By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) is circulating a positive youth statement that will be presented to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in an attempt to dissuade them from endorsing a radical pro-abortion document that calls for the creation of policies that will treat children as totally autonomous from their parents.
According to C-Fam, the pro-life and pro-family International Youth Coalition released a document a few weeks ago at the World Conference on Youth in Mexico which is intended to counter a radical document recently drawn up by youth recruited by Planned Parenthood and the UN Population Fund.
This document calls upon governments to “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,” as well as unfettered access to a full range of contraceptives and “safe abortion.” Youth are to be given the right to freedom of assembly, expression, movement – all without parental interference.
By contrast, the “Statement of Youth of the UN and the World” celebrates the fact that all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore possess inherent human dignity. It affirms and agrees with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state.
The document also recognizes that parents “have the primary right, duty, and responsibility to educate us and should be assured of the proper assistance to provide for the moral, religious, intellectual, practical, and physical education of youth.”
While supporting the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, it calls for a proper understanding of sexuality and healthy relationships. “In learning about and encountering our natural sexuality, we must be instilled with a sense of responsibility and self-respect,” the document states. “The full and proper expression of sexuality can be realized only in the total life-long and selfless commitment rooted in the natural institution of marriage between a man and a woman.”
C-Fam has agreed to take on the task of circulating the positive youth statement for signatures, and presenting it to the UN General Assembly when they meet on this matter in the next few weeks.
“The General Assembly is going to be asked to endorse the radical youth document,” C-Fam writes. “That is why you must sign the positive document and then get all of your family and friends to sign it too. We will present the positive, pro-life and pro-family document to friendly delegations at UN headquarters in the next few weeks. But we need thousands of signatures to do it!”
Signatures are essential for convincing the UN to endorse more family-friendly policies.
As C-Fam states, “We must show the UN that positive pro-life and pro-family youth far outnumber radical pro-abortion youth.”
Click here to sign the document.
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