Youth Blog

New York City, NY

On Saturday September 16th, CLC Youth and Outreach Coordinators, Maeve Roche and Kim Headley, arrived at UN Headquarters to participate in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Action Weekend, ahead of the SDG Summit the following week. This two-day summit was purposed to “generate opportunities for stakeholders, UN entities, and Member States to convene inside the United Nations Headquarters and set out specific commitments and contributions to drive SDG transformation between now and 2030”, and served as an opportunity for Civil Society to engage in dialogue over the seemingly benevolent 17 Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, at its halfway point, prior to the arrival of world leaders and diplomats at the SDG Summit on Monday.

Each SDG desires to collectively achieve a specific end, through global cooperation and partnership with UN agencies, goals like ending poverty and achieving “no hunger” worldwide. Despite the seeming charitability of these goals, the initiatives towards achieving each goal contain hidden anti-life and anti-family motives. As an organization, we have a particular interest in SDG 5, tackling gender inequality, with a central target to “end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere”. The concerning problem lies in target 5.6, which seeks to “ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights [I.e abortion, contraceptives, sterilization etc.] as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the outcome documents of their review conferences.”

Even the more innocent targets, like SDG 3 “Good Health and Wellbeing”, includes hidden mention of SRHR, such as target 3.7 that plans to secure “universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes”. Each SDG is seemingly tainted by the blood of preborn children, be it through a direct goal target or through the partnered UN agency’s initiatives. Not to mention, our own Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a key player in the advancement of the abortion-muddied SDGs through his role as Co-Chair of the Sustainable Development Goals Advocates group. Additionally, our Canadian government is a key player in the dissemination of abortion in the Global South, with a recently announced project to commit $200 Million Canadian tax dollars towards funding abortion and other “SRHR” initiatives overseas. This funding is part of Trudeau’s plans Feminist International Assistance Policy which aims to spend $700 million annually up to 2030 on SRHR globally.

As our team was met with spoken word, flashy performances, by Yemi Alade, about peace and love, and a Taylor Swift medley ahead of the opening plenary, we began to see beyond the curtain of youthappeasement, to reveal something much more sinister. Through attending these rather pompous “celebrations” of parroted keywords, like “youth engagement”, “multilateralism” and “interconnectedness”, we noticed small sprinklings of anti-traditionalism, which is not unlike the UN. In an event on “Building the UN We Need”, co-organized by OXFAM and Kenya, one speaker, Oli Henman, Co-Chair of Major Groups and Other Stakeholders Coordination Mechanism & Global Coordinator of Action for Sustainable Development asserted, in reflection on the progressivism of the younger generation, that “we often think that younger people solely look to the future and that older people tend to look to older things, but we actually know many older people who are progressive. There are also very conservative young people who are going in the wrong direction.”

In the less flashy, closed-door, side events, the anti-traditional sentiments ran amuck. In an event on “Unlocking the Next Generation of Change-Makers", Plan International’s Kathleen Sherwin stressed that the “global rollback on rights has impacted the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education”, adding that “anti-rights movements are targeting schools and curriculums and are making schools less safe,” connecting pro-life legislation to opponents of CSE. The framing of pro-lifers as “anti-rights” actors is nothing new from the United Nations, but there is something disturbing about the reaction to such phrases from event attendees. Without missing a beat, rooms would erupt in presumptuous scoffs or outright maniacal laughter at the mention of us “anti-rights” actors and our work to restrict abortion. While championing the slogan of the SDGs, “no one left behind”, we can’t neglect to note the seeming ostracization of any youth who do not fall into their cookie-cutter progressivism. Despite their commitment to “uplifting youth voices”, we find our voice shut out, mocked and condescended.

But there is hope.

Despite the innumerable mentions of the need to secure full access to SRHR in order to achieve the full realization of the SDGs, there were also several mentions of the shortcomings. Maria Fernanda Espinosa, of GWL Voices, in the “Midpoint Moment Generation Equality” event stated that “no indicators of SDG 5 have been met due to regressive laws and backlash on women’s rights”. Another speaker at the same event, Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary General, echoed the same remark, stating that “regressive laws and policies that pushback against women’s rights exacerbates gender inequality and prevents the full achievement of SDGs.” Despite the UN’s attempts to achieve the objective of SDG 5.6, to ensure universal access to SRHR by 2030, we can’t help but sense the concern and exasperation emanating from feminist coalitions, like Generation Equality. Without a doubt, this continues to be one of the many fruits of the overturning of Roe V. Wade last year. Pro-lifers across the globe are holding the line, and governments, for the most part, are not caving into foreign pressure to liberalize abortion restrictions. In some cases, sovereign nations are coming together in defense of life and family, see the Geneva Consensus Declaration, and according to the abortion activists, all of these factors are causing a massive regression, or in the words of Justin Trudeau, a 'backsliding' on the achievement of SDG5. With only 7 years left to realize the SDGs worldwide, the panic has truly set in. So, we must ban together, and continue to push back against these attempts to enshrine abortion as a ubiquitous human right and take solace in the small victories. If this weekend taught me anything, it’s that the pro-abortion camp is doubling down on their efforts.

Let's revel in the regression of any abortion-related priorities which have highjacked the SDGs, and work to see an end to abortion.