Monday, October 4, 1999
Population control out of control
By BEVERLY LAHAYE
Scripps Howard News Service
This coming Oct. 12 marks the ominous Y6B, the day the world’s
population allegedly reaches 6 billion, and doomsday prophets have
seized the opportunity to forecast future calamity for the human
race if we do not continue to implement radical population control
policies.
But the world has now endured 30 years of population control, and in
honor of Y6B, it is fitting that we take some time to evaluate
exactly what three decades of such policies have wrought.
Around the world, the population control frenzy has created a
climate where preserving life and health takes a back seat to
promoting abortion and birth control. In Kenya, Margaret Ogola, a
medical doctor, testified twice at U.N. conferences that she cannot
get the penicillin she needs to treat dying children, but
international aid programs stuff her medical clinics full of
expensive birth control devices.
In Malawi, a physician reported that medical shortages were so
severe that abdominal surgery had to be performed without surgical
gloves. Meanwhile, the same hospital’s shelves were full of latex
condoms.
The practice of elevating population control above life and health
is not limited to this kind of humanitarian negligence. In the last
decade, international population control policies led Peru’s
Ministry of Health to instigate a widespread sterilization campaign
that jeopardized many women’s lives. In 1997 alone, the government
sterilized 110,000 women — often without informed consent. The
infections that followed cost some women their lives. Even more
sinister is the fact that many of these poor women were lured into
the procedure by promises of food or supplies.
Both the United Nations and the U.S. government have been quick to
distance themselves from the Peru program. But however harsh the
program was carried out, it was consistent with the philosophy that
the U.S. and U.N. organizations have advocated for years. In fact,
the United States has participated in population control programs in
Peru since the mid-1960s. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
has also been active in the region, and sterilizations have occurred
within its buildings.
The frightening legacy of population control policies is all the
more tragic because the facts reveal there simply is no population
crisis. While 6 billion sounds like an outrageous number, in
reality, every person on earth could fit inside the tiny state of
Rhode Island — if everyone stood. If you gave each person 1,250
square feet of living room, everyone in the world could live in
Texas.
The U.N. Population Division itself admits that, considering current
trends, the world’s population will likely never double again.
Instead, it will stabilize at about 11 billion. And that estimate
may be high. Global population has consistently fallen below U.N.
median estimates in the past decade — sometimes as much as 20
percent lower, making a more realistic peak estimate to be around 8
billion.
Moreover, today 61 countries (making up 44 percent of the world’s
population) are having so few babies that they can scarcely replace
their current population, according to U.N. statistics. This new
trend has led some demographic experts to express concern about a
coming “population dearth.”
Such a legacy for the population control movement is not a pretty
one. It has left nations littered with birth control and abortion
devices they never wanted, and deprived them of the basic
medications they need to survive. These policies have encouraged the
abuse of women through forced abortion and sterilization, all in the
name of a myth. Now, as Oct. 12 approaches and the world turns its
attention toward population issues, we must decide if we want to
carry this legacy into the next millennium.
Beverly LaHaye is the founder and chairman of Concerned Women for
America, the nation’s largest public policy women’s group,
representing over 500,000 women and like-minded men.
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