True freedom means being able to freely choose, speak, think and live without having to “follow the mainstream”, President Katalin Novák said on the 7th day of her visit to the United States. Novák said in a speech on Monday local time at Benedictine College in Kansas that the fulcrum of her own freely chosen conservative values involved protecting human life and supporting families. She said an individual is defined as a part of creation and is aware of his own limitations. Also, achieving individuality is not the ultimate aim; rather the individual lives as part of a community and should respect other members of the community, she added. Regarding the protection of human life, Novák emphasised the role of education “which teaches the beauty of human life and the point at which human life begins”. Thanks to government measures in Hungary, pregnant women considering an abortion must attend counselling twice to consider the decision, the president noted. Family benefits are available to pregnant women, and the government has made the adoption process easier, she added. Meanwhile, fully 6.2% of GDP is spent on family support, Novák said. Hungary’s constitution states that a marriage is defined as between a man and a woman, and that the mother is a woman and the father is a man, she noted. Referring to the Hungarian Child Protection Act, Novák said the law states that parents have the primary responsibility for raising their children, and acts as a bulwark against the dangers of “woke and LGBTQ” propagandists. “They don’t respect us,” she said. “They don’t respect our children.” Asked about a European Commission proposal to suspend EU funding, Novák referred to a recent speech given by Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, at Princeton University regarding the expected outcome at the time of the Italian elections and their consequences: von der Leyen said that Brussels had the means to deal with Italy just as it had done in Hungary and Poland’s case. Novák said the EC president’s response suggested that voters were “punished for electing leaders” that were not to others’ taste. “This looks to me totally undemocratic,” Novák said. The Hungarian president was handed an award by Stephen Minnis, the college’s head, named after Pope John Paul II. Novák’s US visit ends on Tuesday in Cleveland at an event for local Hungarians.