USAID comments on IUDs in Nairobi
In response to an inquiry from Congressman Henry J. Nowack (N.Y.), written at the request of PRI Review subscribers (see PRI Review, “Global Monitor” March/April 1992), Ronald Roskens, director, United States Agency for International (USAID) bragged:
“Our support program to Kenya includes technical assistance, information and training, contraceptive supplies, and research to develop and improve contraceptive methods appropriate for that country’s conditions. During FY 1991, we invested approximately $13 million to support these activities. Of this, $1.2 million paid for contraceptive commodities. Also, we shipped the following contraceptives to Kenya in FY 1991: 18,678,000 condoms made in Alabama; 1,929,600 vaginal foaming tablets made in New Jersey; and 97,400 IUDs made in North Tonawanda, New York. The U.S. foreign assistance program is not just a give-away program; the vast majority of foreign aid is spent in the United States. The technical assistance, research, and commodities purchased in the United States from American companies provides jobs and economic growth here at home as well as overseas. Recipient organizations in Kenya ensure that the contraceptives are made available to couples who voluntarily request family planning services.…
“Just one decade ago, Kenya had one of the fastest growing populations in the world. Together with A.I.D. and other international partners, Kenya has increased its contraceptive prevalence from 7 percent in 1977 to 27 percent in 1989, and reduced its rate of population growth by an average of one child per woman from 7.7 to 6.7. Our assistance has been instrumental in bringing about this change. Nevertheless, much still remains to be done in the effort to launch and sustain economic growth in Kenya. [Under the USAID contract with Virginia-based Matrix International] A.I.D.’s freight forwarder moves an average of 60 shipments per month to over 80 recipients in about 70 countries.”
Mexico — keep up the good fight — boot the beggars out!
Mexican Senator Blanca Esponda, member in good standing of the Global Parliamentarians on Population and Development, has promised that, with economic pressures provided by Louis Preston of the World Bank, the children of pregnant Mexican women will be aborted! She is convinced that Mexican women can be manipulated to cooperate. That fight has now been joined.
Mexican citizens are loudly denouncing government population control programs. They are campaigning to drive Mexfam, the Mexican affiliate of Planned Parenthood out of their communities and out of their lives. In June, the governor of the state of San Luis Potosi forced Mexfam to leave that state on the grounds that it was corrupting morals. “We’re really under pressure,” moaned Mexfam’s Alfonso Lopez Juarez. “We have to dedicate valuable energy we could use elsewhere against an enemy that wasn’t so clear before” (Journal of Commerce, 1 Oct. 1992).
Led by UNFPA, Asia-Pacific countries link demographics and development
Officials from 56 Asia-Pacific countries held a week-long conference to “find new ways to link demographics,” that is, population control policies, “with development.” The 17–19 August conference was organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Indonesian Ministry for Population and Environment.
“Today we understand better than ever before the linkages between population, poverty, environmental damage, rapid urbanization and the depletion of natural resources,” said UNFPA executive director Nafis Sadik at the conference.
Dr. Alwi Dahlan, chairman of the conference preparatory committee, emphasized “the importance of recognizing the link between population, environment and development” in order to “ensure effective policies and actions” (“Asian-Pacific Conference Seeks to Link Demographics and Population,” Bali, Indonesia 19 August 1992, IPS. See also PRI Review Earth Summit insert, “Population Control at Rio,” July/August 1992).
Determined population controllers “try again” in Nigeria
Lagos, Nigeria will host 27 of the world’s “best reproductive health researchers” for a week in May 1993. The medical scientists are meeting under the “South to South Co-operation in Reproductive Health” (STSC) group, a body that has only three Nigerians.
Nigerian doctors who received a “mandate” to participate are Dr. Eijiro Edward Emuveyan; Dr. O.A. Ladipo, executive secretary and programme director, STC; and consultant to University College Hospital, Ibadan and Dr. Valentine Ugura, consultant to University of Jos Teaching Hospital.
The specific objectives, according to Emuveyan, a senior lecturer and consultant at the University of Lagos College of Medicine (CMUL) include: build a network of research scientists in developing countries who will collaborate in applied, biochemical, clinical and social science research; initiate, design, implement and analyse research projects in population and reproductive health; develop new male and female contraceptive products that are acceptable worldwide with proven contraceptive effectiveness, safety and cost effectiveness; collaborate in product development with private industry; ensure a critical mass of research activities in developing countries through training activities for young scientists in reproductive medicine; collaborate with other agencies and foundations interested in Reproductive Health Research; and influence national policies on population and human sexuality (The Guardian, 16 July 1992).
Chinese flee one-child population policy
A rising tide of determined Chinese immigrants are risking their lives to flee to the United States as a result of China’s rabid population control program.
Lin Hua Pon fled China after his wife underwent a government-forced abortion in her eighth month of pregnancy. “She was given an injection in her stomach, and the baby died. Under Chinese…policy even if the baby will be born tomorrow, they will cut it out today,” he said.
Immigrants crowd into wooden fishing boats, and at a cost of $30,000 each, travel 45 days under perilous conditions in order to arrive in California. Relatives in the U.S. and high-interest Chinese money lenders provide the fare for passage.
After his wife underwent a forced abortion, Liv-Guei Hua nearly drowned during his attempt to escape. He lost everything when his boat went down but he’s ready for a new life in spite of the difficulties. “And I will get my family here,” he said. “There will be no more forced abortions” (USA Today, 28 Sept).
Population control “abortion coup” in Romania
The latest statistics indicate that Romania has the highest abortion rate in the world. Romanian women have three pregnancy terminations for every one live birth according to the International Federation of Family Planning. The figures were released at the second national conference of the Society for Sexual and Contraceptive Education in Romania.
Dr. Sorin Puia, the federation’s chairman, said Romania’s abortions “represent 2 to 3 percent of terminations carried out worldwide, while Romania’s population represented only 0.4 of the world population” (“Romanian Abortion Rate,” S &S, 10 May 1992 Bucharest, Romania).
Meanwhile, many Romanian doctors claim to have become abortion experts. Dr. Ion Drimbareanu, head of a Bucharest maternity hospital that performs 100 abortions a day is reported to have said. “Most of us finish the job in three minutes, so what’s the problem?” (S&S 19 April 1992).
New York City funds used to “take aim at RU-486 makers”
New York comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman and finance commissioner Carol O’Cleireacain, as trustees of the New York City Employees Retirement System, are trying to create pressures for U.S. approval of RU-486. They are demanding that the Collegeville, Pa.-based Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. use its “influence” to spur the French manufacturer of RU-486 to seek Food and Drug Administration approval to test it in this country. As trustees, they are reported to “wield a $26 million club in the 484,289 shares the city’s pension funds” hold in Rhone-Poulenc Rorer. Robert E. Cawthorn, chief executive of Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, says his company has no connections to RU-486 and no ability to influence the decision-making process at Roussel Uclaf (“City Funds Take Aim at RU-486 Makers,” Crain’s New York Business, 27 July 1992).
Philippine’s Flavier wants stronger population control program
Philippine health secretary, Juan Martin Flavier, will push for a comprehensive family planning program even if the Catholic Church disagrees with it. Flavier said he will deal with the Catholic Church “very carefully” and hold dialogs with them. But should their views still clash, he will continue with the family planning program. He said his exposure to the social and political situation in rural areas opened his eyes to the need for strong advocacy of family planning. He was a former president of the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines and a 1992 Rafael Salas awardee for Population and Development [Rafael Salas was director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) when UNFPA lost U.S. funding due to its involvement in the coerced abortion and contraceptive program in China] (“Flavier wants Stronger Family Planning Program,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 4 July 1992).
British physician reports on women’s issues from Rio
The Third World, especially women, now regard the “West” as a “colonial” power imposing genocidal population control policies, and using their countries as dumping grounds for toxic waste. Their experience of ill health and death vis-a-vis contraceptives, I.U.C.D.s. sterilization, etc., has led them to consider returning to their traditional methods of birth-spacing. Family planning agencies give very poor and inaccurate information on natural family planning. Breast feeding is encouraged but mothers are told that the baby requires feeds every 2–3 hours even at night to suppress ovulation, and that at three months an injectable (depoprovera) is necessary. They are not told that this is excreted in the milk (Dr. Peggy Norris, MD, FRCOG, England).
Emotional costs of in-vitro (IVF) procedures
The “unqualified claim” that IVF is “less invasive” than tubal surgery “discounts how highly invasive the various interventions associated with IVF are.” The drugs used to increase egg production involve daily injections to administer the medication. These are followed by “blood tests and ultrasound” to follow the ‘progress’ of the developing follicles and “to monitor for the potentially dangerous condition of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.”
In addition, the “multiple eggs a woman produces are aspirated from her ovaries with the use of vaginal ultrasound .… The needle used in this procedure can produce internal bleeding and pierce the woman’s bladder or bowel.”
The “psychological and emotional costs” to the women who undergo these procedures “must also be considered in any evaluation of the invasiveness of IVF for infertile women.” IVF is also used on fertile women where there is “male-factor infertility.”
The World Health Organization reports on the place of in vitro fertilization in infertility care: “The perinatal mortality rate for IVF babies is four times and the neonatal mortality rate twice that of the general population. The rate of very low birth weights among IVF babies is over 11 times higher than in the general population.”
“The IVF singelton birth (76 percent) is frequently obtained by what is euphemistically called “multi-fetal reduction.” “[Meticulous attention to the costs — economic, social and moral — as well as to the alleged benefits of IVF is essential” (Letter to the editor from Gywnne Basen, Researcher and film-maker, Montreal; Abby Lippman, Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McGill University, “Remember emotional costs of in-vitro procedures,” Montreal Gazette, 3 August 1992).
