With all due respect, Rep. Joseph Pitts’ (R-Pa) attempt to move $100 million from one section of the Foreign Aid bill to another lacks constitutional authority (Review, Sep/Oct, 1997). Sure, the money shouldn’t go for population control, but neither can it lawfully be spent for “child survival” either. (We as individuals are free to donate to that worthy cause.)
Congress’ job description is spelled out in Art. l. Sec 8 of’ the Constitution that grants it certain enumerated powers only. Foreign aid is not one of them, though it could be by amendment of the people so desired.
Folks, read Art. 1, Sec. 8 sometime; it’s not that long. Send a copy to your representative and senators. Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic is not going to get us out of the mess we are in.
Emerson Ellet
Ocean, NJ.
Editors’ reply: Mr. Ellet’s position would interest us more if PRI’s raison d’être were to “get us out of the mess we are in.” In fact it is not. Legions of scholars, lawyers and just plain voters will likely debate the general constitutionality of Foreign Aid programs for many years – but that debate is not our primary concern at PRI. Eliminating population control programs around the world is one of our chief preoccupations, and if a US representative wishes to move some money away from such pernicious programs and into ones which do more good what can we do but applaud him?
Sterilization in Puerto Rico
I just got my first issue of First Things. Flipping through the pages I noticed your ad on page 37. Please send me a free sample copy of PRI Review . Here in Puerto Rico sterilization is accepted as a sort of “Rite of Passage” to “Senoriahood” so to speak, they say: “An operated (sterilized) woman is a happy woman.” Forty percent of the women are sterilized. And it doesn’t reduce the population either. I know of a man with 18 kids, another with 23 kids. What they do is go from woman to woman, getting them pregnant with two or three kids and then sterilizing them. The so-called liberals require the signatures of these men before they will “operate” their women. These crimes against women and children are aided and abetted by you US taxpayers and the three “democratic” parties in Puerto Rico. All three of these parties are affiliated with the Democratic Party of the USA. The Nationalists do oppose it but they are a small minority, Patriots.
Michael Campbell,
Puerto Rico.
Implants broke apart!
I am having a very hard time in having Norplant implants removed. My doctor was able to remove 4 1/2 of the 6 implants, (with great difficulty.) They broke into pieces and shifted over the five years they have been in. They can not find the remaining l and 1/2 pieces. They used ultrasound equipment and closely examined the area (for 30 minutes). My doctor is not sure how to proceed. Do you have any suggestions? I am so disappointed in how hard this procedure has been. The tenderness and bruising is intense. Now I have to go back for a third time to try something else to find the remaining implants. If you have any information that might help me I would appreciate you sending it on.
R. Grant
Via the internet.
Carbon copy from PRI
Editors
The Village Voice Online
via Email
I suppose congratulations are in order to Peter Kostmayer and Zero Population Growth (ZPG) for finally admitting that the population control movement has a “dark underside” [Billionaire Boys Cause, 1 October 1997]. Honesty compels me to point out, however, that Kostmayer’s admission only reiterates what the Population Research Institute has been saying for years.
It has been PRI, not ZPG, which has investigated, researched and exposed population control abuses across the developing world. We are the ones who have publicized, as widely as possible, the facts of coercive sterilization programs, abandoned baby girls in China, and the use of acid to burn women’s wombs. Further, we have pointed out and documented that such abuses are not extraordinary but have characterized the movement from the beginning. On these matters ZPG and other population control advocates have remained until now, unsurprisingly, silent. We will of course be interested to see whether ZPG follows up on Kostmayer’s frank admissions with action to curtail such abuse. Hope, after all, can spring eternal.
As for PRI being characterized as a “xenophobic hate group” we can only counter by inviting the general public to read our publications and visit our website [www.pop.org], as I wish Mr. Goetz had done before he wrote his article. Nothing contained therein is in any way “xenophobic” or “hate” filled and we will rely on the average visitor’s intelligence and common sense to judge our work.
David Morrison
