UNICEF and Colombian Abortion Lies
Now it is little Colombia (estimated 1990 population about 33 million) which is the latest target of the fanatical pro-abortionists in their campaign to legalize abortion everywhere on earth.
The March 17th El Tiempo, published in Bogotá, Colombia, in an article written by reporter Alejandro Santos Rubino, claimed that “about 45,000 women a year might die in [Colombia] due to botched abortions.” As in similar claims about Brazil and Mexico (see Popcorn, PRI Review, vol. l, nos, 1–3 and vol. 3, no. 2; also see Dr. Geraldo Hideu Osanai, “Brasilia,” PRI Review, vol. 2, no. 2), the Colombian abortion death figures are just sheer nonsense and demonstrably impossible.
According to Señor Rubino, Colombia’s abortion death figure was based on “studies performed by UNICEF,” and he explicitly cited the “statistics of UNICEF” as his source.
This writer contacted UNICEF’s headquarters at the UN in New York, and spoke at some length with Mr. Orlando Lugo at UNICEF’s Americas Desk. Mr. Lugo never heard of any UNICEF “abortion studies” anywhere in the world, and he referred me to Dr. Guillermo Varela, UNICEF’s resident health officer in Bogota for further information.
Dr. Varela flatly stated that “the Colombian abortion death figures allegedly produced by UNICEF definitely did not originate at UNICEF,” explaining that “UNICEF has never undertaken any studies into that matter.”
Dr, Valera was “appalled” and quite upset that someone had used UNICEF’s name and “falsely attributed” abortion propaganda to UNICEF. He promised to take the matter up with the editors and reporters of El Tiempo and get back to the Population Research Institute with their explanation.
According to the 1990 World Health Statistics Annual, 1965 Colombian women of reproductive age (15–45 yrs.) died from all causes (134–5), including 148 from abortion (136) in 1984, the latest year available.
Since the World Health Organization estimates the “completeness and reliability” of Colombia’s death registration figures at 80% (p xv), correcting for the indicated undercount places the total number of deaths of Colombian women of reproductive age at some 10,000 annually with perhaps 200 of them due to abortion. But abortion propagandists claim 45,000 Colombian women die yearly from botched, illegal abortions!
Population Explosion
A rather simplistic “college-level” textbook, Social Problems, published by Harper Collins, began its chapter on population thus: “The world’s population is exploding. The number of men, women and children is now over 5 billion…If the current rate of growth continues, the world’s population will double again in the next 40 years…The dangers of runaway population growth can be seen in historical perspective…It took all of human history until 1800 for the world’s population to reach 1 billion people. But the next…1 billion was added in only 130 years (1800–1930), [the next billion] after that in 30 years (1930–1960), and the next in 15 years (1960–1975). The last billion people were added in only 12 years (1975–1987).”
And then came the startling conclusion: “If this trend continues the world will soon be adding a billion people a year, and eventually every month” (Coleman & Cressey, Social Problems, 4th ed., 1990, Chapter 17, Population, 487).
Since all the major overpopulation alarmists agree that the world’s population is increasing by some 90–100 million per year — and predict such numbers will continue into the foreseeable future — there is no chance whatever that the world will “soon be adding a billion…[per] year,” much less each month. Whatever the text’s definition of “soon,” its population growth prediction is simply pure science fiction.
Pumping Up Nigeria’s Population
As detailed in Popcorn (PRI Review, vol. 2, no. 3, May/June 1992), Nigeria’s 1991 census total of some 88.5 million people came as quite a shocking embarrassment to most overpopulation propagandists who had been glibly prattling on about a population 25–35 million larger.
Although the census was the most thorough and accurate count in the nation’s history, and was widely accepted by the general populace and international observers, some populationists just won’t abide it (Popcorn, PRI Review, vol. 2, no. 6, Nov/Dec 1992).
The most prestigious of these is the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Development (DESD), the statistical division of which has just released its Population and Vital Statistics (PVS) Report (series A, vol. XLV, no. 1, data of I January 1993), which all but ignored the 1991 Nigerian census.
According to PVS, the “mid-year 1991” estimate of Nigeria’s population was 112,163,000, as determined by the Population Division of the United Nations Secretariat. A “technical1 note” appended to the UN number indicated the figure was arrived at “through adjustment by assumed rate of population increase.”
Similarly, DESD’s World Population 1992 chart, issued July 1992, some four months after the release of Nigeria’s census figures, lists Nigeria’s mid-year 1992 population at 115,664,000, indicating a growth rate of more than 3.1% during the past year. Just like old times!
