaps because of them, there was no sense of danger. In fact, as the conference progressed, it was clear that the only threat to American, citizens would come from their own representatives.
During the conference the head of the U.S. delegation, Tim Wirth, ordered U.N. guards to arrest Keith Tucci, a prolife activist, who was covering the conference for a South Carolina newspaper. On the word of a feminist activist, Tucci was falsely and absurdly charged with involvement in the murder of an American abortionist. He and two other Americans, whose only offense was to follow the police when they arrested Tucci, were held in custody for twenty-four hours by Egyptian police and threatened with immediate deportation. It took the intervention of Congressman Chris Smith to win their release.
The Egyptians had been led to believe that all Americans dressed immodestly, believed in sex outside of marriage, and promoted abortion and lesbianism. Tour guides, student aids at the Forum, Egyptian press, and delegates were surprised and pleased to discover profamily Americans.
Stereotypes existed on both sides. Many of the profamily NGOs had little or no previous contact with Moslems. They discovered that contrary to the stereotypes, women in Egypt were not silent, uneducated captives of a repressive antiwoman religion. Wearing a scarf over their hair did not prevent Egyptian women from using their heads. Fifty percent of Egyptian reporters are women. Typical of these is Manal Abdel Aziz, a reporter for the Egyptian Gazette, a Cairo English language newspaper. Tall, dark, and beautiful, Manal explained with a sweet smile that Moslem women covered their hair because a woman's hair is her most attractive feature and distracts men from her professional skills. Manal conformed to Islamic requirements for modesty, but her long sleeves, ankle-length skirts, and scarf did not prevent her from dressing with style and grace. She was not only stunning in a long-sleeved peach jacket, with a peach print skirt, and matching scarf secured by pearltipped pins, but extremely professional, as she worked to present an accurate picture of what was happening at the conference to her readers. Her sympathies were clearly with the profamily NGOs. Like most Egyptians, she opposed abortion, sex outside marriage, and homosexuality. She was particularly disturbed that Moslem women were being used by outside groups to promote abortion and behavior condemned by Islam.
One of the groups whose activities concerned Egyptians was the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics, whose board included Catholic dissident Dr. Daniel Maguire (professor of ethics at Marquette University) and Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice. Funded by the Ford Foundation to promote population control, the Consultation brought together religion scholars sympathetic to its point of view on population control, contraception, and abortion. According to Maguire, the people at the Ford Foundation used to be wary of involving religion, but now believe "you have to get into the religious imagination of the people."
Maguire admitted interest in recruiting Moslem women scholars to their cause since, according to him, "secular feminists do not have nearly the amount of influence that religious feminists have in these various Moslem countries" [Mary Ann Budnik, "Interview with Daniel Maguire," 31 August 1994].
THE CAIRO NGO FORUM
Imagine an International Planned Parenthood conference being held in the same facility as a prolife rally, while in the same building members of religious cults in strange costumes are spreading their message, Moslem women are protesting Western interference in their culture, and merchants have set up a bazaar, and you will have some idea of the atmosphere of the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum held in conjunction with the Cairo conference. The participants could browse through the booths, pick up shopping bags full of free literature, visit the food stands, or attend press conferences, caucus meetings, and workshops.
Each morning at the NGO forum, Bella Abzug presided over the Women's Caucus. Cecilia Royals and other women from the National Institute of Womanhood, believing that the Women's Caucus should be open to all women, challenged WEDO control by being the first in line whenever the microphones were opened for comments. At one point, one of Bella's assistants whispered that they had better not open the meeting for questions because the "antiabortion" people were at the microphones. She didn't know that her comments were picked up by the simultaneous translation system and could be heard by everyone who had earphones on.
NIW's profamily intervention drew applause from the Moslem participants, who soon became very vocal in their opposition to the feminist domination. During the press conferences, profamily press dominated the microphones, asking pointed questions and presenting alternate points of view. They were joined by members of the Egyptian press, who were particularly interested in challenging anyone who distorted Islamic teachings. The spokesmen for the U.N. became so frustrated that they demanded to know what publication each speaker represented. In spite of the harassment, prolifers with credentials from small-town newspapers stood their ground, while representatives from major publications had to wait their turn.
While the majority of the workshops were conducted by population control organizations and feminists, those run by profamily groups were very well attended. The Egyptian students working as aids at the forum were particularly interested in hearing about the profamily movement, and many were so enthusiastic that they joined profamily groups. The workshops were also attended by a number of Egyptian professional women, including many doctors, who were looking for information on the real problems they face, such as handicapped children, nutritional deficits, care for the dying, and maternal health. They found little of value at the populationist and feminist presentations.
Profamily participants in the forum made a point of attending the populationist and feminist workshops and speaking up to contradict the idea that contraception and abortion were the solution for Third World women. In this regard, a group from Kenya was particularly effective. So effective, in fact, that the population control forces in Kenya tried to find a way to use pressure to silence them.
SIECUS
The workshop on sex education sponsored by SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the U.S.) caught my interest. According to the schedule, Debra Haffner, the executive director of SIECUS, was attending the conference. I was familiar with Ms. Haffner because several years before, I had written a letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to a column promoting condoms for teen-agers, which said in part:
|
In the debate over condoms in the schools, condom advocates have been avoiding the central question: Should children have sex? . . . Pregnancy and disease are not the only effects of child sex. People who are outraged over child molesting wink at child sex. How can those handing out condoms know whether or not the users are psychologically equipped to deal with sexuality? Indeed, many experts believe that no child is ready to deal with sex, no matter how eager he or she may be to engage in it ....
Condom advocates say sex is responsible as long as no one gets hurt. In child sex someone always gets hurt. [10 October 1991] |
|
Ms. Haffner sent a letter in response, where she said, among other things, that "having sexual relations is normative behavior for teenagers 15 to 19 years old" [(30 October 1991), A24].
Since sexual relations with fifteen-year-old girls constitutes statutory rape, I was very interested to see if Ms. Haffner would defend this point of view in Cairo, but she did not make the presentation. Instead the meeting was led by a young man from SIECUS and a tall thin, black man who said he represented the MacArthur Foundation, which he said was proud to fund SIECUS's work.
About thirty-five people were in attendance, including a number of Egyptian students who were working as aids for the forum. The spokesman for SIECUS presented the standard SIECUS line: That sexual activity is a normative way for adolescents to express themselves and that what is important is that the young people be "responsible," i.e., use condoms. The young man promoted the benefits of masturbation and outercourse (mutual masturbation to climax). A lovely young Egyptian student, whose English vocabulary did not include these terms, asked for an explanation. Since the young woman's experience clearly did not include the behaviors referred to, the explanation offered only added to the confusion.
At this point, I must admit that I became outraged at the presentation and made that clear to the SIECUS spokesman, asking him how he dared to come to Egypt and try to corrupt the innocence of these students with ideas which were destroying the young people of our country. I tried to explain to the audience the effect of the programs promoted by SIECUS. When he insisted that I sit down and allow others to speak, I protested that I could not bear to listen to a defense of the indefensible and left the room. Over half the audience followed me into the corridor where we continued the discussion. The man from the MacArthur Foundation followed the group into the hall and tried to convince the participants to return to the workshop.
In front of the Egyptians, I asked him why his organization funded a group that promoted sex for unmarried teenagers, abortion, and homosexuality-things which are rejected by most Egyptians. When the man defended his organization, the Egyptians began to argue with him.
SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS
Reading the draft platform for the conference and the materials distributed by population control groups at the forum, and listening to the speeches, one would believe that all that is needed to eliminate poverty, empower women, and save the world from eminent disaster is free contraception, legal abortion, and sex education to indoctrinate women and children on how to avail themselves of these "health services."
WEDO mounted a massive campaign for sexual and reproductive rights and health, arguing that every human being has a right to life, which includes a "right to health," which includes sexual and reproductive health. Therefore, if unsafe abortion is a major threat to the health of women, women's right to health would include the right to safe abortion, and, for abortion to be safe, it has to be legal. Following this twisted path, they arrived at the conclusion that the right to life gives women the right to legal abortion.
To back up their claim, they produced statistics which inflated the number of deaths from illegal abortion. An African doctor said if these figures were to be believed, all deaths in his country for women fifteen to forty would be attributable to illegal abortion, which certainly was not the case. The question of the right to life of the unborn human being was not considered.
To further confuse the question, the feminists linked sexual and reproductive health with sexual and reproductive rights even though there is no necessary relation between the two. Their version of sexual and reproductive rights would include the right to engage in various behaviors, some of which are extremely unhealthy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defends the right to marry and form a family, not sex for the unmarried and adolescents.
Those pushing for recognition of sexual and reproductive rights already had a foot in the door. The following statement had been approved in Mexico City in 1984: "All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so." While at the time this may have seemed like a safe compromise, profamily delegates had no idea it would be used to justify lesbians and single women having babies by artificial insemination and homosexual men using surrogate mothers.
The statement carries the implication that people have a right to a child, when no such right exists. Married people have a right to the acts which could result in the conception of a child. It is children who have a right to be born in a family where they are loved and cared for by both their biological parents.
These new "rights" were promoted at a series of workshops where a booklet entitled "Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health as Human Rights: Concepts and Strategies; An Introduction for Activists" was distributed. The booklet, by Rhonda Copeland of the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic at CUNY (City University of New York) and Berta Esperanza Hernindez of the International Women's Human Rights Project of the Center for Law and Public Policy, St. John's University (NY), called on activists to push the idea that human rights had evolved and that "sexual and reproductive rights" were already included among recognized human rights. Just as in the U.S., the Supreme Court had "found" a right to abortion, they evidently were hoping that the Cairo conference would find "sexual and reproductive rights" in previous documents and grant them an international version of the Roe v. Wade decision.
The booklet defines sexual and reproductive rights as including: "respect for women's bodily integrity and decisionmaking as well as their right to express their sexuality with pleasure and without fear of abuse, disease, or discrimination. It requires access to voluntary, quality, reproductive and sexual health information, education and services" [Rhonda Copeland and Berta Esperanza Hernandez, "Sexual and Reproductive Rights and Health as Human Rights: Concepts and Strategies; An Introduction for Activists" (Cairo: Human Rights Series, 1994), p. 2].
Those familiar with feminist literature know that this would include not only the right to contraception of all kinds and abortion on demand, but also legal recognition of lesbianism, sexual freedom for adolescents, sperm banks for lesbians and unmarried women, voluntary prostitution, and the prohibition of prolife demonstration. If these are declared human rights, the feminists believe they would have a powerful tool to enforce their agenda. The authors explain that their strategy is predicated on the respect due to human rights:
|
Human rights constitute limitations on the sovereignty of states; they constitute principles to which states, donors, providers, intergovernmental organizations and ultimately, the private economic sector must be held accountable. [Copeland and Hernandez, p. 1]
Human rights do not depend on whether a state has acknowledged them, for example, by ratifying a particular treaty. Widely endorsed human rights norms are relevant regardless of whether a state has ratified a particular treaty. [Copeland and Hernandez, p. 3] |
|
Human rights are standards to which everyone is accountable, but they cannot be expanded to serve an ideological agenda. Human rights must be founded on the truth about the human person.
Copeland and Hernandez accuse "religious fundamentalists" of opposing their human rights: "This demand for elemental human rights is being met with opposition by religious fundamentalists of all kinds, with the Vatican playing a leading role in organizing religious opposition to reproductive rights and health including even family planning services" [Copeland and Hernandez, p. 3].
Religious leaders, including Archbishop Renato Martino, the delegate of the Holy See to the U.N., reject the feminist claim that religious groups oppose human rights. Martino, however, makes a clear distinction between real human rights, which are inherent to the person, and attempts to manipulate the idea of human rights:
|
Currently, there is a tendency to believe that society has formulated what are known as human rights. However, human rights are such precisely because they are inherent to the dignity of the human person. A society may acknowledge or violate human rights, but it cannot manipulate the existence of human rights, since these rights precede even the state. [November 1994] |
|
Those who follow the U.N. have been very concerned that the feminists and their allies will try to use the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in 1998 to push for a rewriting of the document. "A Proposal for a Universal Declaration of Human Rights from a Gender Perspective," circulated by CLADEM (EI Comite Latinoamericano y del Caribe para la Defensa de Los Derechos de las Mujeres), suggests that the declaration be rewritten to guarantee rights for "children, homosexuals and lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals and hermaphrodites." The following provisions would be added:
|
All persons have the right to free and responsible sexual education that guarantees the right to their own sexuality.
All persons have the right to their sexual orientation which includes the decision to take or not take an emotional and/or sexual companion who belongs to the same or a different sex.
All women and men ought to be guaranteed the right and have the full power to autonomous decisions over their reproductive functions. Such rights include but are not restricted to: a) access to health services; b) free and voluntary maternity and paternity, c) family planning; d) access to safe methods of contraception; e) voluntary interruption of pregnancy in safe conditions; f) voluntary sterilization of men and women; g) sexual autonomy; h) life free of violence in the exercise of sexuality and especially of pregnancy.
All men and women have the right to different forms of physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual pleasure that are an essential part of the human condition. This right includes whatever possibilities of responsible sexual pleasure exist within the context of the person, the couple, the family, and the community. ["Propuesta Para Una Declaraciķn Universal de los Derechos Humanos Desde Una Perspectiva de Genero" (Lima, Peru: CLADEM) pp. 7-8, translation from Spanish by the author]
|
|
Maria Ladi Londoņo echoed the same sentiments in an article entitled "Sexuality and reproduction as human rights," published by the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has fallen short of its purpose," according to her. "Humans must have new rights with symbolic, real or even rhetorical meaning" [Maria Ladi Londoņo, "Sexuality and reproduction as human rights, Women and Population Policies (Oaxtepec, Mexico: Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, 5-9 July 1993), p. 66]. Londoņo lists the various problems, including "imposed child-rearing," "heterosexual orientation as the universal model," and "the conditions in which the great majority of sex workers live," which she believes would be addressed by promotion of sexual and reproductive rights [Londoņo p. 68]. Londoņo believes that "once recognized as universal, sexual and reproductive rights, finely tuned through the process of acceptance, will become a part of the dynamics of liberation and personal growth" [Londoņo, p. 73].
In trying to use human rights to forward their agenda, the feminists are embarking on a very dangerous course. The Western nations might be able to use their economic power to enforce their "expanded" version of human rights on the rest of the world and pressure poor countries into legalizing abortion and gay rights. What is more likely, however, is that Western pressure to "expand" human rights will undermine respect for human rights in developing countries.
In many parts of the world, human rights are just beginning to mean something and women are just beginning to take advantage of that stillfragile respect accorded human rights. Setting up a false conflict between religion and human rights could jeopardize that process and put the most vulnerable including women and girls-at risk.
THE EGYPTIAN SOLUTION
In the ten years since the Mexico City conference, IPPF had been forced to labor under the restrictions imposed by the Mexico City language. Now, with Reagan and the Republicans out of power and President Clinton committed to their cause, IPPF believed that this was their moment of triumph. One hundred twenty-eight of their employees were to be included on national delegations. Twenty-two members of Planned Parenthood, including their president, had been appointed to the U.S. delegation. The chairman of the main committee was Dr. Fred Sai of Ghana, the president of IPPF. The delegates were supposed to represent their national interests, but during the conference, they held closed meetings to plot strategy.
At the crucial point in the deliberations at the conference, Dr. Sai tried to make it appear that the Vatican was blocking the consensus on proabortion language. The media headlined the charge. In fact, no consensus on abortion had been reached. Moslem countries publicly opposed the promotion of abortion, as did a number of Latin American countries. Other less vocal countries were pleased with the Vatican leadership, since it allowed them to avoid having to incur the wrath of donor nations by speaking publicly.
The sides were sharply divided, and at one point it appeared the process would break down. The Egyptians, in an attempt to save the conference, suggested a compromise: the language on sexual and reproductive health would remain in the text, but a chapeau (covering paragraph) would be placed at the beginning of the document guaranteeing national sovereignty and protecting religious values. While this solved the immediate problem, it set a dangerous precedent.
The prosexual and reproductive rights crowd could then argue that "fundamentalists" were using religion to oppose human rights. The platform also stated clearly that the conference was not authorized to grant new human rights. The Mexico language was not repudiated. Instead, the phrase "in no case shall abortion be promoted as a method of family planning" appeared in the platform in two separate places.
To the detriment of the conference, the battle over sexual and reproductive rights had occupied center stage. Profamily delegates had no time to focus on chapter 4, "Gender Equality, Equity and the Empowerment of Women," which called for "women's equal participation and equitable representation at all levels of the political process and public life" and "gender equality in all spheres of life, including family and community life." Since the profamily forces enthusiastically supported women's equal rights, most saw no danger in these sections. Totally occupied with what for them were life and death issues, they were not interested in looking for new problems.
Cairo woke up the profamily movement to the dangers of an activist U.N. They had an opportunity to meet like-minded people from around the world and form working relationships. In particular, it provided a moment for Christians and Moslems to recognize that the old stereotypes and misunderstandings hid their basic agreement on the importance of family, life, and faith. Although a number of Evangelical Christians had come to Cairo as individuals, the major groups were not well represented, something a number of people came to believe needed to be remedied in the future.
Profamily forces achieved a great victory in Cairo, how ever, by averting an almost certain international coup d 'état by Planned Parenthood and its allies. The profamily forces had been able to hold the fort against an advancing enemy, but at the end of the battle, their enemy had not surrendered a single inch of territory, and, although they didn't realize it at the time, the profamily cause had lost a great deal in Cairo. "Gender" and "sexual and reproductive rights and health" had found their way into a U.N. document. Once accepted, no matter how many qualifications were attached, they would pose a problem.
As the conference drew to an end, Bella Abzug and her friends, who had declared at the beginning that this was their conference, were frustrated and angry that they had not been able to win acceptance of abortion as a human right. They retreated to the bazaars and tourist attractions for which Cairo was famous, to soothe the sting of their defeat, with the promise, "Wait until next year. What we didn't get there, we will win in Beijing."
|
|