Pro-life Youth Organize to Counter Radical Groups at UN Conferences

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  Pro-abortion youth claiming to represent broad constituencies have invaded UN conferences in recent months. Hand-picked, funded and trained by adult NGOs and UN agencies, these young radicals mimic their elders by calling for the broadest possible definitions of sexual and reproductive rights.

     At the same time, conservative pro-life youth assert they are systematically excluded from the same UN meetings. Conservatives charge that, while the UN claims to be "listening to young people," they are in reality utilizing a select group of youth to advance their own agenda. Answering this challenge, an international group of pro-life youth have formed what they call the World Youth Alliance.

     "It is our intention to show UN delegates that radicals do not speak for very many young people at all," said co-founder Diana Kilarjian. "We realized after Cairo+5 that it was necessary to organize pro-life, pro-family youth more formally," she said.

     Youth participation in Cairo+5 preparatory meetings focused almost exclusively on the issue of sexual and reproductive rights. In Braga, Portugal in August 1998, in the Hague, the Netherlands in February, and in New York in March, the radical "Youth Coalition reduced us to our sexual faculties," said co-founder Anna Halpine. "Almost every mention of youth was connected to reproductive and sexual health and rights. Most youth of the world have much different and more important concerns." As pro-life youth emphasized at Cairo+5, "the development of the whole person includes the moral, spiritual, emotional and intellectual as well as the physical dimensions."

     Kilarjian charges that documents produced by youth at Cairo+5 closely mirrored the proposals and suggestions of the liberal Western nations. Some of the suggestions included avoiding references to parental rights and responsibilities in connection with adolescents, and inserting language which provides for "confidential, free, non-judgmental" access to "sexual and reproductive health services, including emergency contraception" for young people. At the special session of the General Assembly on Cairo+5, the radical youth urged the Holy See in a letter to "[value] sexuality in a positive way, open to all its possibilities and expressions."

     The founders of the World Youth Alliance found that, despite the Secretariat's promise of openness in the proceedings, only youth that supported the positions of the UNFPA were being recognized, even though youth with other views made concerted efforts to be heard. The founders of the World Youth Alliance decided to gather the great numbers of pro-life youth into one organization that intends to present their positions at upcoming UN conferences.

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