Best of UN General Debate
During the UN High Level Week recently held in New York City, world leaders took the General Assembly stage to discuss a wide plethora of issues including wars, potential threats posed by artificial intelligence, alleviating poverty, and dealing with mass immigration.
Most speeches were somewhat broad in scope and substance but I have selected few that emphasized the need to defend and protect national sovereignty in the face of an increasingly hostile progressive movement that seeks worldwide uniformity of beliefs and values, including on human sexuality and access to abortion.
Turkey
Source: UN News
A most notable speech comes from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey who raised the alarm about the forceful and aggressive gender ideology movement and pledged to continue to stand up against all efforts seeking to impose such a worldview upon Turkey and the broader conservative UN membership.
“Attacks on the institution of family, the pillar of society are increasing. The disgrace staged at the opening of the 2024 Olympic Games has revealed the extent of the threat we face as humanity,” Erdoğan said.
He went on to talk about how the opening ceremony of the Olympics has caused pain not only to the Christian community but to anyone “who respects the sacred values” and referred to it as a “global imposition.” Erdoğan continued his remarks by saying, “it literally became a war against the sacred and human nature. We are facing a multidimensional, comprehensive and ruthless project of destruction. Those who are speaking out and are reacting to this evil, everyone who raises a voice for this annihilation project is silenced and targeted by elites' campaigns.”
Towards the end of the speech, Erdoğan encouraged like-minded leaders to join the UN Group on the Friends of the Family and “shoulder the struggle” by standing up against the gender ideology agenda and protecting life and family.
The Holy See
Source: UN News
Cardinal Pietro Parolin of the Holy See delivered a statement expressing reservation on some of the language included in the UN Pact of the Future and its annexed documents pertaining to abortion and gender identity.
“Regarding the terms “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights”, the Holy See considers these terms as applying to a holistic concept of health, which embrace, each in their own way, the person in the entirety of his or her personality, mind and body, and which foster the achievement of personal maturity in sexuality and in the mutual love and decision-making that characterize the conjugal-relationship between a man and a woman in accordance with moral norms. The Holy See does not consider abortion or access to abortion or abortifacients as a dimension of these terms…With reference to “gender”, the Holy See understands the term to be grounded in the biological sexual identity that is male or female.”
Cardinal Parolin did not deliver these statements during the live GA General Debate. However, they were subsequently published on the Holy See website as the full statement intended for the occasion.
Argentina
Source: United Nations YouTube page
Javier Milei, President of Argentina, criticized the UN for departing from its original mandate of ensuring world peace towards a “Leviathan” system deciding how people should live their lives. Warning against the dangers of entrusting power to a United Nations system that is failing, Milei called the UN 2030 agenda a supranationalist, and socialist project that is creating more harm than good by asking countries to “commit resources that they don’t have to programs that they don’t need” and thus “becoming perpetual debtors.”
Milei also criticized some UN projects as having a Malthusian underpinning, including on the “sexual reproductive health” front.
Italy
Source: United Nations YouTube page
