Population Control Evolved

Population Control Evolved
by Steven Mosher and Colin Mason

“For the past forty years, the United Nations has been beating the drums about “overpopulation.” One of their most successful propaganda and fundraising gambits of late has been “World Population Day.”

~ Steven W. Mosher

It started as “Five Billion Day.” This was the day—July 11, 1989, to be exact—when the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that the world’s population would reach five billion. With one voice, the U.N. Population Fund, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and related anti-people groups decried the growing threat of “overpopulation,” and asked the governments of the world for billions of dollars to deal with this supposed crisis.

But a billion human beings are not added to the planet’s population very often. Annual funding requests needed an annual justification. Thus the following July 11th was billed as “World Population Day (WPD)”, as has every subsequent July 11th up to the present day.

In its initial iteration, World Population Day consisted of dismal pronouncements from the United Nations Population Fund—the lead spear carrier for this unholy day—bringing us the bad tidings that we are breeding ourselves off the face of the planet. This early “apocalypse now” style proved effective at generating massive press coverage, which in turn prompted parliaments around the world to open up their purses.

The rhetoric of World Population Day has softened considerably in the years since. First of all, the numbers simply didn’t support the old population bomb thesis. Birth rates were falling farther and faster than anyone thought imaginable. Second, forced-pace population control programs in China and elsewhere had produced a backlash in the West.

The 1994 Cairo conference marks a watershed in the rhetoric, if not the reality, of population control programs. Largely because of opposition from a consortium of Catholic and Muslim countries, the Programme of Action that resulted from the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) contains no population projections, no demographic analyses, no universal right to abortion, and no hard targets for contraceptive acceptance, fertility decline, or population levels. What survived the prolonged and often fractious negotiations was a pastiche of less controversial policies centering not on the numbers but on what came to be called “reproductive health care.”

This outcome was initially quite a disappointment for the hard-line controllers who, in the words of Adrienne Germain, “argued that Cairo’s ‘reproductive health approach’ will be far more expensive and less efficient than vertical family planning programs. Rather, they say, priority should be given to meeting the unmet need for contraception, as conventionally defined. They further argue that ‘population’ resources, small to begin with, certainly should not be stretched to cover the kind of ‘social engineering’—that is, health, empowerment, and rights—mandated by the ICPD. If there is to be any ‘social engineering,’ they say, it should take the form of incentives or other persuasive measures directly targeted on fertility and, in particular, contraceptive use.” In other words, they wanted to continue the hard sell, complete with hard targets, which relied upon bribes, sanctions and propaganda campaigns to ensure compliance.

Advocates of a “reproductive health care” approach, including Germain herself, sought to reassure the hardliners that the “demographic imperative”—that is, the need to control population growth—remained the top priority. “ reproductive health approach will be more cost effective in meeting demographic goals … by reducing dropout and failure rates, and … by appealing to the younger individuals and couples who, in demographic terms, need to …contracept earlier and longer. Proponents of the ICPD also look to broad ‘social engineering’, rather than fertility-centered propaganda or incentives … That is, we argue for creation of socio-economic conditions in which it makes sense for individuals to have two or fewer children.” [italics added]

Germain concluded by reassuring hard-line controllers that these presumably costly social engineering programs would not compete with their existing programs for funding. Rather, they would be paid for by “broader development agencies and budgets, not from family planning budgets; nor would ministries of health and family planning be responsible for their implementation.” This new money, according to Germain, would ensure that the reproductive health approach would not compete with, but work alongside, existing top-down, numbers-driven population control programs. This point bears repeating: The hard-line approach was slated to continue, with or without the infusion of new funds necessary to initiate full-service reproductive health care programs.

In the event, the UNFPA’s fundraising drive, and those of related organizations, stalled shortly after take-off. In the years since, it has issued increasingly frantic calls for donor countries to “honor” the ICPD commitments—that is, put more money into population control—only to have these increasingly ignored. Of the projected tens of billions of dollars that these new commitments to reproductive health care supposedly required, only a fraction has actually been raised. The 179 nations present at the ICPD have not even come close to meeting their pledges. Annual funding in 2003 stood at only $4.7 billion, a handsome sum of money, to be sure, but only one-quarter of the estimated $18.5 billion that had been pledged at Cairo.

Caught between the demands of the Cairo agreement for reproductive health care programs, on the one hand, and the reality of existing family planning commitments and essentially static budgets, on the other, the population bureaucracy has had to improvise. They have done so by dressing up existing fertility control programs in the guise of reproductive health care. And they now tout such “reproductive health” programs as a great boon to women and children. Among the many benefits of reducing the birthrate they list lower maternal mortality, reduced infant mortality, improved overall health, and higher living standards. The claims of the controllers are greatly exaggerated, if not entirely bogus.

But this year’s World Population Day rhetoric is even blander than “reproductive health” and reproductive rights.” This year’s theme—“be counted” and “everyone counts”—is so soft that it can mean almost anything. According to UNFPA Director Thoraya Obaid it means that “Every country counts its people. The numbers tell decision-makers about current and future needs …With world attention focused on achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, and the upcoming MDG10 Summit at the United Nations in September, the availability of consistent and comparable statistical information has become even more crucial. Data for development plays a prominent role in monitoring progress, assessing and realigning plans and strategies, and conducting effective advocacy. Data, and public access to it, contributes to transparency and accountability.”

So the UNFPA’s job is now … carrying out a census? Data for resource allocation? Even the official UN Secretary-General’s statement has only passing reference even to reproductive rights, normally the cornerstone of UNFPA rhetoric.

On the ground, however, it’s business as usual, and the locals know it. News photographs of WPD celebrations from Dehli, India, for example, bear captions quoting Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, saying: There is a need for small families as resources are limited and uncontrolled population may result in slower development. From Africa we are assured that, vis-a-vis WPD, “Family Planning is an investment in the people’s needs and the needs of the population. It’s a win-win situation.”

The United Nations, in the person of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, has even proclaimed, “individuals have a basic right to determine freely and responsibly the number and timing of their children,” adding, “Millennium Development Goal 5, improving maternal health, affirms this right.”

The minds behind World Population Day understand that top-down population control has too much bad press. Places like China and Peru have shown the world what coercive population policies really look like, and the results are ugly and violent.

http://www.crosstalkblog.com/wp-admin/media-upload.php?post_id=3654&type=image&TB_iframe=1&width=640&height=669

They understand that in order to sell population control, it has to look like human rights. It has to look like choice. It has to look like help. It has to look like anything but what it really is.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute.
Colin Mason is the Director of Media Production at Population Research Institute.

Reprinted with permission.

US Threatens Famous Hamas Informant with Deportation

Washington, DC—The Institute on Religion and Democracy is expressing concern after reports this week that Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, is currently threatened with deportation from the United States. Yousef converted from Islam to Christianity, coming to the United States and applying for political asylum in 2007. He wrote a best-selling book, “Son of Hamas’ about his experiences in the radical Islamic organization and subsequent work as a spy for Israel helping to foil terrorist and suicide bombings and saving Israeli, Palestinian and American lives.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Yousef’s asylum request was denied in February 2009, Mr. Yousef says, on grounds that he was potentially “a danger to the security of the United States” and had “engaged in terrorist activity.” He faces a deportation hearing June 30.

Under a provision of U.S. immigration law, anyone who is shown to have provided “material support” for terrorist organizations is automatically denied asylum.

Yousef became a Christian after a British cabdriver in Jerusalem gave him an English-Arabic copy of the New Testament and invited him to a Bible Study. “I found that I was really drawn to the grace, love and humility that Jesus talked about,” says Yousef in “Son of Hamas.”

IRD Religious Liberty Program Director Faith J.H. McDonnell commented:

“Yousef is one of our allies and is a great source of help in understanding what we face in radical Islam. It makes no sense that we are now treating him like the enemy.

“The Department of Homeland Security is intent upon deporting as a ‘terrorist’ the man who protected and saved many lives, including those of Americans working for USAID.

“We are concerned because of the irrationality of the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the danger to Yousef’s life, if he is deported. This threat of deportation says how little the United States government understands radical Islam and the global jihad to impose Islam around the world, to which Yousef testifies.

“We urge all to share Yousef’s story about his struggle with DHS from his blog, to write to the Senior Attorney for DHS in San Diego, Kerri Calcador, who is determined to deport him, and to contact your members of Congress regarding this travesty.”

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, founded in 1981, is an ecumenical alliance of U.S. Christians working to reform their churches’ social witness, in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings, thereby contributing to the renewal of democratic society at home and abroad.

www.TheIRD.org

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“Immigrant Rights” March Turns Ugly

Illegal Immigration fans are up in arms about Arizona’s new common sense law that cracks down on illegal aliens. They’ve taken to the streets to protest what they perceive as racism. But, as CNS News reports, things didn’t stay peaceful for long.

China’s Forced Sterilizations are Crimes Against Humanity

Reggie Littlejohn, an expert on China’s One Child Policy and President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, reports that according to the London Times, Family Planning Authorities have detained 1300 people in a campaign to sterilize nearly 10,000 people in Puning City, Guandong Province.

The twenty-day campaign, launched April 7, is well along in achieving its goal of 9,559 sterilizations. “A doctor in Daba village said that his team was working flat out, beginning sterilizations every day at 8 am and working straight through until 4 am the following day.” What’s the hurry? Officials in Puning may fail in their bid for promotion to a second tier county “if they cannot meet all quotas,” according to The London Times.

Unfortunately, the Puning sterilization campaign is not an isolated incident. According to the 2009 Report of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, “Violators of the [one child] policy are routinely punished with fines, and in some cases, subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and torture.” The State Department 2009 Country Report on China states, “In the case of families that already had two children, one parent was often pressured to undergo sterilization.”

China’s One Child Policy is enforced through measures up to and including:

Forced sterilization
Forced abortion
Infanticide
These practices have led to unintended consequences such as:

Gendercide – the selective abortion of females
Human trafficking and sexual slavery of girls and women
China has the highest female suicide rate in the world
Because these practices are “part either of a government policy . . or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government,” Ms. Littlejohn believes they fall within the definition of a “crime against humanity.”

Note:

Here are links to the articles and reports mentioned in this Op-Ed:

Chinese Officials Launch Campaign to Sterilise 10,000 — 4/16/10
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7599440/Chinese-officials-launch-campaign-to-sterilise-10000.html

China Tries to Sterilize 10,000 Parents Over One-Child Rule – 4/17/10
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7099417.ece

Congressional Executive Commission on China/Publications/Annual Reports/2009 (PDF)
http://www.cecc.gov/

State Department 2009 Human Rights Report: China (Released 3/11/10)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/eap/135989.htm

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers is a broad-based coalition that opposes forced abortion and sexual slavery in China. In December 2008, she delivered an address at European Parliament in Brussels concerning the One-Child Policy; in July 2009 she briefed the White House; and in November 2009 she testified before Congress (the United States Congressional Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission). She has spoken at the Harvard Law School and The Heritage Foundation as well. A graduate of Yale Law School, Ms. Littlejohn has represented Chinese refugees in their political asylum cases in the United States.

Evangelicals Take on Nuclear Disarmament

The same people that gave us circus church and emergent chaos are now taking on world nuclear disarmament. Fuller Seminary’s Glenn Stassen is just one of those helping to further the cause of the Matthew 5 Project, a Leftist front group comprised of such evangelical luminaries as Rick Warren, Chuck Colson, Tony Campolo, Richard Cizik, Brian McLaren, Ron Sider, Leith Anderson and all the other usual suspects.

Here’s their latest (dishonest) press release. Note that they quote George Schultz and refer to Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify.” There’s a reason they are quoting those two. They are attempting to make their no nuke agenda look bigger and more conservative than it is. After reading the press release below, make sure to read Mark Tooley’s warning last July about how the Left is using George Schultz to further their ‘no nuke’ agenda with evangelicals.

MEDIA ADVISORY, April 13 /Christian Newswire/ — With the slogan “Atomic Fireballs are great candy, but terrible foreign policy,” evangelical college presidents, denominational executives, pastors, veterans, professors, and missionaries are showing strong support for US moves to reduce nuclear arsenals. Citing Jesus, scripture, and foreign policy experts such as George Shultz, they claim “overcoming the nuclear threat requires international cooperation” and “nuclear weapons are a moral threat” that must eventually be eliminated.

Their historic Matthew 5 Project statement, which “calls on our nation to be willing to talk with and listen to antagonists,” applauds the “new START” treaty and the Nuclear Summit. The statement was sent to President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Gates, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and all 535 members of Congress.

Glen Stassen, co-director of the Matthew 5 Project, explains that “Jesus is the realist” and even though “the United States has crucial disagreements with Iran and North Korea, Jesus does not say talks should be refused until we approve of the conduct of the adversary.” The statement also refers to Ronald Reagan’s “trust but verify” approach and the policy recommendations of George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and other conservative national security experts who are recommending the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Stassen continues, “Nuclear weapons are a physical threat to the survival of human life on earth. Prominent national security experts have recently called for reducing and abolishing reliance on nuclear weapons, by verifiable international agreement, in order to enhance national security. This cannot be accomplished unilaterally; it requires international cooperation and verification…. Therefore, we urge international cooperation in continued step-by-step reductions, working toward ways to verify abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide.”

The broad scope of endorsements reveals the growing sentiment among American Evangelicals that the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is theologically necessary and politically possible,

ABOUT THE MATTHEW 5 PROJECT The Matthew 5 Project is an Evangelical effort to promote international cooperation and reduce nuclear weapons through careful analysis of political realities and sound biblical and theological arguments ( www.matthew5project.org).

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Memo to Fuller’s Seminary’s Dr. Glenn Stassen: When you’ve successfully ended the abortion holocaust of 51 million humans (so far) in America, than you can get back to us on stopping nukes. We also look forward to hearing about your verification plans in Iran, Russia, North Korea and China, just to name a few.

Evangelical Left Film Attacks Israel

WASHINGTON, April 7 /Christian Newswire/ — A new film, “With God on Our Side,” is being released this month to rebut pro-Israel Christians and persuade them to champion the Palestinian cause.

The film’s purpose, as its producer explains, is to take American Christians off the metaphorical tourist trail of their pro-Israel stance and instead wade them into embittered Palestinian communities where their views will change.

The makers of “With God on Our Side” want increased U.S. pressure on Israel to accommodate Palestinian demands, facilitated by reduced U.S. evangelical support for Israel. The ultimate goal is unclear, whether a Palestinian state in the West Bank ruled by Islamists like Hamas, or dismantling Israel altogether in favor of a new nation dominated by returned Palestinian “refugees.”

Film endorsers include liberal evangelist Tony Campolo and Emergent Church guru Brian McLaren.

IRD President Mark Tooley commented:

“Anti-Israel activists rightly see American evangelicals as key to U.S. support for Israel. That is why they are targeting evangelicals with messages of pro-Palestinian solidarity as supposedly central to Christian compassion.

“The film’s main message to evangelicals, especially to young people, is that the Old Religious Right crassly imposed a pro-Israel U.S. foreign policy based on its end- times theology, creating untold suffering among largely innocent Palestinians. The film suggests that more thoughtful, more compassionate evangelicals will reject that heritage and instead stand with the Palestinians as the victim group most needing Christian compassion.

“The film perpetuates a simplistic stereotype alleging that American Evangelicals self-servingly only support Israel because a Jewish presence there is central to their blood thirsty, apocalyptic dreams about the Second Coming.

“The Evangelical Left is adopting the old Religious Left’s Liberation Theology view of the Middle East, in which the Palestinians are the impoverished Third World victims, while Israel and the U.S. are the imperialists.

“‘With God on Our Side’ is overly reductive, claiming evangelicals support apartheid-like, Jewish wall-builders while neglecting persecuted Palestinians. Of course, their persecution is faulted not just on Israel, but also the United States, especially its evangelicals.

“How are the dwindling numbers of Palestinian Christians faring under Palestinian rule now, and how would they fare under a victorious new, Islamic-dominated Palestinian state? The Evangelical Left would prefer not to answer these questions, instead preferring guilt trips about supposed evangelical and American imperialist sins and fantasies about a newly liberated and Christian friendly ‘Palestine.’” www.TheIRD.org

Christian Newswire

Over Half of Italians Now Childless

Lifenews.com has an article on a new report that says over half of Italians have no children now.

ROME, March 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new report issued Tuesday has revealed that 53.4 per cent of Italian families have no children. The report said that 21.9 per cent of households have only one child and just 19 per cent have two. While mass immigration contributes to Italy’s population growth, the country’s rock-bottom fertility rate of 1.31 children born per woman has resulted in a largely childless and aging nation.

The report was compiled by the Milan-based International Center for Family Studies that identified the reason for Italians’ reluctance to procreate as “economic reasons.” 19.5 per cent of families interviewed cited the lack of money for not having more children. 8.9 per cent said it is their inability to juggle families and jobs and 0.3 per cent blamed insufficient housing space.

While economic times and lack of adequate housing are blamed commonly, personal preference was reported as the reason by 57.8 percent. The article points out that Italy, like many European countries, has dropped belove replacement birth rates, and as the population ages and needs medical care, the system does not have enough tax payers to fund it. Even the governments efforts to pay citizens to have children have failed.

Read the story here at Lifenews.com.

US Blasts Israel for Recognizing Heritage

WaPo:

The Obama administration criticized Israel Wednesday for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as national heritage sites.

The criticism came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she hopes long-stalled peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinians will resume. Clinton told a congressional committee that groundwork is being laid to restart the talks with the help of U.S. envoy George Mitchell.

What were these sites?

Toner said U.S. displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flashpoint town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to to senior Israeli officials by American diplomats….

Jews revere the site as the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Bible says the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried along with three of their wives. Muslims call it the al-Ibrahimi mosque, reflecting the fact that Abraham is considered the father of both Judaism and Islam.

Planned Parenthood Descends on Haiti

Wherever there are corpses, you can make sure that the buzzards of Planned Parenthood are close by. Planned Parenthood is so concerned about post-earthquake Haiti they have swooped down on the victims, ready to “help.” One News Now reports on what Planned Parenthood is up to in that devastated country. Wherever death is, Planned Parenthood is always close at hand.

Williams: Haiti’s Avoidable Death Toll

Walter Williams writes about the “self-inflicted poverty” of Haiti in his latest column.

Some expect Haiti’s 7.0 earthquake death toll to reach over 200,000 lives. Why the high death toll? Northern California’s 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was more violent, measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale, resulting in 63 deaths and 3,757 injuries. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake measured 7.8 on the Richter scale, about eight times more violent than Haiti’s, and cost 3,000 lives.

As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that’s completely ignored, namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It’s our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake “especially cruel and incomprehensible.” He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are “especially cruel and incomprehensible.”

Read the complete column here at Townhall.com.