Lisbon Ministerial Declaration Expected To Promote Family Planning For Minors

By Austin Ruse

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) The government of Portugal convenes a five-day conference beginning August 4th in Lisbon for more than 100 top level governmental ministers responsible for youth. This world conference intends to further advance the ideas expressed in the "World Plan of Action for Youth to the Year 2,000 and Beyond" first issued by the UN General Assembly in 1995. 

     Besides advancing the 1995 Plan of Action, the Conference is also expected to issue a "Lisbon Declaration on Youth" which will address a variety of topics, including national youth policy, development, peace, education, employment and health. If the occasionally tense final preparatory meetings which took place a few weeks ago are any indication, the final meeting in Lisbon could prove to be a raucous affair. At these sessions at UN headquarters in New York City a number of controversies arose. 

     As is frequently the case in UN settings, the center of the controversy is the definition of the family. The more liberal industrialized states seem eager to advance the most broad definition of the family. It is the long-time wish of some of these states to define practically any grouping of individuals as a family, including homosexual couplings. To this end they frequently insist upon changing mentions of "the family" to "families," which would allow the broadest possible understanding. One diplomatic participant said the Scandinavian countries and Canada, who usually lead the charge for these definitional changes, backed off for the time being and allowed the use the term "family unit." 

     Even more controversial is the question of health. In many UN documents the more liberal states tend to promote the most advanced notions of family-planning, including chemical and surgical abortion. Since the official UN definition of youth includes those as young as 15, this effort in the Lisbon document exponentially increases the controversy. In fact, the declaration to be debated in Lisbon states clearly that, for young people, states should ensure "access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable legal methods of family planning of their choice." The official UN definition of family-planning includes abortion. 

     At the final preparatory meeting several national delegations attempted to get this passage "bracketed," which would emphasize that it is not acceptable as currently worded. Here these states ran into the wishes of the meeting chairman, who at first refused to recognize them, and then refused to bracket the family planning language. It is customary in UN fora, to bracket language that is deemed unacceptable by national delegations. 

     One of the problems now facing national delegations, who have been negotiating the document for many months, is that the Lisbon meeting will include representatives from national capitols who have not been negotiating all along. A national delegate who is on his way to the Lisbon conference said earlier this week that right now "everything in the document is up for grabs."

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