[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 8, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1276-S1277]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE RADICAL AGENDA OF CEDAW
Mr. HELMS. Mr. President, earlier this morning I was thinking about
20 years ago when a delightful young lady Senator from Kansas served in
this body, Nancy Kassebaum. She was a lady in every respect, and I miss
her to this good day.
I was thinking about Nancy because today is International Women's
Day. The radical feminists are at it again. They have chosen once again
to press their case for Senate ratification of the United Nations
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, and that has the acronym of CEDAW.
Let's examine this treaty which women organizations--including some
of the more liberal women in Congress--are so eager to have approved by
the Congress and reported out, first of all, by the Foreign Affairs
Committee, on which I am chairman. They put out a press release
yesterday that they were going to picket me. I guess they were going to
scream and holler at me as they tried to do not long ago, which suits
me all right because I have been screamed and hollered at before by the
same crowd.
``This urgently needed'' treaty, as they describe it, has been
collecting dust in the Senate archives for 20 years. It was submitted
by President Carter to the Senate in 1980. In these years since
President Carter sent it to the Senate, the Democratic Party controlled
the Senate for 10 of those years and the Democrats never brought it up
for a vote.
Indeed, in the first 2 years of the Clinton administration, when the
Democrats controlled not only the Senate but the White House, the
Democrats never saw fit to bring this radical treaty up for a vote.
They were silent in seven languages about it.
Now, suddenly, 20 years later, they demand to be given urgent
priority in the recommendation of this treaty, and that it be
considered first by the Foreign Relations Committee and then by the
Senate.
I say dream on because it is not going to happen. Why has CEDAW, the
Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,
never been ratified? Because it is a bad treaty; it is a terrible
treaty negotiated by radical feminists with the intent of enshrining
their radical antifamily agenda into international law. I will have no
part of that.
Let me give a few examples of the world in which the authors and
proponents of this treaty would have all live. Under this treaty, a
``committee on the elimination of discrimination against women is
established with the
[[Page S1277]]
task of enforcing compliance with the treaty.''
Mr. President, how about a few excerpts from the reports that the
committee has issued? They provide a telling insight into the hearts
and minds of the authors who wrote this treaty in the first place.
What do they propose? They propose global legalization of abortion.
The treaty has been intended, from the very beginning, to be a vehicle
for imposing abortion on countries that still protect the rights of the
unborn. For example, this committee has instructed Ireland a country
that restricts abortion, to ``facilitate a national dialogue on * * *
the restrictive abortion laws'' of Ireland and has declared in another
report that under the CEDAW treaty ``it is discriminatory for a
[government] to refuse to legally provide for the performance of
certain reproductive health services for women''--that is to say,
abortion.
Another issue: Legalization of prostitution. In another report issued
in February of, 1999, the CEDAW committee declared:
The committee recommends the decriminalization of
prostitution.
They even called for the abolishment of Mother's Day. The CEDAW crowd
has come out against Mother's Day--yes, Mother's Day. Earlier this
year, the committee solemnly declared to Belarus its ``concern [over]
the continuing prevalence of * * * such [stereotypical] symbols as a
Mother's Day'' and lectured Armenia on the need to ``combat the
traditional stereotype of women in `the noble role of mother.' ''
There are not enough kids in day care, they claim.
The committee informed Slovenia that too many Slovenian mothers were
staying home to raise their children. What a bad thing for mothers to
do--think of it--staying home with their children. This committee
warned that because only 30 percent of children were in day-care
centers, the other 70 percent were in grave danger of, now get this,
``miss[ing] out on educational and social opportunities offered in
formal day-care institutions.''
Another thing, mandating women in combat. Boy, they are hot to trot
on that. In a 1997 report, the CEDAW committee mandated that all
countries adopting the treaty must ensure the ``full participation'' of
women in the military, meaning that nations would be required to send
women into combat even if the military chiefs decided that it was not
in the national security interest of, for example, the United States of
America.
This is the world that the advocates of this CEDAW treaty want to
impose on America. That is why they are picketing my office right now,
demanding the Senate Foreign Relations Committee consider this treaty
and report it out to the Senate for approval.
I say to these women who are picketing my office: Dream on. If its
authors and implementers had their way, the United States, as a
signatory to this treaty, would have to legalize prostitution, legalize
abortion, eliminate what CEDAW regards as the preferable environment of
institutional day care instead of children staying at home.
This treaty is not about opportunities for women. It is about
denigrating motherhood and undermining the family. The treaty is
designed to impose, by international fiat, a radical definition of
``discrimination against women'' that goes far beyond the protections
already enshrined in the laws of the United States of America. That is
why this treaty was publicly opposed in years past by, as I said
earlier, Nancy Kassebaum and many others, who felt as I did then, and
still do, that creating yet another set of unenforceable international
standards would dilute, not strengthen, the human rights standards of
women around the world.
We need only to look at the conditions of women living in countries
that have ratified this treaty, countries such as Iran and Libya, to
understand that Nancy Kassebaum was right in her opposition to the
Treaty on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
The fact is, the United States has led the world in advancing
opportunities for women during the 20 years this treaty has been
collecting dust in the Senate's archives. I suspect that America will
continue to lead the way, while the CEDAW crowd and the treaty sits in
the dustbin for a few more decades to come. If I have anything to do
with it, that is precisely where it is going to remain.
I do not intend to be pushed around by discourteous, demanding women
no matter how loud they shout or how much they are willing to violate
every trace of civility.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
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