PRI’s Building a Culture of Life TV series for EWTN is well on its way. While we hope to eventually include 13 shows, we are in the process of working out the details for the first three programs. To effectively use funding, the Population Research Institute staff has worked on videotaping in foreign countries, carried out interviews and worked with local pro-life groups while working on other international PRI projects or attending pro-life conferences in the countries involved.
Mexico
While PRI staff was in Mexico for the World Congress of Families III this year, we interviewed Elena Zuniga, the head of the Mexican government’s National Population Council; Rocio Galvez, the head of the National Pro-Life Committee: and the Mexican government’s Human Rights Commission. We also did an interview with a woman who was sterilized as a condition of receiving other medical care — not uncommon in Mexico where the average family size has dropped from six children to two and is still falling. Family planning in Mexico is not voluntary; it is compulsory. State-run hospitals insist on sterilizing or inserting IUDs in every woman who comes in to give birth in an attempt to limit families to one child. Fit to be Tied: Forced Sterilization in Mexico is well on its way to completion.
Spain
Europe is in the midst of a terrible population decline, and no country is in worse shape than Spain. Spanish couples are averaging only a little more than one child, a rate that will cause the population to decline sharply in years to come. While we were in Spain for a pro-life conference not long ago, we interviewed a Spanish demographer, a number of young people and a pro-life leader. We were also fortunate to meet two large Spanish Catholic families, with 8 and 12 children, who will provide the Church with vocations and souls for the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit in years to come. Dying Spain explains with words and pictures the dire depopulation crisis in this once very Catholic country.
New Zealand
While in New Zealand working closely on the Family Life International project with Colleen Bayer, the leading pro-lifer in New Zealand, PRI staff recorded her insights into the pro-life problems in New Zealand. New Zealand, a country the physical size of California but with only four million people, is under the same assault as other Western countries, but the Kiwis are fighting for life. Colleen runs the largest pro-life group in New Zealand and the country’s only crisis pregnancy center. She has adopted two special needs children in addition to her two natural children. Colleen tells her personal story as well as the story of her apostolate in Fighting for Life in New Zealand.
We’ll keep you updated as progress continues on the series in other countries of the world.
