UN Considers Radical Proposal from Youth

The UN General Assembly is hearing some radical ideas this week, and not all of them are from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A youth-led NGO recruited and funded by International Planned Parenthood is asking the General Assembly to endorse the agenda they spelled out in a document presented last month at the World Conference on Youth in Mexico. Here’s a sample:

5. Fully recognize young people’s sexual and reproductive rights, particularly the right to choose, through achieving universal access to confidential, youth‐friendly sexual and reproductive health services, including access to evidence‐based comprehensive sexuality education, in formal and non‐formal settings. Implement key effective interventions in the continuum of care for maternal health, including access to a full range of contraceptives and safe abortion.

The International Youth Coalition released a counter-document raising the bar in its vision for a more humane and just future for the next generation. This pro-life, pro-family plan is being presented to friendly delegations at UN headquarters in these turbulent times. Here’s how it opens:

We — young people from all over the world — celebrate the fact that, as human beings, we are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore we possess inherent human dignity. We believe that the age of youth is the “sculptress that shapes the whole of life” and as such this is perhaps the most critical period in the development of the human person. Because we are the future of the human family, we strive for the common good and for a positive renewal of society. We seek the continued healthy flourishing of the human family. We hereby adopt the following principles that are of fundamental importance to young people and to the entire human family.

They’re urgently asking youth and young adults to sign on to those principles and add their voices to this declaration as it gets handed over to UN delegations. People over the age of 30 can sign and support it here.

We urge UN Member States and all governments of the world to listen to the authentic voice of young people as expressed in this important document.

It’s an exceptional statement. It needs and deserves worldwide attention and support.

(From here.)