What is Wrong With the UN Population Fund?

Why shouldn't the U.S. fund the population controllers at the United Nations, as Huffington Post columnist Cristina Page proposes? (See "The Pro-Lie Movement Targets Hillary," 2 December 2008). The short answer is that the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) is implicated in some of the most coercive anti-people campaigns in the world today.

Started in 1969 following a massive lobbying effort by billionaire John D. Rockefeller III, the UNFPA claims to work to "reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect." In fact, the UNFPA, like its founder, believes that the way to reduce poverty is to reduce the numbers of the poor through sterilization, contraception, and abortion campaigns.

We know. We have conducted repeated investigations of UNFPA operations around the world. We have found that, despite its soothing rhetoric about improving "reproductive health," and "safe motherhood" ― the UNFPA spends a huge chunk of its budget on soporific propaganda -- the agency continues to be fixated on the numbers. We have documented its involvement in coercive population control policies in countries like China, Vietnam, Peru, and North Korea, as well as in refugee camps around the world.

Its intimate connection to China's brutal one-child policy merits special attention. For three long decades, the Chinese government has aborted and sterilized millions of women each year. For three long decades, the UNFPA has provided financial aid, ideological encouragement, and international sanction to these abuses through its offices in Beijing and around the Chinese countryside. This shameless pattern of complicity in some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet is the chief reason why the Bush administration, for seven years running, has refused to fund the UN agency.

We at PRI have hard evidence on the UNFPA's involvement in coercion ― videotapes, cassette tapes, written and spoken testimony from dozens of witnesses. Our information was verified by the U.S. State Department, and is accessible on our web site, as well as in our new video series: Exposure: Investigative Realism from PRI. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, who in the past has been friendly towards the UNFPA, declared the UNFPA ineligible for U.S. funding because of its complicity in forced abortion and forced sterilization.

Now, none of this matters to the radical base of the population control movement, which remains determined to shovel as many U.S. tax dollars into the UNFPA maw as possible. Cristina Page went so far as to call us lunatics for daring to challenge the UNFPA's programs:

Just when UNFPA was succeeding in proving to the Chinese the one-child policy was not only inhumane but also ineffective, PRI swooped in with its claims of complicity. Bush, eager to lock lips with his fanatical base, ignored the advice of his own state department, as well as many allied nations, and opted to go with the swirly eyed lunacy of the six staffers of PRI. At their request, Bush quickly froze all U.S. funds to UNFPA, which represented 12 percent of its budget.

Like other population control hardliners, Ms. Page does not attempt to refute our evidence. Instead, she mindlessly recites the UNFPA's party line. Does anyone really that the UNFPA is "succeeding"―after three long decades―in bringing an end to a policy that the Chinese government proudly proclaims will persist until 2050? Her claim that Bush ignored the advice of his state department is likewise a fantasy. What Colin Powell, Bush's first Secretary of State, actually said was: "Stop the Funding."

Ms. Page has no real arguments to make against us, which is probably why she resorts to sandlot slurs. But we stand by our research and our findings. And we remain firmly convinced that the UN Population Fund serves no useful purpose, and should be abolished.

The population control programs of the past half-century, born in the dark fear of "the unchecked growth in human numbers," have been a quiet but profound disaster for the poor and marginalized half of humanity. Hundreds of millions of poor women (and men) have had their fundamental rights--i.e., to control their own reproductive systems and to determine the number and spacing of their children--grossly violated. An even larger number have had their overall wellbeing compromised as resources have been drained away from primary health care programs, with some succumbing to HIV/AIDS and other epidemics. While the cost of such programs in terms of human lives and suffering has been all too real, the promised benefits have proven largely illusory. Is the U.S. more secure, the global environment better protected, and the world wealthier today because of population control programs? Are the poor better off? The evidence suggests not.

The idea of controlling human fertility "for the good of the state and its people," as Beijing is fond of saying, is a 20th century anachronism. It deserves to be as thoroughly discredited as Marxist-Leninism, and for the same reason: It is at heart a philosophy of state coercion. In its more extreme manifestations in China and elsewhere, it has given rise to terror campaigns. But even in its mildest guises, it encourages a technocratic paternalism that effectively subjugates individual and familial fertility desires to the wishes of the state.

The U.S. should not only continue to avoid funding the U.N. Population Fund, it should withdraw entirely from the organization. As far as the UNFPA itself, this creation of Rockefeller and his cronies should be shut down. Whatever legitimate health functions it performs can be transferred to the World Health Organization, UNICEF, or other international organizations. Some small programs, like that instituted to address the problem of obstetric fistula, may be worth saving. Others are Potemkin facades erected to con critics and deceive women.

We―and the women of China, Vietnam, North Korea, etc.―are not fooled.

Related: Cristina Page Responds

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute, and the author of Population Control: Real Costs and Illusory Benefits (Transaction, 2008)

Comments

[JohnSawyer]

The article stell links to earlier (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/africa-is-no-more-overpop_b_107010.html), is worth reading. But I still wouldn't say overpopulation in general is a racist myth (minus the exceptions in the article stell links to)--overpopulation, at the moment, does occur in specific areas all over the world, where people crowd together too densely compared to the facilities available, as well as in a few smaller countries (as leojohn earlier points out) where there aren't enough places to go where relief can be found, making available land for farming tight. Often, "overpopulated" is a matter of how a location manages the number of people living there, and its resources and facilities--for instance, many comfortable Western cities have a population density equal to or greater than other areas of the world which are traditionally thought of as overpopulated. So it's sometimes the lack of services, proper housing, methods for making a living, etc. that makes some people brand such areas as "overpopulated". But building up (both physically and quality-wise) to make denser populations livable, has its limits--I've lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 28 years, and though most of it is great, sometimes I find myself a little irritated at how many people we're all surrounded by here.

(continued)

[JohnSawyer]

(continued from above)

And though larger countries (like the US) may technically have sparsely populated areas that could take the burden off their more densely populated areas, there are reasons why many of those areas aren't populated--geography, remoteness, weather, and yes, natural beauty, hence making population control more desirable for some areas and countries. And in countries like India and China, where contraception hasn't been used much in the past--if that practice were to continue, the population from border to border will soon be too high for any affordable, accelerated "building up" program to be able to keep pace with it, resulting in even more population-related problems than they already have.

And none of these points addresses the frankly more important issue of the planet's resource's ability to sustain a larger population.

So where it's properly implemented, population control is useful. It's best to let each country manage its own population control programs, though there the dominant ethnic group could still target minorities. At the very least, people need access to contraception and education about it, so they can make their own choices.

[MyTake]

Perhaps we should examine what happened in WWII and its impact on population growth. With the horror and stress experienced by the populations involved directly and indirectly in that war, it was that stress and fear of extinction that biologically caused humans to evolve the species.

Post war saw the rise of the baby boom population. In the U.S. alone, 79 million babies were born between 1946 and 1964. Peak births reached 4 million + in two of those years during that period. Those baby boomers are now moving into retirement and old age at this time. The other G7 countries experienced similar population growth figures in comparison.

When that baby boom population dies off, there will be a population shortage in the G7 countries and they will fill the void through immigration.

Now, our population controllers outside government as talked about in this article, drove up inflation in the 70-80's to curb population growth given that baby boomer dynamic.

So when the 79 million baby boomers pass on in the U.S., what are you going to do with all that food that they would normally consume?

There is a simple male solution to global population control. A single male can sire only two offspring and then be required by law to submit to a vasectomy! With DNA testing of blood, that provision is easily enforced regardless of country.

[jake106]

Uh... yeah. You had me up to your simple male solution. I mean really, you are going to try to enforce vasectomies around the world? Really? You don't think you will get shot? We have to come up with a better plan. And in fact, it is already happening. Birth rates are down world-wide, especially in the industrial nations. Populations are shrinking all over the EU. Rather than trying to enforce population control at the point of a gun, which is what your plan would require, we need to create incentives to all levels of society to handle it on their own.

[MyTake]

Perhaps this site: http://www.my-vasectomy.com/01-me.htm will lighten you up a bit -- no guns involved!

[Endangered]

I agree that coercive policies are often ineffectual and have negative outcomes, but that in no way negates the fact that the planet's population has already surpassed sustainability levels. The reproductively incontinent live in a culture of self-congratulation, egotism and narcissism which makes it virtually impossible for them to admit their role in vanishing resources, disappearing forests, endangered species, etc. etc. Their solutions are endless rounds of belt tightening and some, as yet undefined, scientific panacea. They point to the green revolution of the 20th century as an example of how we can address global problems, never mind that the single greatest factor in increased food production was new land (forests) being cleared to produce crops. To avoid ethical and moral responsibility they're willing to pin the futures of their own families on yet another pyramid scheme. Global overpopulation now endangers the lives of every living thing on the planet and it is obvious that we're already experiencing the effects.

The solution is first to admit that we're overpopulated. The tolerances are actually pretty small and we know that things like women's rights and education about population alone can tip the balance. Unfortunately many of those responsible for overpopulating the planet are so drunk with their own egos they'd rather endanger the future of their offspring than admit they're the problem. And it's inconceivable to them that their 'pure intentions' could have have such heinous outcomes.

[Skepticat]

Back in 1800 the world human population was 700,000,000. Today 208 years later the world population is around 7 billion - a ten fold growth rate and still climbing. This is not sustainable. As much as humans like to pretend they are special beings they still depend on the same life processes, same biomass, and same ecology as the rest of the planet's life forms. If people don't fight "heir pollution" and limit population growth voluntarily - the planet's limited resources will do the limiting instead, and it won't be pretty.

[bioluminescence]

There are no food problems. There are food distribution problems. There are no wealth problems. There are wealth distribution problems. The wealthiest 2 per cent of the world own more than 50 per cent of its wealth. The poorest 50 per cent own just 1 per cent. Concentration of wealth is the world's greatest problem.

[MyTake]

Very good point.

[beyobi]

What kind of suffering and poverty will we be dealing with in a world populated by 12 billion people? All of the problems we face are a direct result of overpopulation. I don't think this is what God had in mind when he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Too many people. Not enough planet.

[stell]

"Overpopulation" is a racist myth. You will never hear about the West being overpopulated. Instead you will hear the pope encouraging Europeans to have more children, and people in this country have built a political movement based on being anti-abortion and anti-contraception. What do they fear may happen?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/georgianne-nienaber/africa-is-no-more-overpop_b_107010.html

[leojohn]

It is not a myth. I have been living in developing and developed countries. Europe have population growth rate under replacement level and that is why they need more children. In addition, the total population in European countries is also much less than China or India by itself.

One of the main causes of poverty, poor health, high child and maternal mortality and high illiterate in developing countries is because of having too many children. You should go there and see. China has 1.4 billion; India has 1 billion; Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam. There are just too many people trying to survive in a small land. They don"t have land for agricultural activities.

There are many debates about China one child policy and many hate this policy even me. But we can"t say that population control is not necessary. It"s necessary and Mr. Mosher just cannot include many countries that have 2-child policy or have abortions services available. We know contraception is the best but we must understand that people fail sometime, especially young people. And in many poor countries, people are not educated enough to know how to use contraception. What we should do when we wait for educational level to be improved? Just have children naturally like rats? Hell NO!!!

[MyTake]

Tell me, what have you got against the female human being and compare their child bearing to that of rats?

The problem with population control is that you cannot limit the male to siring only 2 offspring.

Birth control methods of the female population is just profit for the pharmaceutical cartel run by males. Advocates of population control such as Rockefeller and Kissinger (see his recently declassified National Security document from 1974) don't see themselves haing just 2 kids and then heading into a doctor's office for a VASECTOMY. The above noted Rockefeller fathered 5 sons (he wasn't much concerned about population control there, was he!).

I sought out a vasectomy for myself and it took less than an hour of my time. So when you talk about population control, go after the male side and leave the female side alone and the world population will be just fine thereafter.

[colleen2]

It's unfortunate that Mr Mosher fails to acknowledge that the Population Research Institute is a right wing, anti-choice think tank dedicated to overcoming "the myth of overpopulation".

[MarkInEugene]

Yes...exactly right!

[JohnSawyer]

Wait, there's more:

Page's article has the most telling quote from a 2003 article written by Mosher:
(http://lifeissues.net/writers/mos/mos_12abortionjihadiraq.html)

"If we Americans behave in Iraq as we behave in other countries, upon Baghdad's surrender we will fly in teams of population controllers and 'gender advisors.' They will inaugurate programs which will subject Iraqi children, especially girls, to graphic sex education programs. They will stock Iraqi medical clinics with condoms and contraceptives...It gets worse. The gender advisors (this is what they are really called), will provide assertiveness training to Iraqi women, urging them out of the home into the marketplace. They will organize special courses (reserved for women of course) in which they are urged to run for public office and start their own businesses."

This might have been a cultural error if Iraq was a largely fundamentalist Muslim country, but it's not.

It would also be interesting to know if UNFPA actually did any of these things in Iraq, or if this was more of Mosher's imagination.

[JohnSawyer]

The link at the bottom of Mosher's article, labeled "Christina Page responds" (www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/the-dissembler_b_154826.html), will give you a good idea where Mosher is REALLY coming from. He's not just anti-abortion--he's anti-contraception, and anti-family planning. He has nine kids, and encourages others to have large families.

Page explains that Mosher and PNI have been telling some fibs to try to portray UNFPA as pro-abortion--in fact, UNFPA's website's FAQ page states: "UNFPA does not support or promote abortion as a method of family planning." (www.unfpa.org/about/faqs.htm#abortion)

It's odd that Mosher would try to blame UNFPA for an increase in AIDS in some countries, by reasoning that funding that goes to UNFPA, including funding condoms, should have gone to fund anti-AIDS programs--when in fact, contraception using condoms has long been established as a key method to slow the spread of AIDS.

Then there's the hypocritical line in his article above, which is bizarre given his attack on an agency trying to provide contraception and family planning education:
"Hundreds of millions of poor women (and men) have had their fundamental rights--i.e., to control their own reproductive systems and to determine the number and spacing of their children--grossly violated."

All of which still leaves me wondering, if he's so concerned about China and its massive population, why is he encouraging putting an end to population control in China?

[CaptainVideo]

WE WON AND YOU LOST. WITH OBAMA AS PRESIDENT, YOUR ABILITY TO INFLUENCE U.S. GOVERNMENT POLICY ARE OVER.

LOSER!

[CaptainVideo]

Contraception is the most effective way to reduce the number of abortions.

It is also an absolutely necessary condition for eliminating poverty.

Every child should be a wanted child.

[JohnSawyer]

I'm trying to square Mr. Mosher's position for ending China's current form of birth control, with the subjects of his books (see sidebar to the right), in which he warns against China's desire to be the world's sole superpower. In his nonfiction book, "Hegemon", he mentions China's enormous population, and leaves it at that, implying that the numbers speak for themselves--the more Chinese, the more of a threat they are. So in his article here on Huff, is he trying to say, subrosa, that he doesn't disagree with population control, but that it shouldn't be in the restrictive form that China enforces? Is he trying to advocate contraception and family planning techniques, without coming right out and saying so, because that would put him at odds with the policies of his institute?

[ClydeMan]

Hmmmm... Planed Parenthood in this country is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundations, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Makes you wonder what they are really doing in Africa?

[mulegino]

The history of Planned Parenthood (that is the history that is not reported) is that of a racist, eugenicist, xenophobic and white supremacist organization, founded on notions of anglo-saxon "race purity", in favor of state sponsored forced sterilization of blacks, and those deemed "human weeds" by the likes of Maggie Sanger and her ilk.
None other than Ernst Rudin, the chief eugenecist of the Third Reich, published articles praising coercive, state sponsored "family planning" in the pages of the Birth Control Review, the flagship publication of the Birth Control League (which became Planned Parenthood), and there was qute a mutual admiration society between Hitler and American "eugenics" (before Nazism became unfashionable in the U.S.). Why else would Prescott Bush be on the board of directors?

[MyTake]

Finally, a good piece of logic has struck this thread!

[CaptainVideo]

Fighting poverty.

[fakir]

i would just like to quote gandhi here " the world has enough for everyone's needs, but not everyone's greed'. while we can blithely talk of undermining people's right to the family size of their choice- a right that is as fundamental as the one one has to one's own body, no one talks of reducing the 'right' to consume and destroy the world of it's resources. in this dept. the US takes the cake. an average US citizen consumes 30 times or more the average consumption of a south-asian. a reduction of one US citizen is thus equivalent to 30 less 'dependants' on mother earth. any takers for such a solution?

[octo]

That's an excellent point also. As Paul Ehrlich, one of the strongest proponents of population control for the last 30 years, has said, 'its not that there's too many people on the planet, its that there's too many RICH people on the planet'.

Having said that though, don't you think that not alone are we entitled to have a family of whatever size we want, but that all of these children are entitled to education, employment, healthcare, and the expectation of a reasonably long life into a comfortable old age? Mightn't these two sets of rights be competing with each other, and shouldn't the latter have priority?

[alex76]

I find your comment off topic. People in South Asia consume less because they are poor. That"s why we are finding ways to give these people a better life and to fight for poverty. We need to succeed many goals and one of which is to have the number of children that we can be able to raise with good education and good health care. Population growth rates in these courtiers were 4, 5% and are still high now. Child mortality rates are also strikingly high. Literature rate is low. It"s sad that people still don"t recognize those issues.

[stell]

Interesting points. Ghandi also said that poverty is the worst form of violence.