To mark the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Paul Tuns, editor of The Interim, sat down with Campaign Life Coalition vice president Matthew Wojciechowski to discuss life and family issues at the UN. CLC has had Special Consultative Status as a non-government organization at the UN since 1999 and Wojcieschowski has been to UN events more than a dozen times.

Paul Tuns: Can you describe several of the most egregious examples of the UN promoting abortion and anti-family ideologies?

Matt Wojciechowski: The promotion of abortion and anti-family ideologies within the United Nations is most evident among its leadership. A quick search of statements by Secretary-General António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, or the Director-General of the World Health Organization shows how deeply entrenched “abortion rights” are among top decision-makers. Apart from the executive, the UN’s influence flows through its many agencies. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), UNICEF, UN Women, and others, have fully aligned themselves with “sexual and reproductive health and rights”— an umbrella term for abortion on demand, sterilization, radical sex education, and LGBT ideology. This agenda is clearly reflected in the documents they produce, the terminology they promote, and the global programs they fund and implement. Whether it’s the WHO’s Abortion Care Guidelines (2022), the UNFPA’s annual State of World Population report, or the numerous reports that come out of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the UN has been in the business of propagating abortion and LGBT ideology for decades.

PT: Explain the problems that pro-lifers have with the UN’s sustainable development goals.

MW: The Sustainable Development Goals seem like noble objectives to improve the quality of life for humans around the world; however, many of the 17 goals have embedded pro-abortion language, which has allowed UN agencies to promote abortion globally. The SDGs which are a rebrand of the failed Millenium Goals, have distorted development and sustainability into an anti-life, anti-family blueprint for population control.

PT: How do you explain the chasm between the idea of the UN as an international body that promotes peace, and the reality that it pushes left-wing ideologies on life and family?

MW: The UN was founded after the atrocities of World War II as a global mechanism (A), to prevent another world war and (B), to ensure that another Holocaust would never happen. These were noble and necessary goals that helped foster international cooperation and peacekeeping. However, since the 1960s, the UN has been increasingly co-opted by population control advocates who, under the guise of promoting human rights, and economic and social development, have steadily betrayed the organization’s founding principles.

PT: If countries can and regularly do ignore UN treaties, why should pro-lifers care what happens at Turtle Bay (UN headquarters in New York City) and its various agencies?

MW: Treaties ratified by a country are legally binding, though some nations do violate them. UN resolutions and recommendations, while technically non-binding, often evolve into “soft laws” shaping global norms, guiding national policies, exerting diplomatic pressure, and unlocking funding for UN agencies. For example, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was emboldened by pro-abortion outcomes from Turtle Bay and Geneva, and incorporated them into both domestic and foreign policy. So why should pro-lifers care—and be present—at the UN? Because when we ignore the UN, we surrender influence and cultural ground to those who oppose life and family, and the effects of it spread to our own backyard.

PT: It seems that the harm of the UN waxes and wanes depending partly on who is in the White House. Are there other, more certain and permanent changes that the UN could undergo to make it less hostile to life and family? What kind of reforms would make the United Nations less anti-life and anti-family?

MW: If we want to reform the United Nations, we need to follow the money. Without the United States mighty dollar, the United Nations would cease to exist. Trump’s defunding commitment was a massive wake-up call to the UN executive and its many agencies. Will they listen though? Apart from funding, the UN can return to moral neutrality by restoring sovereignty, removing ideological language from UN documents, and reinforcing its founding principles which see the family as the natural unit of society, and human life as worthy of protection before and after birth.

PT: Social conservatives often criticize the UN’s undermining of sovereignty by pushing woke ideologies under the umbrella of whatever cause the international body is highlighting — the environment, women’s issues, development, housing — but then social conservatives applaud when one of its branches highlights our issues. As an example, this year, two of our issues are euthanasia for people with disabilities and the exploitation of women through surrogacy. Is it more important for the UN to “stay in its lane” or promote pro-life and pro-family policies? What should pro-lifers want from the UN?

MW: Pro-lifers want the UN to return to its founding principles: a forum where member states collaborate to improve the quality of life for every human being and promote global peace. The UN’s greatest challenge, however, is the constant clash of worldviews among its members. It’s like a Thanksgiving dinner where people with vastly different political, cultural, and religious beliefs are forced to sit together and break bread. If that rarely works in a single family, how much harder is it among nearly 200 nations—and thousands of NGOs—all competing to be heard?