No Funds for Marie Stopes International
The Bush administration announced that it was ending funding for an AIDS program for African and Asian refugees since one of the organizations involved in the program, Marie Stopes International, is a partner with UNFPA in China. UNFPA is involved in forced abortion and sterilization in China. Under the Kemp-Kasten amendment, no U.S. funds may go to organizations participating in forced abortion programs.
Mario Stopes is one of seven organizations, known as the Reproductive Health for Refugees Consortium, receiving funding from the U.S. for its AIDS program. The State Department gave $1 million for the first year’s grant to the consortium, and agreed to fund the remainder of the program if the other organizations would discontinue their partnership with Marie Stopes. The other six organizations, which include CARE, the American Refugee Committee, and John Snow International, refused the money.
Earlier this year, PRI uncovered that a Marie Stopes clinic in Kenya was performing illegal manual vacuum aspirator abortions under the guise of menstrual regulation. (Rachel Swarns, “U.S. Cuts Off Financing for AIDS Program, Provoking Furor,” New York Times, 26 August 2003; Steve Mosher, “Getting Around the Law; Covert Abortions in Kenya, and U.S. AIDS Relief,” PRI Weekly Briefing, 4 April 2003)
Mexico City Policy
President George W. Bush issued an executive order on August 29 expanding the Mexico City Policy. The Mexico City Policy restricts funds from going from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to organizations which perform or actively promote abortions overseas. The new executive order expands the Mexico City Policy to include family planning funds distributed outside of USAID. It does not apply to the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003.
(White House Memorandum, Subject: Assistance for Voluntary Population Planning, 29 August 2003)
More Babies Please
South Korea’s birth rate has fallen to an astonishingly low 1.17, far below the 2.1 needed to replace the population. There were only 495,000 babies born in South Korea last year; 62,000 fewer than 2001, and less than half the one million births in 1970.
Birth rates throughout Asia are low. Singapore has a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.5, Thailand’s is 1.9, Taiwan’s TFR has fallen to 1.4, and Japan’s to 1.3. According to the East-West Center, a pro-population control organization in Hawaii, these low rates are caused by, “possibly the best run [family planning programs] of any kind in the world.”
But now that fertility rates have fallen so far so fast, governments are rethinking their promotion of population control. Families in Singapore and Japan are given financial incentives to have more children, The Taiwanese government is telling couples, “three children are not too many.”
So far, South Korea has not adopted programs to promote birth rate increases. And when they do, it may he too little too late. Once families are convinced that children are a burden, it is difficult to change their minds.
(Patrick Goodenough, “Asian Fertility Decline Reflects Changing Lifestyles,” CNSNews.com, 2 September 2003)
UN Warns of Population Decline
Demographers from around the world, meeting recently in Berlin, have warned that low fertility rates are leading to population aging and eventual population decline. At present seven percent of the world is aged 65 or older. The United Nations expects that this number will grow to 16 percent by the year 2050. U.N. Population Division director Joseph Chamie reminded participants at the International Statistical Institute that, “you cannot ignore demographics.” Birth rates have fallen below replacement level in many countries around the world, including developing nations such as Iran and Brazil.
While the United Nations Population Division warns of coming demographic decline, other branches of the United Nations, including the U.N. Population Fund and UNICEF, are still promoting population control as the answer to all the world’s problems.
(Emma Thomasson, “World ignoring population woes, demographers warn,” Reuters, 15 August 2003, referenced in LifeSiteNews.com, 21 August 2003)
