Within the feminist movement worldwide, issues concerning Motherhood are the forgotten piece. This means that those promoting women's rights are not taking into consideration one of the most fundamental right for a woman, which is the right to give birth. This denies the most fundamental anthropological reality aimed to ensure the future of generations and the survival of civilisations.

1. First of all, some ideas on Motherhood:
Presenting God's reactions as maternal feelings, the Judaic Tradition has transmitted one of its deepest and most beautiful intuitions on God's heart: This was very well spotlighted by the Pope in Mulieris Dignitatem:
" In the Psalms God is compared to a caring mother: "Like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the Lord" (Ps 131:2-3). In various passages the love of God who cares for his people is shown to be like that of a mother: thus, like a mother God "has carried" humanity, and in particular, his Chosen People, within his own womb; he has given birth to it in travail, has nourished and comforted it (cf. Is 42:14; 46:3-4). In many passages God's love is presented as the "masculine" love of the bridegroom and father (cf. Hos 11:1-4; Jer 3:4-19), but also sometimes as the "feminine" love of a mother." (Mulieris Dignitatem par. 8)

And the Pope goes on:
"Motherhood involves a special communion with the mystery of life, as it develops in the woman's womb. The mother is filled with wonder at this mystery of life, and "understands" with unique intuition what is happening inside her. In the light of the "beginning," the mother accepts and loves as a person the child she is carrying in her womb. This unique contact with the new human being developing within her gives rise to an attitude towards human beings--not only towards her own child, but every human being--which profoundly marks the woman's personality. It is commonly thought that women are more capable than men of paying attention to another person, and that motherhood develops this predisposition even more. The man--even with all his sharing in parenthood--always remains "outside" the process of pregnancy and the baby's birth; in many ways he has to learn his own "fatherhood" from the mother. One can say that this is part of the normal human dimension of parenthood, including the stages that follow the birth of the baby, especially the initial period. The child's upbringing, taken as a whole, should include the contribution of both parents: the maternal and paternal contribution. In any event, the mother's contribution is decisive in laying the foundation for a new human personality." (Mulieris Dignitatem 18)

But another vision of Motherhood leads us to the heart of our problem: in her book "Woman And The New Race", Margaret Sanger, one of the greatest leader of the Birth Control Movement considers "woman's error and her debt" as follows:
"The most far-reaching social development of modern times is the revolt of woman against sex servitude. The most important force in the remaking of the world is a free motherhood. Beside this force, the elaborate international programmes of modern statesmen are weak and superficial.(...)Millions of women are asserting their right to voluntary motherhood. They are determined to decide for themselves whether they shall become mothers, under what conditions and when. This is the fundamental revolt referred to. It is for woman the key to the temple of liberty." (Woman and The New Race, Chapter one).

We are facing here the eternal tragedy related in Genesis III: (2-5)
"He (the serpent) said to the woman, "Did God really say, `You must not eat from any tree in the garden'? (...) You will not surely die: for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Women are promised to become goddesses if they stop trusting God. They are depicted as oppressed by the Creator and they must be freed from this oppression. Knowledge is presented as the fundamental key to reach Freedom. Knowing good and bad will lead women to choose. Making a choice will lead them to freedom, and to the "temple of liberty". According to the serpent, this is the clever choice and women will show how intelligent they are if they behave this way. Therefore, who would choose to remain dependant and even perhaps to look silly?

Who will say "I choose not to enter into this dialectic, I will remain open, and even weak in order to receive what I need from God, and I trust that this will lead me to happiness"? This behaviour is the greatest challenge for women today, and mothers in particular. We will look at it in our second part.

Since then, false ideas on women and men's freedom are widely promoted worldwide, ensuring that other frightening hidden agendas take place.

For instance, in developed countries, media may depict motherhood as a burden unless it helps to sell a new washing machine, or baby food. But this image of the "free woman" actually hides a lonely hard-worker fighting to fulfil a man's agenda during working hours and female's duties in the evening.... struggling to remain a good professional on the labour market, and eventually trying to become a Mother at the same time.

In a "Less Developed Country" (LDC), being a Mother leads to disaster, according to policy-makers. For example, the Paris Declaration for the Least Developed Countries for the 1990s stated:
" It is argued that there is a synergy between population growth and the accentuation of poverty in the LDCs. Despite the merits and demerits of this argument, the high rate of population growth is a development-retarding factor in resource-poor countries, such as the African LDCs. (...) Family planning programmes are being introduced in many countries with a view to reducing fertility and population growth."

This on going language is totally contradictory and unacceptable:
- Economic experts all agree that a young population is a positive forecast regarding a country's growth national product. Population growth as such is not a "development-retarding factor in resource-poor countries": it is the lack of basic needs and the lack of education, which induce misery. And one should ask what is meant by "resource-poor" in a country where a lot of young people live...
- According to UN demographic experts, if world population is around 6.1 billion persons, population will level off between 7 and 8 billion, and then will decline rapidly with a growing ageing population. Unless birth rates increase dramatically, world population will not double again in the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, women in the third world are currently forced to accept draconian birth control measures against their will, and often without their knowledge. Some are sterilised or have their babies aborted while undergoing what they believe to be a routine examination. Young girls are given RU-486 without their or their parents' knowledge or consent. Women are prescribed contraceptives or given Depo-Provera without any underlying health screening - many have suffered ill effects or died from complications. Some women have even been fitted with questionable devices no longer widely used in the United States like the IUD and the Norplant.

Moreover, according to the "National Security Study Memorandum 200", a report written by Henry Kissinger in 1974, aimed to study the implications of World-wide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests:
"While the agencies participating in this study have no specific recommendations to propose on abortion, the following issues are believed important and should be considered in the context of a global population strategy...Certain facts about abortion need to be appreciated:
" -- No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion". [Page 182]
" -- Indeed, abortion, legal and illegal, now has become the most widespread fertility control method in use in the world today." [Page 183]
" -- It would be unwise to restrict abortion research for the following reasons: 1) The persistent and ubiquitous nature of abortion. 2) Widespread lack of safe abortion techniques..." [Page 185]

Within 25 years, this policy has been widespread and implemented throughout the world, thanks to a new form of legal language widely included in United Nations and other Inter- Governmental Organisation's documents, which never mentions abortion. For instance, the UN terminology calls it "reproductive health", which includes the term "fertility regulation", which includes the term "interrupting unwanted pregnancy", which means abortion. Abortion is also called "emergency contraception", which means all methods used after intercourse, therefore possibly after fertilisation, therefore aimed to provoke an abortion.... This strategy has misled thousand of UN delegates during the last decade, who did not understand what they were speaking about....

According to the Friday Fax, for the first time, last week, this may have reached to an end: at the World Summit for Children Preparatory Committee which took place in New York, "following a request by the United States to explain the seemingly innocuous word "services" in relation to "reproductive health care," the Canadian responded, "Of course it includes, and I hate to say the word, but it includes abortion.". The Holy See immediately responded: "I am shocked. I can't believe that I heard what I just heard. The Holy See cannot accept this language." The Chilean delegate, speaking for the Rio Group of Latin American nations, said, "Never before have we heard that services include abortion." (...) Pro-abortion delegations have always falsely insisted that it does not" (Friday Fax, June 15th, 2001).

During the process for the UN World Summit for Children, officials consider "problematic" that youth groups are demanding specific protection for the foetus and recognition that the "foetus is a basic phase of childhood", and that these young people are asking to focus the discussion on issues relating to the family, parental rights, and chastity. Some EU officials at the UN fear what they call the "Right-wing governments and groups who are also attempting to insert language that would strengthen parental authority and control to the detriment of established children's rights".

2. Alongside with this change of language and ideas concerning motherhood, influences on behaviour have been widespread: more precisely there is obviously a severe devaluation of those whose natural role is to develop attitudes and behaviours of young people: parents, educators, priests and nuns.
God is determined to invite women and men to a full participation in His Creation, providing them the capacity to understand His deep love for each of his creatures, and consequently the capacity to decide what is the best for them. For example, God is the greater promoter of the real "free motherhood", providing to men and women the knowledge of natural family planning. This is the real empowerment of a husband and his wife who may even become co-creators with God when love, deeply shared, lead them to choose to conceive a child !.

Nevertheless, in developed countries, "new models" tend to depict the family as a source of oppression, parental education as a threat for socialisation, mother's dedication to children as a deviation for the individual's development.
The current debate on the protection of children in preparation of the September 2001 World Summit for Children is a privileged scene in order to see the picture.

A recent meeting in the EU co-organised with UNICEF took place on 29 May 2001, in Brussels. It was supposed to draw out the general EU guidelines aimed to promote a "world fit for children". Surprisingly, UNICEF's draft proposal never mentioned the parents, the mother or the family, as first responsible agent for 'the protection of children"...This was radically challenged by EU Members of the European Parliament who promote EU profamily agenda, and created a lot of trouble among UNICEF delegates...This is not an accident: in the UN Carol Bellamy, the UNICEF Director, mentions the "care givers" instead of the parents or the legal guardians, and the "community" instead of the "family"....

Alongside with the feminist movement, The homosexual lobby is also very powerful to fight against the family and parent's "oppression" of their children... Media, through fashion or perfume advertisement, movies, magazines, and so on, are the best tool for the transmission of these new values promoting the "gender-related" agenda, which attempts to redefine "the family" to include homosexual couples, and redefine gender from "male and female" to a "social construct" that could be changed at will…At the UN, this serious issue has lead a Minister for family affairs to resign under european pressure, and several developing countries are accepting to change their definition of the family in order to receive grants from "donor countries", foundations, and UN agencies. The "sexual orientation" ideology is a similar terminology aiming to reach the same goal. This term has been included in the EU Amsterdam Treaty, article 13, and is therefore part of the "acquis communautaire", the negotiating tool for applicant countries which want to join the EU.

In developing countries, recent data show that economic aid is intrinsically linked with population programmes: for instance, in Bangladesh, an ever-growing number of both governmental and nongovernmental organisations (the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee and the Bangladesh Rural Development Board) have begun programs in the quest towards sustainable fertility rates:
"Family planning is actively and routinely promoted in group meetings, loan workshops, and training sessions which are financed by the agencies. A group of women constituting a loan group are neighbours from the same village, and are likely to be aware of each other's fertility and fertility decisions. There is great pressure from within the group to have a high loan recovery rate, to avoid the penalty of disqualification from loan entitlement or expulsion from the group in the event of non-compliance with group objectives. (...) Establishing a way to draw poor women out of their traditional female confinement within the households and providing opportunities for female income-generating activities, has lead to increased contraceptive use and desire for decreased family size. (...) The possibility that additional children by a member will reduce a members ability to repay loans, for which the group is jointly liable, may reinforce the group influence on fertility regulation."

3. After the change in language and ideas, attitudes and behaviour, the last step is the modification of legal instruments:
First of all, regarding fundamental legal principles, and customary law in particular, Professor Richard Wilkins insists:
" While the exact mechanisms are subject to some debate, most modern scholars have concluded that customary law is developed by the mere repetition of legal principles over time. The broad, binding effect of customary international law, coupled with the reality that such law can be created by the simple repetition of language at various UN meetings, makes the repetition of legally questionable language in international documents exceptionally dangerous. It is absolutely critical that troublesome language from UN document be opposed at every possible opportunity, exactly as one might oppose the voting of a resolution or motion by a learned society in the hope of blocking or delaying some development one wished to avert. "

Regarding Human Rights in general, Professor Wilkins emphazises:
"Many "human rights" issues are, fundamentally, political questions that should be answered by the political processes within each country. The often-difficult debates surrounding many newly established and/or emerging "human rights" (such as family rights, abortion and same-sex marriage) should not be resolved by giving an international court the power to declare that its ideological opponents are "criminals."

At the international level: among others, the most dangerous legal tool is definitely the International Criminal Court and Professor Wilkins warns us:
" In Rome, The Women's Caucus for Gender Justice boldly attempted to use the ICC's judicial machinery to create a world-wide right to abortion. It did so by inserting the previously unknown crime of "forced pregnancy" into the Statute . The premise of this crime was straightforward: if a woman became pregnant and was unable to terminate the pregnancy because national law prohibited or regulated access to abortion, the woman would be unlawfully "forced" to be pregnant Because of its novelty and obviously far reaching impact, the issue of "forced" pregnancy became one of the most contentious at the entire Rome conference. And, although the caucus' effort, to obtain global abortion on demand ultimately failed".

Conclusions:
In developing countries, mothers are threatened in their capacity to give birth by new means which violate their fundamental dignity: forced "preventive" sterilisation, abortions for various reasons (sex selection, organs harvesting, etc.), and the international aid is almost always linked with a population control programme. This is totally contrary to the role of the family in countries were children represent the only "social security" for the elderly.

In developed countries, demographic threats challenge our politicians: facing the dramatic ageing of our societies, on one hand, they advocate women's involvement in the labour force. On the other hand they need to promote more labour flexibility to ensure that they will be able to give birth and to raise their children: it is clear that women who are mothers-to-be may offer the only solution to counter-balance the demographic deficit.

Nevertheless, at the UN, the Council of Europe or the European Union, the word "Mother" will never be included into an official legal text. Feminists will accept the term "Women with children" but nothing more. The Pope himself clearly expressed his concern that the new EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is presented as a draft preamble for a possible European Constitution, "denies God and the Family".

All these threats are also a major challenge for those who have received the blessing of understanding that another alternative is offered to women and to men who are seeking happiness. But this request a lot of courage and trust.

"It is universally admitted--even by people with a critical attitude towards the Christian message--that in the eyes of his contemporaries Christ became a promoter of women's true dignity and of the vocation corresponding to this dignity. At times this caused wonder, surprise, often to the point of scandal: there is the public sinner who, in spite of her condemnation by common opinion, enters into the house of the Pharisee to anoint the feet of Jesus with perfumed oil. The Pharisee "said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner'" (Lk 7:39).To his host, who is scandalised by this, he will say: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much" (cf. Lk 7:37-47). (Mulieris Dignitatem 13)

May this attitude be the fundamental one: turning our eyes towards Jesus' eyes and giving him our weakness and our desires. We can trust that he will not oppress us, but he will free us and fill our heart and our lives with his precious gifts in order to offer us the light and the strength to respond to our supreme destiny. Thank You.