SPEECHES FROM 2006 ARIZONA RIGHT TO LIFE ANNUAL STATE CONFERENCE

Austin Ruse, President, Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

We lobby at the United Nations on life and family matters. We have been doing this since 1997.

Something like an apocalypse occurred in New York in 2000. The Millennium Summit – the main aim was to bash the West. The World Peace Summit was held at the same time. It was nothing more than the Far Left meeting the Far East. Conservative talk radio the Western world claimed this would use globalism to kill sovereignty. Focus on the Family was inundated with calls fearing a one-world government. September 28th came and west and the world didn’t end. Many fears were unfounded.

The UN isn’t that good and isn’t that smart. They are not smart enough to organize a cocktail party in a distillery. I promise you, it’s not about to take over the world. The UN is not about to take over the world, but elements within it seek to do harm, to the sovereignty of the state, the church and the family. The UN speaks to the world mostly through paper, nonbinding documents and social policy documents used to beat small governments into submission. They can come at us through the courts (because we are so big and strong), through treaties unratified by us. They still can threaten us. Most of the diplomats are there for three years, which is not enough time to wrest control away from the mostly left-wing bureaucrats.

Bella Abzug ran some UN policy in the 1990s. Little dictatorships operate there and they are dirty. Play-it-safe types (delegates) won’t rock the boat. Threatening calls have gone out at midnight from the European Union and the Clinton Administration. Delegates have been fired for opposing deviant politics.

The 190 nations at the UN never speak. The U.S., the EU and the G77 debate and that’s it. Canada and Australia and the Holy See sometimes speak. That really is UN negotiation.

The EU is totally against us. Almost all of Latin America, Africa and the Far East are against us. As well as the New York Times, the London Times and all the major foundations. There are some enormously powerful NGOs, like Planned Parenthood. There are only 30 pro-life NGOs. This alignment has produced all the harmful documents in the last 20 years. These documents are held up to us as guidelines for governments and our lives. They go into your bedroom and into interaction with other people. All these documents are problematic. The U.S. has made some reservations.

Who can possibly be against the Convention on the Rights of the Child? The U.S. and Somalia – and Somalia doesn’t even have a government. We have the best laws protecting children and don’t need the U.N. Children are well protected. We live in a very litigious society and treaties are signed into law. It is a bad treaty; it disses parents. The family is a pretty darn conservative organization and it goes after that. It protects children from threats from any source. Children cannot be restricted in what they read. We are held up as isolationist because we did not sign this crazy treaty.
The International Criminal Court makes it a crime if women can’t get an abortion. It refers to that as a “forced pregnancy.” It regulates the behavior of individuals and citizens of countries not signing the treaty. It is not attached to any other body, and it is staffed by far left judges and prosecutors. It allows private funding of prosecutors. Ted Turner loves it. They will go after U.S. servicemen and politicians. Henry Kissinger was summoned to explain the overthrow of Chile’s leader.

It doesn’t matter what the documents say. People do anything they see fit. The treaties establish committees to grill the participating countries.

CEDAW: The treaty is silent on abortion, but the committee directs nations to legalize abortion. It told Libya to reinterpret the Quran, pressured Nicaragua to change the definition of gender. It threatened Nicaragua with the loss of foreign aide.

During the Clinton years, it used documents and treaties to change U.S. laws. President Bush re-enacted the Mexico City Policy. Clinton struck it down, and George W. Bush resumed it. He was sued by bully girls with law degrees. They claimed that if Roe v. Wade is struck down, abortion still stands – and is the law of the world.

Two Supreme Court cases hurt us: Lawrence v. Texas, which said that homosexual sodomy became a constitutional right, reflecting foreign documents from Europe.

The second court case referenced the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. never signed. The Supreme Court also referenced language we had made reservations on. The Supreme Court involves us in global standards we did not agree to.

Americans must understand we are under attack in many ways. The family, faith and nation are under attack. We are at war. The sites of the UN battles should take names like Bunker Hill. There is a war over language and the sovereignty of nation, church and family. We will stand before the judgment seat of the Lord alone.

There is a small coalition of people standing up for the family and life and no one knows their names … and Sharon Slater (president of Mesa-based United Families International) from this community is one of them.

We are a ragtag band who shows up at every single UN meeting – and when we walk through the door you can just see the air go out of them. There’s a new book coming out about the radical right stopping women’s rights at the UN. How cool is that!  In one document referring to children, we counted 47 references to “reproductive rights.” The good news is that we – this little group of people – has stopped them from redefining family and gender and they’re awfully cranky about it.

We have stood up to the international movement to change everything we believe in. The Holy Spirit is moving, and people are jumping in the water. I would hate to be on the other side.

There are more pro-life young people than pro-choice young people. We have more feelings that we are going to win than in our lifetimes. We have never seen such unity between Catholics and Protestants and Mormons since the Reformation. Our Lord wants us all to be one. We are remarkably blessed to be in this work to defend the unborn and the family. We are being cheered on every day all the little babies in Heaven, and we will win.

Jim Sedlak, Vice-President, American Life League: TheEevils of Planned Parenthood

Taxpayer funding: you give Planned Parenthood one-third of their income. Last year, the government gave PP $272 million. Why PP is so bad, why we can’t work with PP and why the need to get them out of there.

The basic philosophies of Planned Parenthood: It was founded in 1916 by Margaret Sanger in Brooklyn. She brought three basic philosophies:

1—Uninhibited sex regardless of marriage. There have been 6-7 biographies on Sanger, all positive. She had numerous affairs. She died in 1966. Planned Parenthood has a vision for 2025 listing 10 goals. The No. 1 goal is to make sure sex is celebrated. They sell themselves as a “health care organization.” They are intent on spreading the pleasure of sexual encounters. Margaret Sanger had a hatred for large families. She came from a family of 11 children; it was a poor family, the Higgins. They were Irish. She grew up poor. Her solution to large families and sexual desire was birth control.

2—She advocated birth control in its broadest sense. She called for small families and listed abortion among the birth controls. She favored two children or less. She favored birth limits by the government – three children max. It sounds outrageous. Planned Parenthood now supports China’s one-child policy.

3—Her third philosophy was eugenics, purification of the race through selective breeding. In 1932, she wrote her “Plan for Peace.” Anyone from dysgenic stock should be sensitized or placed on a farm for life. Planned Parenthood’s No. 2 goal is to get the government and insurance companies to pay for birth control. Planned Parenthood’s goal is a state right to abortion. That doesn’t sound like a health care organization. The world is too smart to use the term eugenics, so they now call it an overpopulation problem. I flew here from Virginia, and I saw vast open areas. You could house the entire population of the world in Texas, or Alberta. There is a population problem: too few young people. In 2000, there were more people over 60 than under 15 in the developed world. That is a disaster economically. There is economic doom in Italy with a 1.1 replacement population. No country in Europe is at replacement level. In America, we hover around replacement level because of our wonderful immigration system, but we are teetering on disaster. Planned Parenthood likes this problem.

Planned Parenthood speaks a religion – secular humanism, written in the Humanist Manifestos, I, II and III. Alan Guttmacher signed the Humanist Manifesto II when he was president of Planned Parenthood. II is the cleanest in wording. It says traditional theism is an unproved and outmoded faith. We must serve ourselves. No deity will save us. We strive for the good life her and now. Every major Planned Parenthood president has received awards for spreading humanism. They affirm that moral values derived from the human experience; man decides right or wrong). The first manifesto was described as situational ethics. Now it is taught as values clarification, or critical thinking: you can only give kids information, but no opinion on right or wrong.

Planned Parenthood takes in $880 million a year, and one-third if from the U.S., one-third from donations from corporations, foundations and individuals, and one-third from fees at clinics. People think they do things for free. They don’t. They charge at a very high markup. They buy Plan B from manufacturers for $4.25 and sell it for $30-35. That is almost $25 in profits. This is a money-making operation. The interesting thing is their customer base. Seventy percent of their customers are 25 or younger. It is high school and college girls.

Scott Klusendorf, President, Pro-Life Training

How many of you like to argue? How many of you like to win? Our culture is engaged in a huge argument today. How it goes will determine embryonic stem cell research, cloning and even marriage.

1—Is truth true, or is it malleable?
2—what makes you valuable in the first place?

These questions impact your children and grandchildren. There is no way to avoid the debate. The only question is whether we will engage in it or sit this one out. Society is willing to accept truth in science but not in religion and morality.

I give you the three questions. If we get a handle on these questions, we can participate in the debate. Why do we believe an absence of concensus results in a solution?

Peter Singer, of Princeton, reiterated two weeks ago that it’s okay to kill a newborn.

1—What is the unborn?
2—What makes human valuable?
3—What is our duty as individuals?

1--We cannot assume the status of the embryo. Ron Reagan Jr. defended embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. If you oppose ESCR because of your religious beliefs, we can’t let the theology of the few prevent cures for the many. Question, Mr. Reagan, does it benefit the human embryos in the process? Our job is to bring focus of the embryo to the debate. Daddy, can I kill this (the unknown thing in the box)? Your first question will be “What is it?” We have removed the morality from ESCR question.

In a debate at Indiana University-Fort Wayne, I said I would concede defeat if the unborn are not human beings.  Some choices are wrong, like taking the life of defenseless human beings. However, if my opponent can show that the unborn are not human beings, I’ll compete. When she used Planned Parenthood talking points on choice, it wasn’t sticking. The students lined up to question her, and no one was lined up to question me. I had framed the debate around what is the unborn? This was not a debate on choice. When she didn’t engage on that issue, she was in hot water.

Andrea Yates exercised her choice. They don’t say that because children are human beings.

What is the unborn? We must deal with that question first.

Answer: From the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, whole and living human beings. What do people do when an argument turns against what they believe? Arguments don’t have gender; people do. Don’t tell my gender matters in a postmodern world why not just change the topic when you’ve got the truth. Moral relativism vs. truth: that’s an argument that commits suicide. Absolute truth is attacked. Our job is to make it difficult for people to suppress the truth. Will show disturbing images, the aftermath of abortion. In the last 2 ½ months, this video has been viewed 190,000 times on our Web site. The concept of abortion when people view it starts to change when they have to view it with a capital T. It is not appropriate for children under sixth-grade.

I didn’t come here to beat you up. I’m a firm believer in Jesus Christ as a healer for people who’ve done moral crimes. I came because I want you to know how to pursue the truth and present it to a culture that needs truth. This is a 3-minute video of body parts; it’s horrifying. This is abortion.

At the end of World War II, Dwight Eisenhower’s aide badgered him to go look at a Nazi death camp. Eventually, he decided to go and look at one. He saw bodies stacked like cordwood. He said I want every field commander to bring their men to see this. I told the American soldier to see this so he knows what he is fighting for and fighting against. Why MLK used gigantic pictures of Blacks being lynched. I have to believe we prevented a couple hundred abortions by showing these images to 1,200 students in Arizona. Thankfully, Arizona Right to Life took a stand to get the truth out.

Are you valuable as human beings? Size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency = SLED. Since when does body size determine value? You were less developed as an embryo. You changed locations. Does that stop you from being you? How does moving eight inches down the birth canal change you?

What is our duty? The pro-life position is philosophically sound. We are distinct, loving and whole organisms. Our duty is to love our unborn neighbor. In the Bible, love is a behavior. Jesus felt pity and acted like he felt pity. In 1991, I met Jamie Ernest, a 14-year-old girl. She showed images of abortion in school and one kid complained, a kid whose mom worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She refused to apologize at a public meeting. Arizona is trying to raise up a whole generation of Jamies.

Let’s go out there and give ‘em Heaven.