Why pop-control is not the Solution to Poverty
The main objective of a population program is to reduce fertility measured in terms of the number of children born of every woman. The means to achieve fertility reduction is to increase contraception, and sterilization (ligation). The persuasion is done mainly under the guise of health and well-being of women and family and are also directed at young people under the forms of anti-birth sex education programs from grade school to College level.
Population Policy is Anti-poor
The premise for the population control argument is as old as Thomas Malthus' 1789 essay on the social consequence of unchecked human population growth. The Malthusians today, are indoctrinating international opinion that poverty does not find its cause in social injustice, or in economic failure, or in political incompetence, or in ideological aberrations. According to them, poverty has its source in the dizzying proliferation of poor people, of the weak, the Blacks, the Indians, etc.
Most growth of the world's population takes place in the Third World, thus a tendency to claim that underdevelopment, poverty and hunger are caused by overpopulation or "the poor having too many children." Many people assume that these population control notions are valid because they have heard them so often, especially in the media. The population controllers never seem to see themselves as part of the "overpopulation problem," only the defenseless poor, whom they belittle, coerce and seek to reduce in number.
Poverty is not a fatality, nor is hunger. What the poor expect is that they be given aid to get out of their misery, not that they be left to stagnate after having been "offered" sterilization or contraception.
The following evidences unmistakably contradicts the assumption that the cause of poverty is too many people and that reducing the number of people will reduce poverty.
Debunking the myths of overpopulation. The world is not exploding!
When one looks around and sees the masses of people, the congestion, the homeless, the slums, the pollution, and gets caught up in the daily traffic jam, it is tempting to think that the world is indeed overpopulated. Currently the world population is numbered at 6,004,428,557 and is growing by an estimated one million people every four or five days. This rapid growth has caused much concern and it seemed to confirm the existence of a "population bomb."
However, the catastrophe that some saw approaching may in fact never come. The latest statistics from the United States Census Bureau reveals that the world's population growth rate has "declined to about 1.5 percent at present," the lowest rate in fifty years. The same study also says that the birth rate is declining faster than population has been growing that the U.S. Census Bureau has just cut its three year old estimate of world population in the year 2000 by one hundred twenty million, and in the year 2020 by more than three hundred million.
In the Philippines, improvements in female education, job opportunities outside the home, rising economic expectations, improved life expectancy, migration, low death rate are among the factors listed by experts on family life that decreased birth rates. So, even without the government family planning program of fertility reduction, there will be less babies born in the future.
Overcrowded cities, not overcrowded countries
According to basic calculations by area, all six billion people on the earth today would fit within the state of Texas, with each family having a house with a little yard. So, it is not a question of area. The problem is the growing concentration of large numbers of people in certain cities, caused by the deterioration and lack of opportunities in the rural areas. This migration to cities, occurring mostly in developing countries, has left most of the countryside uninhabited, while the cities are confronting serious problems with basic infrastructure, health services, food supplies, education, transportation, sewage disposal, and housing.
An example of this is Egypt, where 98% of the population (62 million) lives in a few cities on the banks of the Nile River, in an area that encompasses only 3.5% of Egypt's territory.
Every nation has enough resources and the capacity to feed its people well
In contrast to what the population controllers would have us believe, most countries in the world have the natural resources to feed and provide a life with dignity for every citizen. According to a report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, every nation has the capacity to feed its people well. Thus, no Filipino should be starving. The problem is food distribution and not food supply.
Furthermore, population-control advocates also insist that it is better to have smaller populations in order to increase resources. If this were the case, then Bolivia, for example, with only 7.8 million people, but with a territory the size of California and Texas combined, and possessing abundant natural resources, would be a wealthy country, which unfortunately it is not.
There is no connection between population growth and economic growth
There is no population problem. Population growth is the result of the plunging death rate and increasing life expectancy worldwide. That is progress.
- Sheldon Richman
CATO Institute
In 1967, Nobel prize winning economist Simon Kuznets published the result of a study in which he compared population growth rates and economic growth rates of a group of countries over the last hundred years to see if high rates of population growth correlated with low rates of economic growth. He found that there was no connection. Indeed, historical data suggest the contrary, that population growth is a positive factor in the economic development process. Sheldon Richman of CATO Institute, in his testimony on International Population Stabilization and Reproductive Health Act further revealed that the United States, England, Hongkong, and other countries became rich during unprecedented growth in population. The most densely populated nations are among the richest. There are many nations much richer than the Philippines where population density is greater. There are also many nations much poorer than the Philippines where population density is lower. Low population density may contribute to poverty.
COUNTRY ----------------GNP($) PER CAPITA----------------PERSONS PER SQ. KM.
West Germany------------10,940---------------------------------635
Netherlands----------------9,316-----------------------------------346
Japan---------------------11,300------------------------------------840
Hongkong------------------7,136---------------------------------4,850
South Korea---------------2,150---------------------------------1,121
India------------------------ 270--------------------------------------606
Philippines-----------------1,740-----------------------------------161
Ethiopia---------------------284--------------------------------------27
Zambia---------------------730----------------------------------------8
Source: Statistical Abstract of U.S. World Development Report 1987
The true cause of poverty
International experts have identified that the causes of a country's underdevelopment, like that of the Philippines, can be both internal and external. The internal causes may include social injustice, unjust distribution of wealth, the absence of equal opportunity for all in education and economic life, poor political and economic administration combined with widespread corruption, exaggerated military budgets in contrast to inadequate spending on health and education, overconcentration of productive capacity in urban centers, the unbridled pursuit of profit at the expense of the common good, the heavy burden of foreign debt accompanied by lack of controls on the flight of capital, unequal access to property, etc. The list is endless!
Externally, underdeveloped nations are victims of an inequitable distribution of the worldrquote s resources as well as international trade and financial arrangements which work against t hem. Economic experts blame the economic recession being experienced in the Asian region to globalization. We are witnessing a reduction of jobs, a cutting of social services and the laying of greater stress on the laws of the international market rather than the laws of the land. Globalization means global competition in trade and business. As always the case has been, it is only the superpowers who win the game because with deregulation, privatization and liberalization of trade, they can maintain status quo.
Birth (Out Of) Control
- Henry A. Kissinger in World Politics, January 1956
Overpopulation is a concoction of contraceptive pushers and abortion pushers who have banded together in a conglomerate called International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). These are owners of multinational corporations which manufacture infant formulas, contraceptives, condoms, IUDs, sterilization and abortion gadgets like suction machines. They are the same people who control international money lending institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Frankfurt-based Development Loan Corporation and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
IPPF was founded by Margaret Sanger, the woman who coined the expressions "birth control", "human weeds," "less children from the unfit," "right to destroy," and "freedom of choice." This must sound familiar because Hitler applied this to thousands of Jews whom he considered an inferior human race. Margaret Sanger's whole life was devoted to racism and "contraceptive imperialism."
IBON Databank analysis says that, the Philippine's population program was undertaken to please the rich countries who provide money through loans, grants and investments, crucial to the government's economic plans. Rich countries, including the international organizations they dominate, are only willing to help the poor nations if they allow their population to be controlled. USAID, for example includes population reduction as one of the objectives for giving financial assistance to the Philippines. The focus of "planned parenthood" is an economic strategy of transnational corporations. As long as the population program exists in the Philippines, the foreign-dominated pharmaceutical industry has a ready market for contraceptives that pollute the internal environment of men and women.
Secondly, the Information Project for Africa in a book entitled Excessive Force: Power, Politics and Population Control also revealed that third world countries constitutes the largest population group. Out of every baby born, only one belongs to the white race. Obviously, if the third world population grows too fast, the white Anglo-Saxon race will eventually be swallowed. To quote Bertrand Russell, in his famous speech Marriage and Morals (London, 1929), "It cannot be expected that the most powerful will sit while other nations reverse the military nations balance of power by the mere process of breeding."
Is it moral to allow the Population Bill to be enacted to law?
Most of the countries in the West are suffering from a decline of births. As a consequence their population is ageing. In Japan, the average age of the labor force is 44. Countries whose population is slowing down are also suffering from economic stagnation. This is more than a coincidence. Slow population growth means smaller markets and therefore a less dynamic economy. Aside from these economic problems these countries are also suffering from many social and health problems: high divorce rates, breakdown of the family, juvenile delinquency, sexual promiscuity and serious side effects from the use of contraceptive methods.
Given this scenario there is no reason why we should support a bill that we know poses so many problems. If we appreciate and value the strength of the Filipino family we cannot remain indifferent to the government' s population control programs.
Natural Family Planning not Artificial Methods of Contraception
Catholic teachings has always been firm in its stand on the subject of population control: "The duty to safeguard the family demands that particular attention be given to securing for the husband and wife the liberty to decide responsibly, free from all social or legal coercion, the number of children they will have and the spacing of their births. It should not be the intent of governments or other agencies to decide for couples but rather to create the social conditions which will enable them to make appropriate decisions in the light of their responsibilities to God, to themselves, to the society of which they are part, and to the objective moral order. What the church calls "responsible parenthood" is not a question of unlimited procreation or lack of awareness of what is involved in rearing children, but rather the empowerment of couples to use their inviolable liberty wisely and responsibly, taking into account social and demographic realities as well as their own situation and legitimate desires, in the light of objective moral criteria.
(L'Osservatore Romano. 23 March 1994)
Scientists and millions of couples worldwide agree that modern scientific fertility awareness methods such as the Billings Ovulation Method are reliable, effective, safe, healthy and easy-to-use ways of planning the family.
Speaking on this subject, Mother Teresa of Calcutta has remarked: "In destroying the power of giving life through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in Natural Family Planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception."
Other References :
Mercedes Arzu Wilson, "Love & Family: Raising A Traditional Family in a Secular World" , Ignatius Press, San Francisco
Michael Schooyans, "Bioethics and Population", Copyright 1996 by Central Bureau, CCVA
Jacqueline R. Kasun, PhD, "Birth (out of) Control: The Failure of Government Family Planning Programs", The Population Research Institute, 1994
"Debunking the Population Myths: Philippine Setting", Manila: Pro-Life Philippines, 1993
Fr. Anthony Zimmerman, STD, "Catholic Teachings on Pro-Life Issues", Humanae Vitae Research Institute, Kagosima-ken, Japan, 1996
