help promote the abstinence-only curriculum. Focus claims  to  have  reached  1  million  teens  worldwide with  “No  Apologies.”¹⁰  Collectively,  conservative anti-abortion groups bring such international expe- rience to their work at the UN. Christian Right, Old Right and the UN S ome of the anti-choice NGOs that are gravitating to the UN have been influenced in their views on that  international  body  by  the  Old  Right,  which looks   on   the   UN   as   a   dangerous   “One   World Government.”¹¹ According to these critics, the UN is a  global  government  that  threatens  America’s  free- doms and its very sovereignty, requiring the United States to participate in, and pay for, programs that they see its people do not support. Despite  the  fact  that  the  United  States  wields great power at the UN through a variety of mecha- nisms, critics such as Jesse Helms, Phyllis Schlafly, and John Ashcroft continue to claim the UN weak- ens American power abroad. For instance, in 1997 Schlafly’s  Eagle  Forum  produced  a  video,  “Global Governance,   the   Quiet   War   Against   American Independence,”  which  takes  aim  at  UN  treaties, conferences  and  resolutions.  Using  the  1989  UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as an exam- ple, Schlafly claims, “[T]hese treaties involve setting up a new global bureaucracy that would have some kind of obnoxious control over American citizens.”   Christian Right popular culture can sometimes mirror  anti-UN  sentiment.  For  example,  the  Anti- Christ in Christian conservative Tim LaHaye’s best- selling  Left  Behind   series  of  novels  is  a  former Secretary General of the UN. Despite  their  skepticism  about  the  UN  as  an institution, over the past five years socially conser- vative groups at the UN have grown in number. This flocking to the UN appears to be, in part, a response to  the  influence  and  achievements  of  progressive women’s    groups    with    official    NGO    status. Conservative  NGOs  are  increasingly  engaging  in more aggressive and disruptive diplomacy by secur- ing   spots   on   official   delegations   or   as   “special guests,” with delegations from the United States and some  Latin  American  countries.  These  guests  even conduct  their  own  wildcard  diplomacy,  as  Rep. Smith has demonstrated. Their engagement with the United Nations does not signal a newfound respect for   that   body   among   Christian   Right   groups. Rather, conservative NGOs have made the pragmat- ic  decision  to  take  the  fight  against  reproductive freedom into the den of their perceived enemy. A Trojan Horse in the Global Battle against Reproductive Freedom B y signing on as NGOs, U.S. anti-abortion groups purport  to  offer  up  their  expertise  to  the  UN. However, many of the conservative NGOs identified in this report hold critical, even disdainful, opinions of UN programs and of the institution itself. Steven Mosher, president of the HLI-supported Population Research Institute, has called the UN-ini- tiated  Global  Fund  for  AIDS  “the  global  fund  for abortion,  prostitution  and  the  homosexual  agen- da.”¹² Susan Roylance, a founder of United Families International, explains that it is the dangerous threat of the UN, and not its legitimacy as an international body, that compels the Christian Right’s engagement: I  do  not  believe  family  policies  should  be formulated in the international arena….We must become involved to protect our fami- lies  from  those  who  would  “re-engineer” the social structures of the world.¹³ Although her organization works at the UN, a spokesperson for the Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America rides the wave of recent  criticism  of  the  UN’s  inefficiencies  when she says: Sincere women of faith within the mainline churches are being duped into thinking that by  endorsing  the  UN  they  are  helping  the UNd o i n g   R e p r o d u c t i v e   Fr e e d o m  ^•Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES   2006 4 ¹⁰James Dobson, “Good News Regarding Families Around the World,” http://www.family.org/docstudy/newsletters/a0037280.cfm. ¹¹The last heyday of the Old Right peaked during the Cold War, with the growth of isolationist organizations like the anti-Communist John Birch Society. ¹²Steven Mosher, “Weekly Briefing,” February 21, 2003, http://www.pop.org/main.cfm?EID=444. ¹³Susan Roylance, Pro-Family Negotiating Guide, (Gilbert, Ariz: United Families International, 2001) v.