October 10, 2003
Volume 5/ Number 30
Dear Colleague:
The Culture of Death has two faces. One face is the domestic abortion movement, which has reduced America’s population by 40 million souls since the Supreme Court, by judicial fiat, allowed abortion on demand. The other face is the international population control movement, which invariably and always promotes abortion. After decades of contraception, sterilization, and abortion, many of the world’s developing nations, still poor, now face a depopulation crisis.
An examination of USAID-funded Family Health International (FHI) shows clearly these two faces.
Steven W. Mosher
President
The Two Sides of the Culture of Death
One of USAID’s stated goals is to "stabilize world population and protect human health through programs in . . . family planning and reproductive health." Population stabilization comes in the form of family planning programs designed to lower birthrates and population in accord with U.N. targets. Americans have been assured that these family planning programs comply with the Mexico City policy so that no USAID family planning funds are used for abortion.
In April of 2002, USAID announced that it was awarding nearly $162 million to Family Health International (FHI) and its partners over the next five years. This award followed a 1997 five-year grant to FHI for $148 million. Ostensibly, the grants have been provided to help fight the global AIDS pandemic. USAID HIV/AIDS funds are not subject to the Mexico City policy.
FHI’s stated mission is "to improve lives worldwide through research, education, and services in family health." Although FHI sponsors myriad programs, it is clear that sex education and contraception distribution are key elements of their strategy "to improve lives." What about abortion?
In any organization, people are policy. And FHI has some real characters working for it. Willard Cates and David Grimes, to be exact, who are part of the senior management in FHI’s corporate structure. While working in the CDC Center for Health Promotion and Education, Grimes also worked at the notorious abortion-only Midtown Hospital of Atlanta. Midtown became notorious while Grimes was moonlighting there because 14 babies were born after failed abortions. The "hospital" was subsequently closed down by court order.
Earlier this year, Cates and Grimes co-authored an article on the positive public health impact of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and the legalization of abortion. One comment from that article helps explain their worldview. They wrote, "by enabling unmarried women of racial minorities to safely terminate unintended pregnancies, Roe v. Wade disproportionately benefited them." That is, minority woman were disproportionately benefited because they are having a lot more abortions than before Roe. Their view is clear: legalized abortion improves public health, not only in comparison to illegal abortion, but also when compared to letting children be born, especially minority children.
Over twenty years ago, Cates was the Chief of the Abortion Surveillance Branch at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In 1980, he proposed a new fee schedule for abortions in a Family Planning Perspectives article, "A Graduated Scale of Fees for Legal Abortion." Apparently, the practice of charging for abortions based on the estimated trimester in which the unborn child was destroyed did not meet his standard of fairness. Instead, he proposed that post-abortion measurements of the child be performed and a graduated fee scale based upon the child’s size be implemented to determine the cost of abortions.
He proposed to base his fee on foot size. That’s right. He proposed that the size of the dead child’s foot be measured and the mother be charged based on how long it was. The longer the foot, the higher the fee. This gruesome proposal was too much for some other abortionists. A fellow abortionist authored a rebuttal, which charged that, by having the charges for her abortion described in "fetal foot," the mother might suffer some psychological damage.
The Board of Directors of FHI is a veritable "Who’s Who" of international abortion advocates, with deep ties to the abortion and contraception industries. These include Fred T. Sai of Ghana, the former President of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). Pramilla Senanayake is the Assistant Director-General of the IPPF in London. Halida Hanum Akhter of Bangladesh is the Chair of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), another USAID supported group promoting an ever-expanding list of contraceptive technologies and early stage abortifacients. The list goes on and on.
In family planning and HIV/AIDS programs funded by USAID the world over, FHI is involved in manual vacuum aspiration. This procedure is performed with a hand-held aspirator. In some clinics, abortions are performed under the guise of "post-abortion care."
Remember the names Cates and Grimes, and reconsider funding for FHI.
