International panel of witnesses speaks to USAID complicity in international population control
Maria Graciala Hilario: He “ignored my protests.”
My name is Maria Graciela Hilario de Rangel, I am from the city of Morelia, Mexico. I have had IUD’s placed into me twice. The first time was ten years ago, when one was placed in me before I was released from the clinic. I later had it removed.
The second one was placed in me eight months ago after the birth of my baby. On this occasion, I repeatedly told the doctor that I did not want the device placed in me. He did not pay any attention to me and ignored my protests. He placed the device in me anyway.
Afterwards, the chief physician of the clinic told me he accepted responsibility for this act. I could place a complaint after I left the clinic, he said, but his actions were protected by law. He did not tell me which law or when it was issued. I asked him for his name and he replied that he was Doctor Ildefornso Ramos Aguilar and that his office was in Morelia. He insisted that his doctors were authorized by law to place the devices and that the reason was to “protect” women.
I had the IUD removed 40 days later, but only after great difficulty. I went to the clinic several times, asking to have it removed, but each time I was sent away under the excuse that they did not have the proper personnel to do it, or did not have the right instruments, or they had too many patients, or some other excuse. I finally told them I would not leave the clinic until they removed it. Only then did they remove it. I did not file a complaint against the clinic because the chief physician had told me that their actions were protected by law.
Dr. Stephen Karanja: health system collapsed
The first birth control clinic was opened in Nairobi, the Kenyan Capital, 44 years ago. The second one opened a year later at the Port Town of Mombasa. These two amalgamated into the Family Planning Association of Kenya (FPAK). In 1963, FPAK was affiliated with the International Planned Parenthood Federation, thus becoming the first association in Africa south of the Sahara to join this monster which has nearly destroyed our society. Our nightmare had just begun.
Following publication of a report on the demographic trends by the Population Council in 1968, which partly talked of still unproven adverse effects of rapid population growth on socio-economic development, the Government of Kenya was coerced to be- come overtly involved in birth control. Thus a young nation then bustling with enthusiasm, hope and ambition for its people who had endured the yoke of colonialism suddenly offered itself to imperialism like it had never seen before, as we will soon discover.
We were then only 7.9 million people in a vast empty country rich in resources but no people to exploit them. Believe it or not, we were said to be overpopulated. Thirty-four years from then we are only 23 million in this vast still empty land.
The United States of America has used vast amounts of money over time to destroy the people of Kenya. USAID and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded mainly by the US government have targeted our people with a ruthlessness that makes one shudder. The International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Population Council (a subsidiary of the Rockfeller group). Population Action International, and the United Nations through its agencies like WHO and UNFPA have targeted Kenya for depopulation at the expense of the integral development of its people. Some examples of the stark realities living side by side with the millions of dollars for population control include:
Our health sector is collapsed. Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria whose treatment costs a few cents, in health facilities whose stores are stalked to the roof with millions of dollars worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant. Depo-provera, most of which are supplied with American money.
Some of these contraceptives like Depo-provera cause terrible side-effects to the poor people in Kenya, who do not even have competent medical check-ups before injection. Many are maimed for life. The hypertension, blood clots, heart failure, liver pathology and menstrual disorders cannot be treated due to the poor health services. The American Government seems to want to solve the problem of poverty by reducing the number of the poor.
Special operating theatres fully serviced and not lacking in instruments are opened in hospitals for sterilization of women and some men. In the same hospitals, emergency surgery cannot be done for lack of basic operating instruments and supplies. Most of the women are sterilized without even knowing it is final. Some with only one child. Some are induced with financial assistance to accept sterilization. Horrified sterilized women now trot from hospital to hospital looking for reversal of the tubal ligation. This is breaking marriages especially when the single child or two succumb to the myriad tropical diseases—with easy treatment that is not available.
Millions of dollars are used daily to deceive, manipulate and misinform the people through the media about the perceived good of a small family — while the infant mortality rate skyrockets. Some of this money is not used to educate people on basic hygiene, proper diet or good farming methods that would be useful development, but it appears that the aim of population controllers is to decimate the Kenyan people.
I am a practicing gynecologist in Kenya and I would like to share with you Facts about some of the patients I see daily:
A mother brought a child to me with pneumonia, but I had not penicillin to give the child. What I have in the stores arc cases of contraceptives.
Malaria is epidemic in Kenya. Mothers die from this disease every day because there is no chloroquine, when instead we have huge stockpiles of contraceptives. These mothers come to me and I am helpless. I see women coming to my clinic daily with swollen legs — they cannot climb stairs. They have been injured by Depo-provera, birth-control pills, and Norplant. I look at them and I am filled with sadness. They have been coerced into using these drugs. Nobody tells them about the side effects, and there are no drugs to treat their complications. In Kenya if you injure the mother, you injure the whole family. Women are the center of the community. The well-being of the family depends on the well-being of the mother.
America has been a blessed country. This nation saved the world three times. During the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War. The American people can still save many in the world from preventable diseases. I do not believe that Americans want their taxes used to hurt other people. Why do you not stop this money being used for contraceptives and use it instead to provide clean water, good pre-natal and postnatal care, good Farming methods and rural electrification. Do the American people know that the millions of dollars spent for population control are used in the ways I have described? Why does your government not deal directly with our government but instead uses a third party like IPPF which has no respect for the values of our people and our laws?
It is therefore clear that, contrary to what one is led to believe. American aid to Kenya is not a reasonable attempt to bring about integral development, rather it is a comprehensive and highly organized campaign to kill off as many of our people as are necessary.
Therefore, for the first world to dominate the third world through contraceptive imperialism under the big stick of withholding development assistance for non-compliance makes us conclude that, not only the so-called population assistance to third world countries but even the “development assistance” has been tailored first to serve the interests of the richest of the rich of this world.
USAID is the single biggest supporter and promoter of population control in Kenya. The programs it funds are implemented with an aggressive and elitist ruthlessness. In Kenya the target are always the poor and the illiterate who are pressured and tricked into using dangerous drugs which are often banned in the west, or who are sterilized during childbirth without either their knowledge or consent.
You in the media, those in the White House and many in the United States Congress continue to deny these facts. We in Kenya are a people like you who are entitled to the same human rights and dignity as yourselves, but our right to live a normal human existence is ignored by globalist decision makers. If the Funds you use to kill, maim, subjugate, dominate and break us to nothingness were used to cultivate our extraordinary resources, Kenya alone could feed more than half the African continent. Dear Americans, you cannot build your own security on the insecurity and degradation of others. You cannot build your own wealth on the poverty and destitution of people in the least developed nations.
“Maria Garcia”: I have witnessed many abuses
I am a medical professional who has worked in Mexican hospitals for several years. I am here today to tell you about the devastating results of U.S. family planning funding sent to Mexico. Here in the United States, family planning is voluntary. But in Mexico, it is often literally forced on vulnerable women. I have witnessed many abuses.
One common practice I have seen is coerced IUD insertion. This occurs when a woman is about to have a baby. When she comes to the hospital, she is separated from her husband. She is not allowed to see him from the time of the initial exam until she is discharged six hours after delivery.
At the time of her initial exam, doctors ask “Que vas a hacer para que no te embarasas otra vez?” “What are you going to do so you don’t become pregnant again?” If she answers, “I plan to have more children” or “I plan to use the Billings Ovulation Method,” this is not acceptable. The doctors will continue to harass her throughout her labor and delivery until she says that she agrees to use contraception or have a tubal ligation. If she say that she is willing to use contraception or have a tubal ligation, this is noted in her medical chart so that medical personnel can reinforce her statement throughout her stay.
If she says “I don’t know,” she is offered two choices: an intrauterine device, known as an IUD, or sterilization. No other options are given.
None of the risks and complications of these two methods are explained to her. Therefore the patient who agrees cannot be said to have given her “informed consent.”
The patient is also not asked her gynecological history. A history of repeated vaginal infections, multiple sex partners, etc., are contraindications to the use of an IUD. But since there is no history taken these women are given IUDs regardless.
If a woman refuses to submit to either an IUD insertion or a tubal ligation, a steady stream of medical personnel, including doctors, nurses, and even social workers, pressures her to choose one of the two options. This pressure steadily increases as the time of the delivery approaches.
All this pressure occurs at a time when the woman is extremely vulnerable. The pain of labor she is experiencing weakens her resistance. I have seen women refuse to accept an IUD or sterilization four or five times during early stages of labor, only to give in when the pain and the pressure becomes too intense. In this way the woman is subjected to a form of torture, without actually having to torture her.
Any women in the audience who have gone through labor will agree that this practice is inhuman. Labor is not the time to be coerced into making possibly irreversible decisions about childbearing, especially when the husband cannot participate.
The more children a woman has, the more she will be pressured to submit to sterilization. After the third child, the pressure to accept tubal ligation is very intense.
Why are the IUD and sterilization the only options offered to women? Because these are once-and-done procedures. They do not require the continuing voluntary participation of the women in question. No further visits to the doctor are required.
Now all of this is bad medical practice. IUDs pose many health risks, especially when they are inserted immediately post-partum. Here in the United States they are hardly used any more. If a woman wants one inserted, she must first be made aware of the risks and sign a document giving her informed consent. These risks have been well documented. They include chronic pain, infections, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, hemorrhaging, ectopic pregnancies, hysterectomy and even death.
The complaints of Mexican women suffering from IUD side effects are frequently ignored. Requests for removal are dismissed. Recently, a woman came to a clinic where I was working to ask that her IUD be removed. It had been inserted the previous month after the birth of her baby. The doctor in charge told her that the pain and abnormal bleeding that she was experiencing would disappear within several months. He refused to remove the IUD or even examine her. She came back the following week, begging to have it removed. I took it upon myself to remove it. Infection was already apparent. This woman is now faced with the possibility of further complications such as adhesions, pelvic inflammatory disease, or sterility—serious side effects that may not be discovered until later, if ever.
Women have also been refused medical treatment unless they allow themselves to be sterilized. I recently saw a pregnant woman with a painful umbilical hernia. When she came to the hospital to deliver her baby, she wanted her hernia fixed at the time of delivery. The attending doctor refused to fix the hernia unless she agreed to have a tubal ligation. In other words, the threat of withholding medical attention was used to coerce her assent. The woman insisted that her husband did not want her to be sterilized. The doctor replied that her husband would never know. This conversation occurred in the delivery room just minutes before her baby was born. Can you imagine her dilemma? Despite her desire for more children, she agreed to be sterilized in order to receive much-needed medical care.
What makes doctors and other medical personnel willing to violate women’s rights and engage in substandard medical practices? Because they risk losing their jobs if they don’t conform. Those who refuse to perform tubal ligations or involuntary IUD insertions are fired. Mexico’s family planning program may be reducing the country’s population growth rate, but it is doing so by abusing, coercing, and medically maltreating women during childbirth. Thank you.
Bernadette Ocampo: America is bringing abortion
Abortion is opposed by the vast majority of people in my country. It has always been illegal. The international population control movement is unhappy about this and is pushing for the legalization of abortion in the Philippines. It is also secretly performing abortions in my country.
We are being subjected to black propaganda paid for by US-funded population control groups to change attitudes in favor of abortion. There is an endless series of studies, surveys and conferences being funded by these groups. Their aim is to co-opt as many educational institutions and academic leaders as possible to drum up media support and public sympathy for the eventual legalization of abortion. Ramon Tagle, former national president of the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines, called FPOP for short, severed his ties with IPPF late last year because of their “hidden agenda” on abortion. Tagle said, “…the IPPF Vision 2000 and other papers make this agenda no longer hidden. IPPF wants to advocate safe (legal) abortion, which is contrary to our constitution.”1
Former FPOP Program Officer, Visitacion Clave, testifies that some FPOP staff performed abortions on Filipino women using FPOP facilities and IPPF resources. She even named a certain Dr. Gloria Ichon as one who regularly performs abortions for local show-business personalities. Also, in 1993, equipment known to be used for abortion namely, vacuum aspirator machines, were found in the stockroom of one FPOP clinic. Javier Montemayor, FPOP Executive Director, admitted that in the 80’s, FPOP had menstrual regulators. These are widely known in the medical profession as an abortive instrument. One former FPOP staffer also said, ‘“Abortion is common knowledge among the staff.”2
Now, where does the money for all this come from? USAID has declared that one of its strategic objectives in my country is “reduced fertility rate and improved maternal and child health”. But, of the 25 plus million dollars it spends on population and health. 22 million is for population activities, less than 3 million is for health services.3 Are you trying to help mothers in my country, or just stop them from having children?
Also, there is the problem of quotas. The population management program that has been developed by the United States and the Philippines employs a “performance-based management” system for delivering health care services. In conjunction with the Philippine Department of Health, USAID identifies certain local governments whose family planning activities are to be “accelerated.” “Yearly performance benchmarks” for family planning acceptors are then set for these areas. If local governments meet these quotas, USAID “releases” funds to them.4 Is this not a violation of the Cairo agreement, which forbids targets and quotas in population control programs?
Finally, the USAID’s social marketing program is aimed at convincing local pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors to push contraceptives on unsuspecting Filipinos. These manufacturers receive what is called “promotional assistance,” but is really free advertising.5 These advertising campaigns are especially aimed at the poorer classes, for the population controllers always believe that we have too many poor with us.
Population control can never solve poverty. Poverty is caused by unfair distribution of wealth and government corruption and inefficiency. Even if we reduced the number of Filipinos to only a hundred, some will always be poor as long as the wealth they create is controlled by a few.
I cannot believe that the majority of US taxpayers would support such unjust, undemocratic, even racist programs. If they only knew how they were being carried out. Please stop violating the national sovereignty of my country. Please stop undermining the cultural values of my people. Thank you.
Cecelia Bram: My experience with an IUD
On 30 August, 1995, I went to the Social Security Clinic No. 76 in Uruapan, Michoacan State. I was in labor with my last child.
As my daughter was born, the gynecologist, a woman, told me that I should get an operation so I wouldn’t have more children because they were too much and I answered that l wouldn’t get the operation because I didn’t want it. When I told her this she insisted, “Then what are you going to do in order to stop having children?” I answered, “Maybe my husband will get a vasectomy.” I said this so she would stop insisting that I have the operation.
The gynecologist didn’t say any more. And when they finished their work she told me, “Well, since you are not sure that your husband will get the operation (vasectomy) I have already inserted you with an IUD. You must return next month so we can check it out.” I asked her, “Why did you put it in if I have told you not to do it?” They didn’t answer. They didn’t pay attention, just told me to return in a month. But I haven’t returned to that clinic. That day I felt angry, disgusted wanting someone’s help because in the clinic they didn’t respect my decision. I told them that I would plan my family with the NFP method and they paid no attention to this.
