Senate Committee Votes for U.N. Gender Treaty

The committee recommended ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) by a vote of 12 to seven. Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island crossed party lines to join all 10 committee Democrats in voting for the agreement.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., chairman of the committee, said CEDAW "can be viewed as an international bill of rights."

"It sets out basic standards for women's rights, from the right to education to the right to equal employment opportunity to the right to equality under the law in marriage," Biden wrote with committee member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in an op-ed piece published around the country Tuesday.

"Nearly 170 nations have joined the treaty, but the United States stands with the likes of Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Syria and Somalia in failing to ratify it," he wrote.

But Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the ranking minority member of the committee, says the treaty is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

"Unfortunately, some are confusing the very clear moral imperative to secure basic freedoms and liberties for women with pretense that a need exists to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)," Helms wrote in a letter to Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Monday.

"The documented radical agenda of the committee established by CEDAW is undisputed. (Among other things, that committee has directed China to legalize prostitution and has criticized Belarus for establishing Mother's Day.)," Helms added.

"Moreover, there can be no doubt that CEDAW supporters are attempting to use this treaty to advance a radical abortion agenda. This is evident in [CEDAW] committee reports directing Ireland to legalize abortion, and criticizing Ireland for the Church's influence in public policy," he concluded.

"Opponents warn that the treaty's call for universal access to family planning is really a disguised call for a right to abortion services. That is a charge with no basis in fact," the pair wrote in their op-ed.

"In 1994, the State Department certified that the treaty is abortion-neutral; that same year, the Committee on Foreign Relations agreed to a proposal, sponsored by Sen. Jesse Helms, making clear that nothing in the treaty shall be construed as creating any right to an abortion," they added.

"I strongly disagree," he said, referring to the claim that CEDAW is "abortion neutral" because of his amendment. "The negotiated provision of my proposal was so watered down that the amendment would not result in CEDAW's radical abortion agenda being eliminated."

Helms noted that, despite the inclusion of a weakened version of his amendment, he voted against ratification of CEDAW in 1994 because of the pro-abortion nature of the treaty.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) had written Biden, asking him to delay a vote on CEDAW while the department completes its review of "reservation, understandings, and declarations" the executive branch has with the language of the agreement, as well as its practical application by the U.N. implementation committee.

DOJ pointed to the same two examples Helms mentioned, expressing its reservations about the implementation committee.

"These are but two examples of the instances in which this committee has exploited CEDAW's vague text to advance positions contrary to American law and sensibilities," wrote Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant in a letter to Biden Friday.

Having passed the committee, the treaty can now be brought before the full Senate for ratification. A two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, would be required to ratify the treaty. No action is required in the House of Representatives.

Republican observers expect CEDAW to be brought up for a vote before the November midterm elections, in an attempt to embarrass the Bush administration for its reservations about the vague language and implementation of the treaty.

Femininity Betrayed: A Global Attack
By Jameson Taylor

(snip)

So, what is CEDAW’s intent? As alluded to by Sen. Helms, CEDAW is part of the radical feminists’ attack on femininity and part of the UN’s ongoing war against the family, private property and liberty. The philosopher Plato provides a more detailed response.
In his most famous work, The Republic, Plato’s Socrates describes what seems to be a perfectly just city. Socrates shocks his listeners by proposing that the rulers of the city, a class known as the guardians, share “all things in common.” Socrates makes this proposal because, from the point-of-view of the city—as well as the United Nations—unity is the greatest good. Perfect justice, in other words, requires absolute communism.
Socrates introduces communism into the city, not by confiscating the citizens’ property, but by proposing that the female guardians perform the same tasks as their male counterparts. If women are to do the same work as men, they must necessarily receive the same education. Most important, the women must be trained in the art of war, for the defense of the city is the first duty of the guardians. Prowess in war requires physical fitness. Now, in much of Greece men ordinarily exercised in the nude. Socrates’ proposal thus requires that men and women exercise naked together. Socrates grants that all manner of inconveniences will arise from such a practice, but conventional resistance to coed, nude gymnastics must be overcome.
Plato, here, wants his readers to reflect on whether Socrates’ scheme is reasonable—or even possible. One can imagine that the male guardians, as well as Socrates’ audience of virile young men, might gladly go along with such a program. The female guardians, on the other hand, might take more convincing. What is at issue is whether feminine modesty is natural. Socrates overcomes the opposition by arguing that the only real difference between men and women is that women bear children and men beget children. This distinction, Socrates argues, is as irrelevant as that which differentiates bald shoemakers from hairy shoemakers.
Having convinced his audience that men and women are essentially the same, Socrates logically concludes that the nuclear family must be abolished in favor of a community of wives and children. Marriages—temporary unions lasting only as long as is necessary to conceive—are strictly regulated by the city. Any “unplanned” pregnancies are to be aborted or abandoned at birth. In turn, since the guardians will have no families to care for, all property will be held in common.
The utter absurdity of Socrates’ “city” led a long tradition of thinkers to conclude that The Republic is a satire meant to demonstrate the limits of political power. Unfortunately, not everyone caught on. Impervious to Socrates’ irony, the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision cited The Republic as proof that “most Greek thinkers… commended abortion.” Similarly, the advocates of “global governance” seem to have adopted The Republic as their model.
Easy access to contraception and abortion has made it possible for society to overcome the stumbling block of feminine fertility that made Socrates’ ideal regime impossible. Women who are not concerned about conceiving a child have no practical reason to be chaste. Women who no longer want to bear children, from a political and economic point-of-view, are virtually equal to their male counterparts. It is in the state’s best interests that such women enter the workplace, abort any “unplanned” babies, leaving the rest behind in federally subsidized daycare centers and schools, and spend their lives as “productive” citizens.
For CEDAW, like Socrates, femininity and its necessary counterpart, fertility, are irrelevant. As the old dirge goes, “biology is not determinative.” Suppose, however, that CEDAW is wrong? 2 Instead of creating a Marxist paradise, CEDAW will have helped found a playboy wonderland.
CEDAW betrayed the world’s women, and its own charter, as soon as it began to treat immodesty as a virtue and fertility as a disease. If CEDAW were truly concerned with the rights of women, it would be urging the United Nations to reward, instead of punish, countries like Belarus and Ireland who are trying to safeguard femininity by requiring fathers to provide for their families and children to honor their mothers.
As communism requires the destruction of family life, a FREE REGIME depends upon the integrity and coherence of the marital bond. Physically stronger, men are ultimately responsible for creating the conditions in which women may freely choose to be chaste. The medieval notion of chivalry is grounded in this reality. Men can no longer condone—and participate in—the subversion of feminine modesty. Married men must devote themselves with zeal to the care and comfort of their wives and children. Single men must shield themselves, their sisters and their girlfriends from impurity. The very preservation of our nation’s liberty requires such self-restraint, virtue, and—yes, boys—chastity. It is time true patriots and real men led the way.
Jameson Taylor is a Writer at Human Life International.

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