‘Human Rights for All’…And Yet
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights brands itself as “the only Museum entirely devoted to human rights for all.”
For all… really?
I recently had the opportunity to visit it in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and find out for myself.
It reminded me a bit of my time at the headquarters of the United Nations, which I wrote about here; both institutions were intended to be beacons celebrating and upholding lofty ideals—human rights—and yet both have fallen short. In fact, both, to varying degrees, are complicit in the perpetration of human rights injustices today (abortion, most notably).
That is terrible, but also makes for a fascinating study.
I was struck by the contradicting ideas that exist within the same building, sharing the same floor, maybe even the same wall.
Were any of the students enjoying a fun field trip catching these contradictions? Have any of the employees, who see the same words day after day, ever considered their broader implications?
The permanent exhibit “What are Human Rights?” correctly claims, “Today the term ‘human rights’ generally refers to the rights and freedoms we have simply because we are human.”
And yet, the very same exhibit celebrates Gloria Steinem as a “reproductive rights activist.” (“Reproductive rights” is code for abortion.)
Relatedly, in a statement for International Human Rights Day last year, CEO of the museum Isha Khan acknowledged, “it might feel like we are moving in the wrong direction.” She cites violence against Indigenous women, girls, and “gender-diverse people;” Antisemitism and white supremacy; and climate change. She also pointedly remarks, “In the United States, reproductive rights are being rolled back.”
Throughout the museum, even printed on T-shirts, is the proclamation from Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
So, which is it? Are human rights our entitlement simply because we’re human (in which case, we’d possess them the moment we come into existence at fertilization) or are human rights only something we inherit upon birth, and up until that moment our destruction is not only permitted, but actually could be claimed as a right itself?
Another exhibit on “Examining the Holocaust” asks, “How could the Holocaust have happened?” In answer, it states, “Germany had many safeguards to protect human dignity and rights. Yet citizens endorsed the Nazi claim that some people were less than human. This gallery examines how such a systematic denial of humanity led to genocide.”
The museum also aptly explains, “We examine the Holocaust to learn to recognize genocide and try to prevent it.”
We are failing.
Look around! Look around!
I was literally standing in the Canadian Museum on Human Rights, which recognizes “the fragility of human rights,” and has a whole exhibit on “Protecting Rights in Canada.” And yet, it is blind to the genocide taking 100,000 preborn lives every year in Canada!
If Germany had safeguards protecting human dignity and rights, then how much more so does Canada “safeguard” rights?
In every province and territory, there is a human rights commission. We have a Bill of Rights, and a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada is currently bidding for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council for the 2028 to 2030 term. How many businesses, schools, and other institutions have specifically hired an officer for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or devoted a whole office to this goal?
And yet, are the preborn ever included? Are their rights ever protected? No.
All our “progress,” “safeguards,” and sophistication are useless if we cannot get the basics down first, if we cannot ensure fundamental principles, like the right to life of every human being.
We pretend we’ve evolved, but we are doing the same thing! Almost the exact same thing! We are claiming the preborn as less than human, and predictably, they're being killed across the country.
I also read this quotation from former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker: “I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong…”
But we’re not actually free!
Granted, Manitoba is one of the few provinces without bubble zones, but in my home province of Ontario, I cannot protest outside a private abortion facility without risking arrest.
I think of Mary Wagner, Linda Gibbons, and Fr. Tony Van Hee who are just a handful of many pro-life activists who have been arrested for their peaceful witness.
Not only is our country engaged in a grievous wrong, but governments are also persecuting those who seek to address it!
I am so grateful we have the language of human rights, this concept of human dignity, to ground our decision-making and provide a moral compass.
I cannot imagine where we’d be without it.
And yet! And yet! How lost we are despite it!
So close, and yet still so far, having unmoored human rights from their origin, from the God who created us equal, who bestows upon us our dignity, who makes truth apprehensible and moral relativism escapable.
The museum gives visitors the opportunity to “join the conversation” and to “share your thoughts about human rights.” In their “Inspiring Change” gallery, visitors write their comments and reflections on cards, which are displayed for other visitors to read.
I commented that claiming that “All human beings are born free and equal” enables the continuation of a human rights injustice against the pre-born, and more accurately, all human beings are conceived free and equal.
I wondered how long my card would remain in the gallery before someone spotted it and threw it in the trash.
I am frustrated, yes, but I return now to the CEO’s 2022 statement for International Human Rights Day.
She is off-base in her diagnosis of some of the challenges facing human rights these days, but her solution is correct.
At the end, she writes, “We can never stop our work to pursue a future where human rights are protected for everyone. We cannot allow cynicism, despair or apathy to write the next chapters in our story. If we do, that would be the real evidence we were moving in the wrong direction.”