PRO-LIFE YOUTH SHINE AT "BEIJING+FIVE"

By Jeanne E. Head, R.N.

In 1994 a coalition of pro-life and pro-family forces pulled off an amazing upset when it derailed the determined effort by the Clinton-Gore Administration and its pro-abortion allies to make abortion on demand a fundamental human right worldwide at the Cairo Conference on Population and Development.

Since that time, the Clinton-Gore Administration and its pro-abortion cohorts, including its Western allies, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), International Planned Parenthood (IPPF), and radical pro-abortion women's groups, have persisted in their drive to advance this deadly agenda.

They have been using subsequent major UN conferences, the every-five-year reviews of these conference documents, and other UN meetings in their continuing effort to achieve this end.

Although the major UN conference documents produced at Cairo and Beijing (to name just two) in themselves are non-binding, they are being used as a tool to attempt to create new "human rights" such as the "right" to abortion. They are part of an ongoing attempt to create binding "customary law" through repetition of certain language in successive documents even though the documents containing the language are non-binding. In addition, radical activists are coordinating an effort to "reinterpret" binding human rights treaties along lines allegedly suggested by these documents.

However, the pro-life/pro-family stalwarts, while mostly volunteers who often pay their own expenses, have been able to keep the abortion proponents off the track most of the time. The group has grown in number and sophistication and has even published a daily newspaper during Cairo+5 and Beijing+5. The pro-lifers have been opposed not only by powerful Western governments but also by a large band of increasingly vicious and vehement non-governmental (NGO) pro-abortion opponents.

For far too long, well-funded non-governmental pro-abortion groups, such as the IPPF, radical women's groups, and UN agencies such as the UNFPA, have massively outnumbered and out-funded the pro-life and pro-family groups at these meetings. But this year it was different during the March preparatory meetings for Beijing+5, which is scheduled for June.

"Beijing+5" is short for the special session of the UN General Assembly called for the five-year review of the implementation of the (flawed) Beijing Platform for Action, which resulted from the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women. Close to 350 pro-life/pro-family NGO delegates participated in the March meetings over a two-week period.

Although the pro-life forces still didn't come close to matching in number the pro-abortion opposition, they were obviously numerous enough to be perceived as a threat to the pro-abortion opposition, who became so rattled that they went on the attack with outrageous untruths and intimidation.

But such tactics could neither undermine the truth nor negate the extraordinary impact of the pro-life/pro-family forces, particularly the newly formed World Youth Alliance (WYA). Pro-abortionists became incensed when they actually encountered people with points of view opposed to theirs. They retaliated by calling in security, trying to limit access to delegates as much as possible, and by spreading falsehoods.

During last year's review of the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development ("Cairo+5"), it became blatantly apparent that the UNFPA and its pro-abortion partners had recruited a carefully selected and controlled group of youth for their "Youth Caucus." They maintained that this group represented "all" the youth in the world and they were callously using them to advance their agenda.

The Cairo+5 review meetings were swamped by these pro-abortion teens and twenty-somethings who were obviously acting as pawns for the UNFPA, IPPF, and extreme pro-abortion feminist groups.

Supported by radical declarations (drafted by adults) from this so-called "Youth Caucus," our opponents claimed that a majority of the world's young people (ages 10 to 24) demanded free and unrestricted access to abortion and an array of "sexual rights" without parental knowledge or involvement.

The pro-life youth at the 1999 conference were totally muzzled during the Cairo review process. Free consideration of other points of view was stifled.

To counter this, the youth of the pro-life/pro-family coalition founded the WYA, headquartered in New York City. In one year's time, the WYA, led by its founding President Anna Halpine from Canada, has worked wonders.

In sharp contrast to Cairo+5, the pro-life youth at Beijing+5 meetings had an extraordinary impact. Last year the pro-life youth were blocked at every turn and were denied any opportunity to speak. This year the pro-life World Youth Alliance turned the tables on the abortion establishment and succeeded in neutralizing the pro-abortion "Youth Caucus."

Over the two-week-long Beijing+5 meetings, the WYA drew about 150 youth participants from over 20 countries (including eight European countries) around the world, representing six continents. Pro-life youth outnumbered all other groups in the "Youth Caucus." Their voting power defeated pro-abortion resolutions in the "Youth Caucus" and turned the attention of the caucus toward the true obstacles to women's well-being, such as lack of clean water, good health care, housing, and education.

Thanks to pro-life efforts, the radicals at the UN can no longer take young people's support for granted. The WYA put the abortion-pushers in their place. Many UN delegates from developing countries, who know that abortion can only hurt their people, were delighted to meet the pro-life youth.

The March Beijing+5 meetings were only one skirmish in an ongoing series of UN meetings that began in February. These include preparatory meetings for the June special session of the General Assembly for the five-year review of the Copenhagen World Summit for Social Development (Copenhagen+5) and the preparatory meetings for the purpose of outlining "Rules of Procedure" and defining the "Elements of Crimes" (including the crime of so-called "forced pregnancy") for the International Criminal Court, established in 1998.

All of these meetings involve battles to prevent the establishment of abortion as an international "fundamental human right" worldwide, thus bypassing national sovereignty. The process of undermining sovereignty has already begun under certain UN treaties, however.

For example, the committees administering two binding human rights treaties - the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - have been instructing numerous countries to "review" their abortion laws.

We have won a few battles at the UN, but the fight against the "culture of death" is far from over. Since the issues of most serious concern to the pro-life and pro-family forces are still pending, this year's battles won't be over until all the meetings are finished at the end of June.

The Western world, led by the pro-abortion Clinton Administration, is determined to continue its drive to make abortion on demand a fundamental human "right" worldwide, thus bypassing the sovereignty of close to 100 nations that provide varying degrees of protection for unborn children.

It is important to note that all the major UN conferences and meetings being used to attempt to advance the agenda of abortion on demand as a new human right and undermining parental rights have occurred under the Clinton-Gore watch. The outcome of these conferences would have been far different if they had occurred under a pro-life administration.

It was under the Reagan-Bush Administration that the 1984 Conference on Population produced the pro-life language that states, "In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning." Thanks to pro-life efforts, this vital pro-life language has survived all these conferences.

All of the UN documents resulting from the UN conferences and treaties would be very different had we been able to control the agenda as the pro-abortionists have been able to do in the last eight years. We have been "holding the line" on basically flawed documents and have only been able to stave off some of the worst proposals. It is my hope and prayer that we can continue to do so until we have a pro-life administration.

Jeanne E. Head, R.N., is National Right to Life's representative at the UN, a member of the NRLC Executive Committee, serves as the United Nations Representative for the International Right to Life Federation, and represents New York State Right to Life on the NRLCBoard of Directors.