Kiwi at the UN

Myself and Alisdair Morgan.

The following article is by Alisdair Morgan of New Zealand.

I had the pleasure of joining Peter Smith at the United Nations in New York on Friday. We set out in double-digit negative temperatures from Grand Central Station and I caught my first glimpse of the 39-story secretariat building from 43rd Street East.

Following the heavy security at the gate, we passed our first of many impressive UN art pieces - Georgian-Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli's 'Good Defeats Evil' - presented to the UN by the Soviet Union in 1990. The sculpture is a 39 foot high, 40 ton monumental bronze statue of St George fighting the 'dragon of nuclear war' - represented by scrapped US Pershing and Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles.

I assumed the sculpture would set the scene for the activity among the delegates at the meeting we were about to attend (the Third Committee approval of NGOs to obtain consultative status). The worlds nations putting their differences aside and working together to ensure that NGOs that were affiliated had a clear purpose that was not unethical and would make a valid contribution to activities at the UN.

The meeting took place in a large parliament-style room, with the delegates sitting at the front, the NGOs behind and a handful of translators to each side.

The meeting was off to a flying start with the first 'non-controversial' list of NGOs up for approval. Apart from the occasional question from China - who had clearly had a team of analysts go over the websites of each NGO to check for references to Tibet, Taiwan or Hong Kong - things went smoothly.

After a quick lunch looking down on a partially-frozen East River, a tour with Peter and a friend around some of the artworks at the UN (including the very impressive great wall tapestry in the delegates lounge), we were back to the afternoon section of proceedings.

We now moved on to the 'controversial list' of NGOs. Among them were the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre and the Collective of Families of Disappeared Persons in Algeria (CFDA). In both instances the delegates from the nations where these NGOs operate asked a barrage of questions to attempt to block a consensus. Many other nations spoke up in both cases, questioning whether the nations should be acting like this. It was promising to see a robust debate take place between the nations.

We then had a number of other organisations come up, some that had partaken in questionable activities and rightfully were not granted a consensus and the credibility that comes with gaining consultative status.

We then came to our final list of NGOs for the day, a subset of the 'controversial list', where a representative from the organisation was allowed to give a speech describing their organisation's activities and then answer questions from the floor.

First up was a representative from the Fertility Research Foundation - a clinic that has courted international controversy for advertising its embryo sex selective services (or `family balancing' program) in India Abroad Newspaper - a publication targeted towards Indian-Americans in the U.S.

The representative took to the podium with a long speech about the organisation's work to eliminate FGM (Female Genital Mutilation), something that rightfully gains near universal opposition from delegates. The representative from the Fertility Research Foundation was clearly trying to use up his time to avoid talking about IVF and the embryo sex-selective services offered by his organisation.

Following his speech, I was worried for a moment that no-one would question him, but after a long pause, the delegate from Pakistan questioned him directly on what the clinic did with spare embryos following IVF treatment and about the organisation's involvement with sex-selection.

Again the representative went on another rant about a totally different topic for a long while. The delegate then had to ask the question again.

This time the representative answered, assuring all the delegates that spare IVF embryos were given to other couples (really?) or donated to research on stem cell treatment (with it's obvious ethical issues) and that they didn't have to worry about his family balancing services - because they were actually there to ensure that the population was balanced and therefore neither gender was discriminated against (this coming from the organisation that targeted communities where some actively use these services to avoid the birth of females).

For good measure he added in that he had studied all the world religions and looked at the work he was doing, and he declared that the delegates had nothing to worry about, everything the organisation was doing was considered ethical by every single religion on earth.

Together with his first comments I thought this final blatant fabrication would be the end of his chances at obtaining approval. I expected someone would pipe up asking for his answers in writing and there would be no consensus.

But mysteriously, following a seemingly irrelevant question from the Israeli delegate, everyone went quiet. And the organisation was affiliated.

I was beyond belief. There were a number of countries present that actively disagree with research on embryos, and the rest should have been alarmed about an organisation that aids in the gendercide of females being given the credibility that comes with gaining consultative status. But no-one seemed to want to stick out from the crowd and object to the affiliation.

Following the meeting, as we left into the cold Manhattan evening and past the great 'Good Defeats Evil' statue of St George I pondered my first day here. Yes I had seen some robust debate on some issues, but when it came to something that was fundamentally unethical happening, no one seemed to want to stand up against it.

Whether it was due to commitments they had made to other countries backing this organisation, I don't know. But the importance of the place that I had felt as I entered the UN that morning had taken a hit.

Good had remained silent.

Alisdair Morgan is a Marketing and Communications consultant who has been involved with a number of pro-life projects in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom. These include New Zealand university-based pro-life organisation, ProLife NZ, and Down Syndrome advocates in relation to antenatal screening, Saving Downs.

Alisdair has recently completed the development of a new website, communications and social media framework for SPUC Scotland.