Family · Nationwide · August 26, 2026
Opinion Piece Argues UN, Treaty Law Should Override US Abortion Bans
What Alinsky tactic is being used
3 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 1
“Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”
The whole force of the piece is borrowed authority: a consensus Human Rights Council resolution about women in humanitarian and armed-conflict settings is presented as if it governed the domestic abortion law of thirteen states, and Human Rights Committee "Views" in KL v. Peru, Mellet and Whelan are cited as though they were judgments. The author himself concedes in the last move that no international court can compel repeal because the treaty is non-self-executing — the power described is larger than the power that exists.
Counter-Rule 1 · Reality Over Perception
Count the actual numbers. The phantom army depends on nobody checking whether it exists.
Count what is actually there before you concede anything. Pull the resolution's own title and text from the OHCHR session-62 page and note that it addresses humanitarian situations; pull CCPR/C/USA/CO/5 and note that concluding observations are recommendations, not orders; note that Committee Views bind no US court. Then say exactly that in one sentence at your school board or statehouse meeting, and refuse to argue as though a UN vote had changed a state statute.
Rule 3
“Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
The argument is deliberately fought on ground almost no pastor, elder or state legislator knows: treaty reservations and declarations, Human Rights Committee jurisprudence, UN document symbols, reporting cycles with a November 2026 deadline. A reader who has never heard of the ICCPR's non-self-executing declaration has no way to test the claim and will either capitulate or bluster.
Counter-Rule 3 · Preparation and Width
Prepare the unfamiliar ground before you are dragged onto it. "I don't know, I'll find out and come back" beats an improvised answer.
Do the reading this month rather than improvising later. Read the Constitution Annotated essay on self-executing treaties, the actual US reservations and declarations from 1992, and the resolution text itself; write down the three sentences you can defend. When asked something you have not read — the content of a particular paragraph, say — answer "I don't know, I'll find out and come back," and then actually come back.
Rule 11
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.”
The relabeling does the work: abortion restriction becomes "reproductive violence," a term the resolution places alongside forced sterilization and acts committed with intent to destroy a group, and one Georgia case is carried as proof of a national pattern. Pushed far enough, a state law becomes an atrocity by vocabulary alone.
Counter-Rule 11 · Proportional Truth
Refuse to overclaim, even where it would help. One exaggeration hands the other side the only weapon that works permanently.
Do not answer overclaim with overclaim. Concede plainly what is true — the resolution was adopted by consensus on 7 July 2026 and does use that phrase — and then state the limit precisely, without saying the UN "has no authority" or that the ICCPR imposes nothing, because it does bind the United States internationally. If someone in your church circulates a claim you cannot source, correct it before an opponent does.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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