POP CONTROL AND AMERICAN CHILDREN
In 1980 the Population Institute (Pl), a Washington, D.C.-based population control organization funded by the United Nations, among others, spawned the Center for Population Options (CPO) to take over the adolescent sexuality programs of PI.1 The linchpin between the two organizations is Judith Senderowitz, founder and Executive Director of CPO. Ms. Senderowitz is also a Board member of International Projects Assistance Services, U.S. manufacturer/distributor of manual vacuum aspirators2 (see PRI Review, Vol. 1).
CPO SCHOOL-BASED CLINIC PROJECT
Under Ms. Senderowitz directorship, CPO has become the entrepreneur of the school-based clinic movement in the United States; providing training for social service bureaucrats and educators throughout the nation.
Although school-based clinics appear to be a major vehicle for population control efforts among the poor, in middle class areas where resistance occurs, clinics have been located in vocational high schools and described as serving parenting students who have returned to school. Clinic outreach services are provided by health personnel and educators, while plasticized cards advertising clinic services are circulated to students within that jurisdiction.
School health services, which under state laws include contraceptive distribution and/or prescription as well as abortion referral without parental permission for minors, are contracted between county public health offices and local education agencies. Such contracts can also be facilitated through the use of school nurses. There are no protections against the use of controversial drugs such as Norplant in these settings in order to address the problem of ‘teen pregnancy problems.’
CPO MEDIA PROJECT
In addition to school-based implementation of population control methods, CPO maintains a Media Advisory Committee which includes media professionals. They claim credit for affecting American sexual values through programming which includes episodes on Maude, All In The Family, James At Fifteen, Designing Women, Cagney and Lacey, and others.3
CPO also filed amicus briefs in abortion rights cases before the Supreme Court “arguing against the intrusion and delay of parental involvement laws.”4
COURT ORDERED NORPLANT IMPLANT
A California judge ordered a woman convicted of beating her children to have the recently approved Norplant subdermal implant inserted in her arm for three years. The judicial action activated public fears that governments here and abroad will coerce women to use Norplant or other surgically implanted drugs.5
The Food and Drug Administration approved the 5-year Norplant implant to curb fertility in December, 1990.6 Norplant, is a subdermal implant which releases progestin into the blood. It is recognized as an abortifacient since it “suppresses the cyclic development of the endometrium in over 50% of Norplant users.” Known side effects of the drug include amenorrhea, menstrual disturbances, transient ovarian cysts and difficulties in removal.7
The National Women’s Health Network (U.S.) has testified that it was premature to approve of Norplant due to lack of data on long-term safety. The other concerns voiced by the group included lack of trained personnel for surgical implantation in Third World countries, difficulty in obtaining removal of Norplant rods and the long term effects of the drug on lactating infants.8
POPULATION COUNCIL: NORPLANT
The Population Council, a New York-based international research organization, originated the technology for the Norplant subdermal implant. The work was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Development Research Centre of Canada, the Rockefeller Foundation and others.9
The Population Council routed its funding of Norplant research projects to Egypt, Kenya, Zambia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, the United States, China, Indonesia and Thailand. Within the United States, Norplant testing is being conducted at Los Angeles County Medical Center, University of Southern California (LAC/USC).10
LAC/USC is also the site of RU 486 testing conducted under the direction of abortionist Dr. David Grimes and was the defendant in a previous class action suit filed by Mexican American women relating to coerced sterilization.11
PERU: SHOCKING SEX-ED PROGRAM
A sex education booklet, distributed by a Peruvian woman’s group, Peru Mujer, and designed for eleven-fourteen year old students, encourages sexual experimentation by teenagers: “When you have sex for the first time it is a personal decision and no one can call a person good or bad for having sex … When one likes another person a lot, one wishes to touch and caress that person. Bodies are not divided in good and bad parts, you only have to think that the more intimate the caresses, the more desire you will have to have sex … If you are going to have sex and don’t wish to become pregnant, use a contraceptive method.”
“… If you want to have sex decide for yourself. If you don’t want to get pregnant, use a contraceptive method … In Peru there is still the prejudice that women should be virgins at the time of their marriage. However, a man who judges the value of his woman according to whether or not she has a thin veil called hymen at the entrance to her vagina is a machista. Your value as a woman and as a human being is the same with or without a hymen … To be a mother is not an obligation because we are women. Before being man or women we are people who can do with our lives what we want … Talk with someone you trust about contraception.”12
COLOMBIA VIOLENCE HURTS FAMILY PLANNING PROGRAM
This country’s unprecedented wave of violence is beginning to hurt Colombia’s family-planning program, one of the Third World’s biggest success stories in population control. Until recently, Colombia’s largest family planning group, Profamilia, would send vans with doctors and nurses to remote regions of the countryside, where the traveling physicians performed more than 10,000 sterilization operations a year. But over the past few months, Columbia’s war on drug traffickers and a resurgence of guerrilla violence have badly hurt Profamilia’s work in large regions of the country.
Profamilia is no longer sending its medical teams to central Colombia’s Magdalena Medio region, nor to the southern Caqueta and Putumayo States: “We have suspended our work there this year.”
Profamilia’s 32 vans are now confined to Bogota and other big cities, as well as violence-free regions in the interior, Sterilization operations by the group’s traveling teams have fallen by about 40 percent, Profamilia officials say.13
PHILIPPINES RESISTING POP CONTROL
Philippine Representative Tony Aquino led a panel discussion on legal and constitutional implications of the Philippine population program. Aquino attacked external interference in the Philippine population program and criticized the introduction of pro-contraceptive legislation in Congress.
Esperanza Dowling, formerly of the Population Commission Board, noted that contraceptive enterprises are a major revenue source for family planning agencies. They receive payments from foreign-controlled population-control agencies for each contraceptive acceptor.
Dr. Raphael Esmundo, executive director of the Department of Health (DOH) Family Planning Program, indicated contraception was “20 times safer than pregnancy.” He implied that the DOH views pregnancy as a health problem requiring government intervention. USAID presently funds the DOH Population Control Program with a $40 million five year outlay that provides for distribution of a wide range of contraceptive and abortifacient drugs and devices, most with potential adverse side effects.
Over a year ago, an investigation by Senator Lina into the drug Depo-Provera led to withdrawal of the abortifacient from the Philippine population program. Upjohn and USAID circumvented a US export ban of Depo-Provera by acquiring it from an Upjohn Belgium subsidiary. At the time, a Senior DOH official admitted to USAID pressure in the DOH population program. One of the major concerns over the use of Depo-Provera is its admitted potential for inducing limb reduction birth defects.14
STERILIZATION: NOTES FROM BRITAIN
Complications from sterilization include: of 131 sterilized, 24 required hysterectomy, and a further 11 women required dilatation and curettage, due to excess bleeding.15 Another study of 410 patients noted 90 (22%) later developed heavy bleeding and 49 (12%) required hysterectomy, while a further 21 (5.1%) required hysterectomy for other reasons.16
The 719 women from the Walnut Creek contraceptive study were seen 2–4 years after sterilization. Specific menstrual disorders were noted: abnormal cycles, adverse bleeding, moderate or severe large clots, moderate or severe intermenstrual bleeding, and moderate or severe cramps.17
Ectopic pregnancies account for 10% of maternal deaths and is a major cause of maternal death in the Western world.18 A threefold incidence in ectopic pregnancies was noted; in 1970 the incidence was 6.4 per 1000 pregnancies after excluding sterilized women. The incidence post-sterilization was 3.55.19
A study of 2234 women noted 4% incidence of ectopic and incidently a 4% increase following the mini-pill; 8 patients in both cases; 7 ectopic pregnancies and 9 uterine pregnancies occurred. The number of women admitted to hospital later were 81 (15 per 1000 women) for menstrual disorders; 47 (8.5 per 1000) for hysterectomy and 54 (9.8 per 1000) for dilatation and curettage.20
Endnotes
1 Bonnie Y. Holloway, MPA, “Sexuality Education by Youth Serving Agencies: An Evaluative Study of the Center for Population Options Program to Expand Sexuality Education in Cooperation with Youth Serving Agencies,” (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, 1980), p.1.
2 International Protects Assistance Services Annual Report 1989, p.27.
3 Judith Senderowitz at the National Council for International Health Meeting, Theme III, Plenary Session, Sept., 1990, “Media Protect of the Center for Population Options.”
4 Options, Vol. IV, No.1, (Wash., D. C., Center for Population Options Quarterly Newsletter, Spring 1990), p. 7.
5 Washington Post, January 5, 1991.
6 The New York Times, December 11, 1990.
7 Population Reports. Series K, Number 3, March-April 1897, p.K 58–87, at K60–1.
8 Testimony by Judy Norsigian of the National Women’s Health Network before the Fertility and Maternal Health Drugs Advisory Committee, April 27, 1999.
9 Mastroianna, Jr. L., Donaldson Peter J. & Kane Thomas T. Developing New Contraceptives, Obstacles and Opportunities, (Wash., D.C., National Academy Press, 1990), pp.63, 68.
10 The Population Council, Form 990, Internal Revenue Service.
11 David Grimes, “The Politics of RU-486,” at the National Abortions Rights Action League Conference, Washington, D.C., 1990; AAUW Journal, April 1976, p.23–6.
12 For You Who Are Growing, a publication of Peru Mujer.
13 Miami Herald, August 13, 1990.
14 Manila Standard, Friday, October 5, 1990.
15 Boyd E.M., Royal College of G.P.s, June 1987. “Post Tubal Syndrome; Muldoon M.I., British Medical Journal, 1972 1:84–95, “Gynaecological Illnesses Alter Sterilization”; De Stefana F. et al., American Journal of Obs/Gyn 1985, 152: 835–841, “Long Term Risk of Menstrual Disturbance After Tubal Sterilization.”
16 Vessey M., et al., British Journal of Obs/Gyn 1983. 90:203–9. “Tubal Sterilization: Findings of a Large Prospective Study.”
17 De Stefana F., et al., 1986, Obstetrical and Gynelogical Survey, 41, (1) 7–19.
18 Potts M. et al., “Long Term Risk.”
19 Fleet et al., British Journal of Ob/Gyn 95, “Ectopic Pregnancy in Aberdeen,” p. 740.
20 Vessey, “Tubal Sterilization.”
