Posted on: Sunday, May 12, 2002

EDITORIAL
Traditional values agenda was misplaced

Grownups often pay lip service to doing what's "best for the children" while really pushing their own agendas.

Well, on the issue of reproductive health at the United Nations Special Session of Children conference, that's how delegates for the United States, the Vatican and some Islamic nations behaved.

Consider the context for this vital summit: Tens of millions of children around the world are poor, orphaned, diseased, malnourished, uneducated and sexually exploited. Ideally, the summit examines those problems, with the final conference document charting a realistic course to improve the lot of children over the next 15 years.

Unfortunately, a U.S.-led bloc used the conference to push their agenda against abortion and birth control. They vehemently opposed the phrase "reproductive health services" on grounds that it could be interpreted as advocating abortion. They also pushed the Bush administration's agenda promoting sexual abstinence before marriage.

Now, the AIDS epidemic has struck tens of millions of children around the world. For many of them, just saying "no" to sex wouldn't make a difference.

Some were born with the HIV virus, others were raped or infected while they were prostitutes. Abstinence is not an option for them. What they need is life-saving sex education and condoms, and protection from sexual exploitation, not dogma.

Aside from being divisive and wasting time, the tough traditional values agenda pushed at the summit is ultimately irrelevant because language calling for sexual and reproductive health services has previously been affirmed and reaffirmed at U.N. conferences.

Cathryn Faulkner of the London-based International Planned Parenthood Federation complained that, on the issue of reproductive health, the "United States is out of step with the world." Judging by their demands at the U.N. conference, we're inclined to agree.