The Agenda

Demographic studies have a necessary role in decisions related to the well-being of humanity. Historically, the need to enumerate the births and deaths in communities has been linked to the provision of basic necessities such as food and agriculture, health and education, access to water, etc. As more sophisticated societies have evolved, demographic studies proved beneficial to the development of industry, transportation, trade, science and technology and their complex interconnections within society.

Demographic science was established, originally, for the benefit and well-being of humankind. How then, could science be turned to the control rather than the benefit of humankind and where does the United Nations and its agencies, and the International Planned Parenthood Federation and its associates, fit into this picture? And what is the comprehensive agenda which has been set in motion through their combined efforts?

Discussions of population demographics were first raised to the international level at a series of international conferences which occurred from 1853 through 1877 followed by the founding of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1885. In 1927, population issues were the major topic at a World Population Conference organized by Margaret Sanger with assistance from the International Labour Office (ILO) and the League of Nations (Milos Macura, “The Significance of the United Nations International Population Conferences”). The dynamic partnership of demographic studies and birth control technologies which was set into motion through this effort, has become lodged in the hands of the world’s money men and power brokers who have transformed these dynamics for their own ideological purposes.

United Nations conferences

Rome 1954

Since 1954, the United Nations (U.N.) has initiated four international population conferences. The first U.N. Conference, held in Rome in 1954, concentrated on the techniques of demography. Originally proposed by Julian Huxley to the U.N. Social and Economic Council (EcoSoc), the conference was held in collaboration with the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), the Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N., the World Bank, the ILO, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). A major topic was the development of policies addressing low fertility which was a problem in Europe prior to both World Wars. While fertility control discussions at that conference were limited to India and Japan, the Rome conference was the first time that linkages were drawn between economic development and fertility. Although statistical data were lacking and demographic theory was underdeveloped, the discussions moved forward within the ideology of the United Nations’ philosophy which held that the populations of the World should be properly studied within the context of their particular economic, social and cultural conditions for their own progress and that of the world at large (Ibid, 14).

Belgrade 1965

The second conference, held in Belgrade in 1965, like the first, was comprised of experts in the field of demography, but unlike the first, was expanded to include related fields and policy issues. The conference was convened by the United Nations under the authorization of the Economic and Social Council. The topics discussed were economic and social development, fertility and family planning and the need for both research and administration in those areas. For the first lime, fertility was viewed as a policy variable; however, objections were raised by a number of countries to discussions of family planning. The major change between the Rome conference and the Belgrade conference was the framework of the fertility issue. At the Rome Conference, the decisions of parents relating to the size of their family was viewed as a basic human right and as a guideline for government policy. In the 1965 conference, the parental right was considered within a social and international context.

Between the time of the 1965 conference and the U.N. Conference in Bucharest in 1975, U.N. Secretary General U Thant had authorized the establishment of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA, 1966). In addition, a shift in attitude had developed which resulted in an intention within the U.N. to focus on policy questions rather than on scientific questions at the next population conference. Recent developments in contraceptive technologies had also expanded the possibilities of fertility control among populations. It was therefore decided that 1974 should be declared “World Population Year” (Ibid., 24).

Bucharest 1974

The third U.N. World Population Conference, held in Bucharest in 1974, was composed of representatives of governments rather than scientific experts. The scientific and technological topics had been presented at several symposiums prior to the conference allowing the government delegates to proceed with a more activist agenda through the formulation of a World Population Plan of Action. This pattern of separating the ‘experts’ from the actual conduct of the conferences while sublimating the demographics and other fields of scientific study to the political machinations of more ideological, international government representatives has continued at subsequent conferences. There were neither scientific nor technical topics on the agenda; the key issue was the adoption of a population plan of action (Ibid., 20–23).

The World Population of Plan of Action was drafted by the U.N. Population Division and proposed to representatives of governments at five regional consultations. The final document adopted by the plenary session contained recommendations relating to population goals and policies, socio-economic policies, and the promotion of policy recommendations for implementation. During the conference, “a polarization developed between the industrialized states of the Western world, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and others, who viewed population growth as an impediment to development, and the developing countries who held that population growth was a consequence rather than a cause of underdevelopment and could be resolved by the establishment of a new world economic order (Ibid.). The key issue therefore was the integration of population and development as it was stated in paragraph two of the World Population Plan of Action (Paul Demeny, “Population and Development,” speaking in Cairo, 1994):

Policies whose aim is to affect population trends must not be considered substitutes for socio-economic development policies but as being integrated with those policies in order to facilitate the solution of certain problems facing both developing and developed countries and to promote a more balanced and more rational development.

As Dr. Paul Demeny has pointed out, the recommendation is too inexact to be considered a “recipe for balanced and rational development” nor could such a rational recipe be considered a genuine possibility at a conference composed mainly of “diplomats and health ministers” (Ibid).

It was also at the Bucharest conference that the population issue went underground and resurfaced within the context of women’s issues joined to a health dimension. The plan of action emphasized the promotion of the status of women and their full participation in the formulation and implementation of socio-economic policy, and their right to “integration in the development process.” Among other women-orientated recommendations, the document asked that measures be taken to “facilitate this integration with family responsibilities.” Further, the document stressed health services and urged countries to “give priority to education and health strategies as an investment.”

It was also at the Bucharest Conference that the concept of “unwanted fertility” was articulated, undoubtedly linked to the World Fertility Survey, with all of its problems of cross-cultural interviews, set into motion by the industrialized nations as they sought to reduce population numbers. The unwanted fertility concept ultimately became linked to a twin concept of “unmet need” (or demand) for contraceptives, sterilization and abortion. These concepts have stood unchallenged by the scientifically-oriented who choose to overlook the other side of the scale of measurement and acknowledge the constant drumbeat for the “creation of demand” by the extremely well-funded population control cartel. The “creation of demand” is common parlance in the literature of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Particularly reprehensible is the politicized propaganda, commonly referred to as ‘motivational,’ beamed by television into private homes by a well-rewarded media both in the developed and the underdeveloped nations. Known as “Enter-educate” programs, these materials are deliberately targeted at particular groups in the societies, such as adolescents, and measured, scientifically, of course, for their effectiveness in achieving results.

Mexico City 1984

The fourth U.N. population conference, held in Mexico City in 1984, was intended to review and appraise the World Population Plan of Action. By 1984, the population in both the developed and the developing world had been appreciably reduced due to the policy-making interventions of national governments in fertility control. Raphael Salas, executive director of UNFPA and Secretary General of the Conference, suggested that the task before the conference was the stabilization of world population with specific time perspectives. On this occasion, the United States stated serious concerns regarding human rights violations, specifically insisting that abortion not be utilized as a method of family planning. The U.S. delegation also proposed that:

[Population growth] is not necessarily good or ill. It becomes an asset or a problem only in conjunction with other factors, such as economic policy, social constraints, need for manpower, and so forth. The relationship between population growth and economic development is not necessarily a negative one. More people do not necessarily mean less growth. Indeed in the economic history of many nations, population growth has been an essential element in economic progress.

Demeny analyzed the U.S. statement as representing “irreproachable claims” within a prescription which described government’s “first responsibility… to create conditions hospitable to economic markets and entrepreneurial initiative, and conditions that encouraged individual’s aspirations and efforts to improve their own lot.” He contrasted this approach in opposition to “categorical government programmes” (Ibid., 10).

He pointed out that, during the 1960s and 1970s, a number of low-income countries had pursued market-based policies while exploiting an expanding world economy through openness to international trade and international investment. Such countries, in East and South-East Asia particularly, “proved highly successful not only in achieving rapid increases in average income levels but also in generating rapid declines of birth rates” by using such an approach. A necessary and critical examination of the circumstances of those nations never occurred in Mexico City and the conference closed with recommendations for the expanding “cluster of categorical service programmes” which Demeny described as “well-meant wishes replacing sober judgment” (Ibid., 10–12).

Cairo 1994

The theme of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), “Population, sustained economic growth and sustainable development” was not developed in the recommendations of the conference. Rather, the approach of the Bucharest conference was carried over to Cairo, that is, the vehicle chosen to carry population control requirements was women’s “empowerment”; an ideological concept of women’s rights have therefore become the predominating thesis of the document. In spite of all denials to the contrary, embedded in the ICPD resolutions are potentially coercive population policies based on claims for a population “crisis.” The aim of the ICPD was ostensibly to hold world population numbers to 7.27 billion in 2015 and 7.8 billion in 2050. In fact, a survey of readily available statistical data reveals a continuing downward trend toward population reduction over the past 20 years. Not only is the United Nations aware of the figures, but the U.N. Population Commission is the agency which collected the figures and various U.N. agencies have noted the data in their materials. The reality of the population reduction as well as problems with flawed methods of data collection and analysis have also been observed by noted academics, such as Allen Kelley, Nicholas Eberstadt, Julian Simon, Jacqueline Kasun, etc., during that same period of time. If the reader were, however, to restrict their reading to popular literature, news publications or commercial literature, it would be possible to remain completely unaware that the factual data supporting the claim for a population ‘crisis’ was lacking.

Dr. Demeny noted also, that “sustainable development” as referenced within the conference theme is the twin of zero population growth. How then can “sustainable development” therefore represent a viable economic policy based as it is on static population numbers; successful economic strategies are dynamic rather than static. As Dr. Demeny said, pointing to the much neglected needs of ‘economic growth’ in the ICPD document as well as the numerous poor who are in desperate need access to economic growth: “We must pray, give us, O Lord, homeostasis, but not yet.”

Past economic expansion in Western societies clearly occurred during times of population growth. The developing countries need population numbers in order to develop their resources. The African Academy of Science made this very plain at the international meeting of science academies in New Delhi in 1993, when they refused to join an agreement calling for zero population growth by the year 2000 on the grounds that Africa sees her people as a resource.

During the course of the third preparatory meeting for Cairo, Dr. Fred Sai, Chairman of the Cairo conference, instructed the women’s NGOs to cease calling for safe and legal abortion since many nations were concerned for their sovereignty. Those nations had legal restrictions on access to abortion and would not welcome international attempts to break down their laws. This advice resulted in a bizarre insistence among the women’s groups that illegal abortion was safe and all that they were interested in was “safe abortion.” Widespread resistance to abortion created strain and resentment among the delegates in Cairo. Since then, leaders from the Western world, such as U.S. Under Secretary of State Timothy Wirth, have attempted to extricate themselves from their well-publicized, previous demands for abortion-on-demand in all countries. Analysis of the document revealed that the reference to “termination of pregnancy” in the resolutions was not the only reference to abortion. The issue was also buried in the ICPD document under language from previous U.N. conferences which used such phrasing as “sexual and reproductive rights,” “fertility regulation,” “safe motherhood,” and “reproductive health.”

The compromises reached in Cairo defined interpretations of the Program of Action as the sovereign right of each country, with full respect for the various religious and ethical values of the nation, The definition of the family included in the document now reads: “While various forms of the family exist in different social, cultural, legal and political systems, the family is the basis unit of society, and, as such, is entitled to receive comprehensive protection and support.” The term “fertility regulation” was replaced with “family planning” or “regulation of fertility” and the paragraph which related to adolescent sexuality was amended to include emphasis on the rights, duties, and responsibilities of parents. The major section on abortion, section 8.25, now reads: “In no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.”

Other alterations in language also attempted to mitigate international determinations to remove personal decisions from families and place them under the control of the state. It is necessary to recall however that the ICPD document is not binding and therefore, cannot be relied upon to shield nations from the determined efforts of the international population control cartel. As Duff Gillespie of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) stated at a Cairo debriefing session in Washington, D.C., “We started implementing Cairo before Cairo ever occurred.” He saw the new focus on reproductive health, adolescents, and reduction of female mortality, including post abortion care, as the pathway for continuing USAID programs. “Post abortion care” has been the policy entry point for the distribution of manual vacuum aspirators in developing countries where abortion is restricted. These aspirators then become the avenue for menstrual regulation programs which are actually early abortion programs. International Program Assistance Services (IPAS), based in the North Carolina area of the U.S., is the major manufacturer and distributor of manual vacuum aspirators.

IPPF influence

In Cairo, a document was distributed which named the International Planned Parenthood members who participated as country delegates and NGO members. The final count indicated that 59 IPPF members were present among the voting delegates, representing 53 nations. The full number of national delegates however were 3,500. The full story of IPPF participation therefore must be examined in more detail in order to trace the full story.

From the historical perspective, it has already been noted that Margaret Sanger organized the first World Population Conference in 1927 with the assistance of the League of Nations and the ILO. Not mentioned is the International Union for the Scientific investigation of Population Problems, another organization founded by Sanger and the predecessor of the modern International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP). Sanger’s conceptual conjoining of demographic studies provided by the Union, with the thrust of her Birth Control League provides the fundamental conceptual pattern of the population control movement today — first the scientific measurement — then technological controls exercised under government auspices.

The intended thrust of the demographic scientists involved in IUSSP however, was to free themselves from particular ideologies. The organization was reconstituted in 1947 as they discovered their committees “were sometimes subject to unwanted political pressure incompatible with the scientific objectives of the Union.” Prior to the reorganization, the two previous Union meetings had been held in Berlin in 1935 and Paris 1937. This would place the scientists directly in the midst of the turmoil of the early Nazi regime. German interest in demographics included concerns for increased population at that time, since German population numbers had decreased dramatically during the European depressions of the first half of the nineteenth century. But, German demographic concerns were also linked to eugenic considerations as a means of perfecting the race.

Since 1947, the scientists focus on demographics has again become targeted. Today, the major funders of the IUSSP are the industrialized nations, the United Nations agencies and foundations with population control interests. Among the largest bilateral funding groups are: Canada, Denmark, Sweden and Japan (Sendai City). The largest donor is the United Nations Population Fund with additional assistance from the Ford, Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations. It would appear that the IUSSP is back in the fold of the people-manipulators (IUSSP, An Introduction and annual report).

Also emerging at the end of World War II were the eugenicists, who since the negative publicity of the Holocaust needed a new identity. They found that identity in the population control movement. The IPPF Nazi nexus was provided by Hans Harmsen, a Nazi eugenicist, with whom Sanger co-founded International Planned Parenthood Federation along with Anne Marie Durand-Wever. Dr. Sabine Schleiermacher drew the linkages in an article titled “Racial hygiene and deliberate parenthood: two sides of demographer Hans Harmsen’s population policy,” published in Issues in Reproductive Engineering (Pergamon Press). Dr. Schleiermacher explained Harmsen’s ‘qualitative’ as well as ‘quantitative’ demography. Based on cost-utility calculations and according to a criteria of productive capacity, productively capable sections of the population were to be promoted. For others deemed less productive, institutionalized sterilization programs would be used to exclude them from procreation. For these reasons Harmsen advocated sexual and genetic counseling to enable women to rear “healthy” and “eugenically worthy” children.

In the tradition of its founders, IPPF continues to collaborate with UNFPA in its implementation of a “Joint Expert System” with the goal of “promoting technical collaboration between the two organizations.” UNFPA representatives also take part in IPPF’s expert panels, while IPPF nominates participants to the UNFPA program review and strategy development exercises. IPPF also played a major role in the development of the UNFPA ‘Super Fund’ aimed at collecting donor funds for contraceptive supplies. IPPF has also been a full partner in the World Bank, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNDP, Population Council partnership for a “Safe Motherhood Initiative;” an effort which is centered on breaking down abortion restrictions in all developing countries. In Cairo, the charge that IPPF drafted the ICPD document gains credibility when one scans the identity of the leaders: Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the ICPD and Secretary General of the UNFPA, trained at Johns Hopkins University, the contemporary conservatory for all who would control human reproduction, and former head of Pakistan’s Family Planning Association; Fred Sai, chairman of the ICPD, president of IPPF and former head of Ghana’s Planned Parenthood; Halfdan Mahler, secretary general of the ICPD and member of IPPF; and Dr. Attiya Inayatullah, IPPF member and chair of the ICPD central Council. In addition, country delegations included such delegates as U.S. Undersecretary of State, Timothy Wirth, former head of Denver Planned Parenthood and Pamela Maraldo, president of the U.S. Planned Parenthood Federation.

Agenda

The goals of the U.N. initiatives are ideologically organized in an overall strategy to bring about a comprehensive socio-economic transformation. Previous U.N. population conferences have linked demographics and contraceptive technologies in a dynamic partnership controlled by country and transnational government, international moneymen and world power brokers. The 1954 Rome conference combined the concepts of economics and fertility but maintained the view that parental decisions regarding family size were a basic human right. At the 1965 Belgrade conference, fertility became a policy variable, subject to institutional change; and international and social dimensions became included as factors in decisions regarding family size. The 1974 Bucharest conference integrated population and development through a North/South polarization in which the industrialized countries insisted that population reduction was essential for economic development; the developing countries claimed that population growth was a consequence rather than a cause of underdevelopment. At that conference also, population control went underground and re-emerged clothed in the rhetoric of women’s rights, integrating development with “choice” and health. The concept of “unwanted fertility” and its correlated concepts, “unmet demand” and “creation of demand” entered the arena as rhetorical persuaders. The Mexico City conference reversed the direction of the North/South arguments; the South now argued on behalf of population control while the U.S. argued that population growth was not necessarily negatively correlated with economic development. In Cairo, the themes of population, economic growth and sustainable development were not developed in the recommendations. The Bucharest approach in which women became the Trojan Horse for the population movement resulted in an overall ideological concept of ‘women’s empowerment’ by the State.

Other conferences which play into the overall effort include the World Summit on Children which granted power to determine children’s rights in isolation from parents, family and community. Parental rights and responsibilities are to be determined by national parties monitored by the United Nations.

The 1992 Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) established the need for the integration of population policies with environmental and development issues “in keeping with the individual’s freedom, dignity and personally held values” yet control remained in the hands of government.

The World Summit on Social Development (WSSD) scheduled for Copenhagen in March 1995, ostensibly focuses on the elimination of poverty but proposes progressive controls over national economies to provide for United Nations funding, moving representation and accountability ever further from the people. WSSD, within the definitions of ‘social development’ can be expected to become the carrier for further ideological designs delivered to the World Congress on Women as a ‘done deed.’

The Fourth World Women’s Congress to be held in Beijing in September 1995 formalizes the use of ‘women as agents of change,’ the promulgators of a finalized social control over fertility imposed in the name of ‘choice’ and ‘gender equity.’

‘Beware the tyrant bearing gifts’ is the phrase which should haunt the intellects of the world’s people, raising past specters of totalitarian disasters, as these conferences assemble selectively-controlled world leaders and their workmen at the community level, the non-governmental organizations, to consolidate the latest totalitarian effort in world history.

Never miss an update!

Get our Weekly Briefing! We send out a well-researched, in-depth article on a variety of topics once a week, to large and growing English-speaking and Spanish-speaking audiences.

Subscribe to our Weekly Briefing!

Receive expert analysis every Tuesday morning.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.