On Wednesday I joined my friend Suzanne Tanzi, a
fellow traveler among friends in the lay ecclesial movement, Communion and Liberation, to an in-service billed as "Gendercide, Sex Trafficking and Violence Against Women" given in light of the Christian perspective as a way to give an alternate voice to the ideology of the United Nations Commission of the Status of Women. By the Way, Suzanne is also the editor of Traces magazine (you ought to subscribe!!!!).
The presentations were heavy and some of them need refining. The content was stimulating and possibly burdensome for the weak of heart. The truth of the violence against women around the world is devastating. I sat listening mourning the presence of evil actions in our society today. We are never very far from human frailty! On the train ride home last evening I stumbled upon a New York Post article about a Wednesday bust on drug use and mid-afternoon sex acts on a bench dedicated to Katharine Hepburn in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on East 47th Street, got me thinking. This presentation was being given at Holy Family Parish a few steps away from these heinous acts! You see, wanton sexual behavior and drug are not very far from us. The human dignity is at being trampled. But hope enlightened the heart
and mind where one would be tempted to despair. I walked way from the afternoon having been received salt and light, thanks in part, from meeting Reggie Littlejohn.
My interest in going to this afternoon was to meet Reggie Littlejohn and get a clearer understanding of China's promotion of the one child policy through infanticide, forced sterilization and forced abortion. It is estimated that nearly 300 million children have been aborted in China as a result of the one child policy. This is a human rights issue not merely to be dismissed by some as a just an abortion issue. Women's rights, is a human rights issue, it is fully and unconditionally a matter of pro-life. Neither indifference nor silence are Christian responses to such issues today. Sorry, get off the fence and do something!
Who is Reggie Littlejohn? Suzanne Tanzi tells us:
Reggie Littlejohn, President of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, a non-partisan, international coalition to oppose forced abortion and sexual slavery in China. As an expert on China's One Child Policy, she has addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, briefed the White House, and testified before Congress (the United States Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission). She has also met with officials in the U.S. Department of State, the British Parliament, and the Vatican. She has spoken at the Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, George Washington University, and The Heritage Foundation. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Littlejohn has represented Chinese refugees in their political asylum cases in the United States, and is the leading voice in the growing awareness of the forcible policies at work in upholding the One Child Policy in China.
More of Reggie Littlejohn's work can be seen here:
- Visit: Women's Rights without Frontiers;
- Watch Reggie Littlejohn's introduction on China's violence inflicted on women and girls;
- Read info on Reggie's film, "Pearls of China";
- Watch for Suzanne Tanzi's article in Traces on Reggie Littlejohn in the coming months.
My hope is that Reggie Littlejohn will come to speak at The Siena Forum for Faith and Culture (at St Catherine of Siena Church NYC) with others on China's forced abortion policy to expose the evil being inflicted on women and men today. There's also a hope that she'll address similar issues at the Crossroads Cultural Center.
This is such an important issue-we need to educate people about it. If we are not careful, the US will become like China-our freedoms are constantly under attack and once the right to life has been removed from the unborn and now, the handicapped, we are all in danger. I never understood why the "Fourth World Conference On Women" was allowed to take place in Beijing in 1995. How absurd and ironic!