On August 8, the one year anniversary of Argentina’s vote to shut down abortion legalization, the growing “For the Two Lives” movement is planning a massive party across South America, Latin America, and the world. Wielding the blue kerchief as a symbol, millions of people are planning to rally across the continent (you can sign up or get more information in both English and Spanish here):
I spoke to several pro-life leaders spearheading the initiative earlier this summer:
What is the Youth Declaration of Organization of American States?
The participation of young people has notably increased in the discussion of issues inherent to them such as human dignity and human rights, as has their appreciation for the institutions and values of democracy, security, and economic security.
What is the intended goal of this new initiative?
Young people want full development in the hemisphere and full respect for our freedoms and democratic institutions.
How did this new initiative come about, and who is involved?
At the beginning of April, 2019 in Bogota, Colombia, in the framework of the Youth Program of the Political Network for Values, organized by Human Solidarity International, various young people from the Americas got together and had the idea to work together for the promotion of values and principles that we consider important for a better future.
What do you believe this new initiative will achieve?
We know that our world is facing grave social, political, economic, and environmental problems that require participation and commitment from everyone. Therefore we reached out to more young people in different parts of the region and the world, and had preliminary conversations and exchanged ideas. Finally, we decided to all draft this Youth Declaration as a response to our growing concern for issues like poverty, inequality, security, the state of law, and, above all, human rights and human dignity. People from more than 20 countries on every continent participated.
What do you want the international pro-life movement to know about this new initiative?
We want the international pro-life movement to know about the consolidation of the network that the great Ola Celeste “Salvemos las 2 Vidas” has become. This blue movement that began in August 8th, in 2018, in Buenos Aires, Argentina when almost 5 million people got out to streets sharing that all human kind has dignity in all stages of life no matter what with the slogan “both lives count,” [which] is already a movement for all America. So what we thought was a movement just for a month, became the blue celeste flag for the pro-life movement in all America.
A fact is that in the opening of the General Assembly in the Organization of American States for Social Society, all kind of pro-life leaders of America [were] looking for a representative forum to expressed what dignity, freedom and human kind life means [in] government affairs in safety, work and social development. In this scenario, the Pro-Life Continental Block was developed and consolidated, which decided to enroll initiatives, leaderships, gather goals and social network to consolidate the pro-life movement in an international organization to work on an agenda of human dignity in different circumstances that countries are facing today.
We do this with the hope of sharing our vision and to bring these issues to the forefront in international forums. We know that we are millions of young people in the whole world who believe and defend these principles and we want to make it known to our representatives and to the world. The declaration was a first step in an international forum, but we invite more young people and organizations to subscribe so we can keep working together for a more humane and fraternal world.
To end we are preparing a global big party to celebrate together the 8A as a date that for all of us represents a milestone and a manifestation of strength of the Pro-life worldwide.
Check out my interview with Argentine pro-life leaders last year.
