Population Group Opposes Family Planning Funding
For Immediate Release
February 10, 1997
Contact Scott Weinberg
(540) 622-5240
FALLS CHURCH, VA – Steven W. Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute (PRI), today urged Congress to block the Administration’s request to release funds for international population control programs.
“The Rockefeller Foundation, the Population Council and the Alan Guttmacher Institute have provided the U.S. government with reports whose conclusions are based upon faulty assumptions, statistics and research methods,” said Mosher. “It is therefore inevitable that President Clinton’s Finding would reflect these fundamental errors when reaching its conclusion that USAID population control funding should be released early. Furthermore, given the millions of U.S. taxpayer funds these groups receive annually, the notion that they might address these issues objectively strains credulity.”
At a Washington, DC news conference, Mosher released a PRI research report attacking the Clinton Administration’s support for international population control measures. The report title, “Innocents Betrayed: A Side of Family Planning the White House Does Not Discuss,” refutes the recent Presidential Finding. The following points summarize the PRI report.
Reallocation of USAID population funding to authentic economic development would save the lives of thousands of women and children.
Population control programs are actually detrimental to the countries listed in the President’s finding.
The USAID population control programs appear motivated by safeguarding US economic interests, not the health and safety of the women and young children of developing countries.
USAID funds help promote abortion throughout the developing world, by funding abortion organizations such as the International Planned Parenthood (IPPF).
The President’s Finding uses outdated population projections to reach its conclusions.
“The American people have no idea of the ways in which their tax dollars are being used around the world-often coercively-to impose western cultural mores on people of developing nations,” Mosher added. “This money will provide 50 million condoms, a half million IUDs and nearly million sets of birth control pills, when what is really needed by our third world neighbors is assistance with authentic development in the form of basic medical supplies, antibiotics, is assistance with developing modern agricultural techniques and ways to provide clean water.”
Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) and Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) also appeared at today’s news conference to denounce the President’s Finding, and made clear their intention to lead the effort in the Senate and House to block the President’s request for expedited funding.
In addition, representatives from Mexico, Africa and the Philippines provided specific examples of the nefarious ways in which population control measures have been implemented in their countries. Dr. Stephen Karanja of Kenya stated that his country is in dire need of basic drugs such as penicillin, while huge stockpiles of contraceptive drugs and devices are readily available. Two women from Mexico, Gracelia Hilario de Rangel and Cecilia Bram Anguiano, testified that they were inserted with IUDs against their will.
The Population Research Institute recommends the formation of an independent commission to reassess the rationale, efficacy and impact of population control spending, as compared with other forms of foreign aid.
