Gratis to Nigeria from UNFPA
Lagos reports that the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) will provide Nigeria with about 35 million U.S. dollars to help finance population activities in that country, “the most populous in Africa,” during the 1992–1996 period.
Out of the amount, 11 million dollars will go to maternal and child health care and family planning, nine million to information, communication and education, eight million to women’s development and population dynamics and the rest would be earmarked for data collection, analysis and reserve.
The amount represents a 21 percent increase over that for the 1936–1990 period, according to a report published today by a local weekly (12/17 1018 Lagos XINHUA).
Poll Shows Danes Back Euthanasia
Most Danes want doctors to give incurably ill patients a lethal injection if they ask for it, according to an opinion poll.
The poll, carried out for the tabloid daily B.T., showed 57 percent of those questioned were in favor of active euthanasia for incurable illnesses, while 18 percent were opposed and 25 percent didn’t know.
Passive euthanasia, in the form of withholding treatment at a terminally ill patient’s request or uncoupling a respirator, is already legal in Denmark (Copenhagen, Reuter 12/27 0603).
CPO Opts for Teen Drug
The Center for Population Options (CPO), a population control group begun by the UN funded Population Institute in 1980, has opted to give Norplant to American teenagers in school-based clinics without parental permission (CPO Newsletter, Summer/Fall, 1991, p. 3). An avid foe of parental permission since its inception, CPO has become the school-based clinic entrepreneur in the United States. Most school-based clinics in the U.S. are located among minority groups in low economic areas. But on the chance that middle class parents could misunderstand, they must be warned that CPO’s goals are not limited to low economic areas. In middle class areas their strategy includes: advising participating doctors that they will enlarge their practice through access to student’s families; locating school-based clinics in vocational schools and circulating informational cards to all students within the school district; and referrals through school nurses in areas where clinics cannot be successfully located.
Nairobi Warning — CPO Is Coming!
The Center for Population Options operates internationally. CPO’s International Center on Adolescent Fertility (ICAF) claims to have been established in 1978. Since CPO itself was not begun until 1980, the ICAF began as part of the notorious Population Institute headed by Werner Fornos. The Population Institute is the major lobbyist for UNFPA funding in the U.S. Congress. The director of CPO, Judith Senderowitz, is also vice chairman of an organization which manufactures and distributes manual vacuum aspirators all over the world. CPO is currently active in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Peru and the Philippines.
Nairobi is CPO’s next target. A CPO adolescent sexuality conference, originally scheduled for January 28 in Nairobi, has been changed to late in March or the beginning of April. Population Research Institute will be sending packets of information to our Nairobi mailing list shortly.
Profit-Making in Contraceptive Sales
D.P. Hahmacher Associates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin advises clients on trends in “family planning.” “By 1992 Family Planning sales may total $500 million. Drugstores continue to dominate the market with a 68 percent share, more than twice as much as food and mass merchandisers combined. Family planning with an average 45 percent gross margin is a very profitable category.
“Condoms continue to generate the largest portion of family planning sales…New mothers are the most promising target…in the stable female contraceptive market.
“Build business by: create a total Family Planning Department located near feminine hygiene section to establish a professional atmosphere and neutralize some of the controversy surrounding condoms.
“Market size — $450 to $500 million, $Growth 6%, Estimated Gross Margin 45%” (D.P. Hamacher and Associates Inc. Department Outlook, 1992).
Mifepristone (RU 486) Approved in UK
Roussel’s abortifacient, mifepristone (Mifegyne), was approved in the United Kingdom on July 2nd. The product will be made available after staff have attended seminars on its use.
The drug will be made available for use within the terms of the Abortion Act 1967 in NHS hospitals and private clinics approved for the “termination of pregnancy.”
In France, mifepristone has been used in 80,000 abortions. “It is now used in more than half of the 793 clinical centres licensed under French law and accounts for 20% of all terminations,” according to Roussel (Products, “Mifepristone approved in the UK”).
Women Challenge Safety of RU 486
In a book titled Misconceptions, Myths and Morals, Janice G. Raymond, Renate Klein and Lynette J, Dumble from the Institute on Women and Technology (MIT), Cambridge, Massachusetts, have published information which challenges the safety of RU 486/Prostaglandin abortions.
“There are a host of conditions, contradictions and complications that expose the fallacy of the ‘safe and effective’ claims for RU 486/PG abortion .…
“Problems reported include possible effects on future fertility; severe cramping; vomiting; diarrhea; severe and prolonged bleeding, sometimes for months and sometimes requiring transfusions and/or emergency uterine evacuation; incomplete abortions and ongoing pregnancies; prolonged periods of “termination”; prolonged and extreme pain sometimes requiring opiate or narcotic analgesics by muscular injection; fever and infection; fainting; fatigue; mood change manifesting as irritability and depression; and negative effect on hypothalamus function.
Contraindications include age limitations of women, e.g., must be over 18; menstrual irregularities, endometriosis, previous abortion history, past multiple or ectopic pregnancies; prior use of IUDs or hormonal contraceptives; cervical incompetence; epilepsy; allergies including asthma; kidney adrenal insufficiency; kidney disease, gastro-intestinal disorders; liver disorders; pulmonary disorders; past steroid medication; anti-inflammatory medications; cardiovascular disorders; and obesity (Janice G. Raymond, Renate Klein and Lynette J. Dumble, Misconceptions, Myths and Morals, Institute on Women and Technology, c/o Rm. 3–405, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. 02139 USA, $10.95, p. 31–7).
U.S. Population Control Among Iowa Farmers
In a typical “controller” type reaction to problems, the U.S. government offered a $20,000 grant for vasectomies to Iowa farmers. The Des Moines Register reported, “Farmers may not get any more help from Washington, D.C. but at least 100 Iowans will receive a free vasectomy this year from Uncle Sam.”
The vasectomies were offered at several locations around the state to men “who meet certain income guidelines.” They were paid for by a grant from the Kansas City Missouri Public Health Service, to the Iowa Department of Health. “I think its a good program because of the high unemployment in the state of Iowa and because some people have lost their insurance benefits,” said Phyllis Blood, a program consultant in the Iowa Health Department. “We are hoping this will help them over their period of economic hardship” (Des Moines Register, 23 February 1985).
Bangladesh Women Refused Removal of Norplant
“The women in Lakhipur village of Gazaria upazilla in Bangladesh, who have had Norplant inserted in their arms, want to remove the method. But they are not allowed to do so by the doctors and family planning workers in the upazilla health centre.
“Presently in Bangladesh, it is being used in more than 20,000 women all over the country through 32 clinics as a trial programme. Two hundred women in this upazilla have been targeted to be brought into the trial of Norplant. Most of them have had the insert in their arms for 1 year, some for 2 years, and a few have recently had Norplant inserted by a doctor in the upazilla health centre.
“[Also] The women in Gazaria do not know that the method is on trial. They are not told anything beyond a few sentences, “This is a 5 year method; it is good for poor people because within the next 5 years there will not be any pregnancy — no children, which is good for you. Some of you may get too much bleeding, and some may get no menstruation at all — it all depends on Allah (God). This is nothing, it will be alright after awhile. Eat eggs and milk — you will be fine.
“The doctors…did not bother to tell the women that the method is on trial and what responsibilities the centre has towards the women under the trial. However, as the question of informed consent was raised earlier…the BFRP has taken up a new way of avoiding the responsibility…but it is not a serious problem, you will be alright” (Issues in Reproductive and Generic Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 1, “’The Price of Norplant is TK 2000! You Cannot Remove It.’ Clients Are Refused Removal In Norplant Trial In Bangladesh,” pp. 45–46, 1991).
Population Crisis Committee OK’s Coercion
In the cultured, elitist tones of ‘those who know,’ Sharon L. Camp, Ph.D., vice president of the Population Crisis Committee, delivered a funereal assessment of Third World populations. “I asked what level of infection rate it would take,” she said airily, “for AIDS to increase death rates to equal birth rates in Africa today — which are very high — not,” she moued, “that I would propose doing that by any means — But just to get a sense of what the rising mortality of AIDS would be. The answer was 50 percent of all the urban worlds men and women, adults and children!”
And on China’s coerced abortion and sterilization program…
“It is clear to me that the Chinese in many areas of China are able to put enormous pressure on a woman who is pregnant out of turn essentially — and her family and her group to terminate that pregnancy — I am not at all convinced that there is widespread physical coercion in the Chinese program — And yet visiting Sichuan I do have to ask myself if they have any other choice but to implement a strong program!” (13 December 1991, Diane Rehm Show, WAMU, emphasis added)
The China Model — at the Miami Women’s Congress
She was a tiny woman, petite and feminine, but she spoke with a strength and conviction hardened by the tragedy of her people. Chukie Wangdu from the Tibetan Women’s Association, drew attention to major human rights violations and ecological destruction carried out by China in occupied Tibet. Among the outrages she described were “the forced abortions and sterilizations of Tibetan women, violent infanticides, the torture of prisoners of conscience, indiscriminate deforestation and dumping of nuclear wastes.” The UN population-controllers could not have welcomed this statement. After all, like Sharon Camp, they base their programs on the “China Model.”
