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SOME HAVE
BABIES; OTHERS, REGRETS!
(Part 8)
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Philip P. Eapen |
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Author's webpage:
http://philip.eapen.googlepages.com
THE TRUE COLOURS OF
“FAMILY PLANNING” IN THE MAJORITY WORLD
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Before we examine the case for population control, it is
vital to get a clear picture of what is happening in the
world, especially in the Majority World, in the name of
“family planning.” It is also important to perceive the
real reasons that drive the population control movement.
I shall first state a conclusion and then marshal
premises that help me to reach the stated conclusion.
1. What happens in the Majority World is not “family
planning” but coercive “population control.”
What an Indian or an Asian understands by the phrase
“family planning” is different from what a person from
the developed world would make out of it. “Family
planning,” for the westerner, is best expressed by
Malcolm Potts’ definition: “Family planning begins and
ends with individual couples choosing when to have
children.”1 Accordingly to Robert Whelan, “family
planning is the decision taken by couples, in the light
of their own beliefs and circumstances, as to the number
and spacing of their own children.”2
People in India confuse “family planning” with
“population control.” This is because western population
control agencies sold the concept of “population
control” to less developed countries under the label of
“family planning.” Thus, in one stroke, these agencies
misled people in the developed world as well as people
in the Majority World.3
“Population control” is fundamentally different from
“family planning.” In Whelan’s words:
Population control is the decision taken by governments
or other agencies that couples should have no more than
a certain number of children, followed by measures to
enforce this. One gives freedom while the other takes it
away. To determine which one of these is in operation,
one only has to ask, “Who is making the choices or
decisions regarding the number of children?” 4
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A Russian advertisement that urges women to have
more babies!
When they say that the "world" is overpopulated,
which "world" are they talking about? |
Without understanding this fundamental difference
between family planning and population control, almost
every Indian refers to the government’s population
control programme as “family planning.”5 Similarly,
people in developed countries too may be mistaken in
referring to the population control programmes in China,
India and other countries as “family planning”
programmes. Robert Whelan was one of those who brought
to light this deception adopted by population control
agencies.6 He states the central purpose of his book in
these words:
... the [Western] public have been misled concerning the
nature and impact of population control programmes on
parents, particularly women, in the developing
countries. This has been achieved by distorting the use
of the term ‘family planning’ until it ceases to
represent what we would understand by it in the rich
nations of the west.7
Whelan proves his point by citing evidence to show that
governments in the Majority World deny parents the right
to decide the number of children they should have.8 Some
of them use coercive methods to sterilise people or to
terminate pregnancies. In countries that fight shy of
using coercive methods, elaborate systems of incentives
and disincentives are in place in order to motivate
people to adopt “family planning”9 methods.
At the same time, western governments that fund projects
in the Majority World loose no opportunity to declare
their support to the parents’ right to freely determine
the size of individual families.10 Such declarations are
quickly followed by a reminder to couples and their
respective governments to exercise responsibility in the
interest of their community and of the world.11 Thus,
the “right” is virtually nullified. In other words, the
population control agencies and the governments that
support them are convinced that people in the Majority
World lack the ability and wisdom to decide the size of
their own families. It is not difficult to understand
the desperation of these anti-natalists; their leaders
came up with suggestions as described below.
In the early years of the population control movement,
Kingsley Davis doubted the effectiveness of non-coercive
methods. His suggestions for the introduction of
coercive methods reveal a sinister design:
… the government could pay people to permit themselves
to be sterilized; all costs of abortion could be paid by
the government; a substantial fee could be charged for a
marriage license; a ‘child tax’ could be levied …
governments could … cease taxing single persons more
than married ones; stop giving parents special tax
exemptions; abandon income tax policy that discriminates
against couples when the wife works; stop giving parents
special tax exemptions … stop awarding public housing on
the basis of family size … women could be required to
work outside the home, or compelled by circumstances to
do so. If, at the same time, women were paid as well as
men and given equal educational and occupational
opportunities … many women would develop interests that
would compete with family interests.12
Over the past decades, Davis’ radical suggestions to
destabilise the traditional family were effectively
implemented in several developed countries. What is
disturbing is that these changes in social and family
life did not happen by chance but by design. In 1969,
Frederick Jaffe, the Vice President of Planned
Parenthood, listed steps attaining significant reduction
of fertility. He desired that young people would
postpone or avoid marriage; that local governments would
add contraceptives to drinking water supply; and that
homosexuality would increase.13
Berelsonused Kingsley Davis’ and Jaffe’s suggestions
along with his own in his speech titled Beyond Family
Planning delivered to the Population Conference in
Dhakka in 1969.14 Berelson suggested a number of
“involuntary” methods of population control such as:
1.Sterilise all females using time-capsule
contraceptives, reversible only after government
approval;
2.Issuing of licenses to have children;
3.The compulsory sterilisation of men with three or more
children;
4.The addition of a sterilising agent in the water
supply15
Berelson justified these methods thus: “… the worse the
problem, the more one is willing to ‘give up’ in ethical
position in order to attain ‘a solution.’”16
The methods of population control movement may be
understood as a combination of “push-and-pull”
methods—methods of coercion and methods of inducement
through the offer of incentives. Through these methods,
population control agencies violated people’s freedom
and exploited their vulnerability. Poor people in the
Majority World did not wait for any incentive before
they adopted modern medical treatments or vaccinations
for the eradication of communicable diseases. When
offered incentives for getting sterilised, they failed
to perceive that they were being robbed in broad
daylight; that the incentives were far too small in
comparison with what they were asked to part with.
Indonesia: Indonesia is regarded as a “textbook example
of the violation of an individual’s right to choose by
government’s population programmes.”17 In Padang Panjang,
a Muslim village, children were denied report cards
until they produced their mother’s identity card that
showed the mother’s compliance with the official
population programme.18 Villages and communities were
given extra food supplements19 or granted road repairs
or public amenities20 based on the achievement of a set
fertility target by all residents. If one family did not
fall in line, the entire community was denied these
incentives. Peer pressure thus played a major role in
Indonesian population control. In spite of the use of
these unethical means, the masters of the population
control movement were satisfied with the results. In
June 1989, President Suharto received the United Nations
Population Award21 “in recognition of outstanding
contributions to increasing the awareness of population
questions and to their solution.”22
China: China adopted a merciless “one couple, one child”
population control policy after Mao’s “Great Leap
Forward” and wayward policies such as the
collectivisation of land resulted in death of 10-20
million people.23 Chairman Mao had once declared that,
Of all things in the world, people are the most
precious. ... before long there will arise a new China
with a big population and a great wealth of products,
where life will be abundant and culture will flourish.
All pessimistic views are utterly groundless.24
Yet, politicians in China found an easy scapegoat in
women who had large families to save Mao’s name after
his policies failed.25 China opted for a harsh
population control programme with financial assistance
from United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).26
The gross violations of human rights in China were first
brought to light by Steven Mosher27 and John S. Aird.28
Lin Yin, a Chinese journalist, reports of her experience
at a Chinese abortion clinic where government “task
force” detained pregnant women:
Hundreds of women – some more than six months pregnant –
were packed in dark corridors and makeshift tents,
waiting to be operated on in the ‘abortion centre’ in
the hospital courtyard. Next to it was a public toilet.
I went in. There was simply nowhere you could put your
feet; it was filled with blood soaked toilet paper.
Behind the toilet stood a line of waste bins. The
aborted babies – some as old as eight months – were put
there, then dumped somewhere else.29
The horrors of the Chinese programme made the U. S.
government to adopt the Kemp-Kasten Amendment of the
Foreign Assistance Act that states that “no U.S.
Government funds be used in a program that ‘supports or
participates in the management of a program of coercive
abortion or involuntary sterilization’.”30 This came
after they received sufficient evidence to prove that
what went on in the name of “family planning” in China
was indeed “population control.” Citizens in western
nations were kept in the dark by population control
agencies about the real nature of their programmes in
the Majority World.
In spite of the U. S. government’s warning, the UNFPA
and IPPF continue to fund the Chinese government’s
programme.31 More people have been killed in China as a
result of the “Great Leap Forward” and the “one child”
policy than in any part of the world.32 Amnesty
International reports indicate that the Chinese
government continues with forced abortions.33 The report
describes the fate of a young woman who dared to protest
against a forced abortion that she had to endure:
Mao Hengfeng was sent to a labour camp for 18 months’
“Re-education through Labour” in April [2004] for
persistently petitioning the authorities over a forced
abortion 15 years earlier when she became pregnant in
violation of China’s family planning policy. She was
reportedly tied up, suspended from the ceiling and
severely beaten in the labour camp. She had been
detained several times in the past in psychiatric units
where she had been forced to undergo shock therapy.34
Yet, women members of the U.S. Congress, who are
“pro-choice” activists, who strive to uphold women’s
right to get an abortion, are demanding that the U.S.
reinstate funding the UNFPA!35 Certainly, “reproductive
rights” mean different things to women in China and for
their counterparts in the U.S.
Notes
1 Malcolm Potts, “Turning Dreams into Real,” People 16/4
(1989).
2 Robert Whelan, Choices in Childbearing: When Does
Family Planning become Population Control? (London:
Committee on Population Control and the Economy, 1992),
2.
3 Just how this was done is explained below.
4Whelan, Choices, 2.
5 References such as this are so ubiquitous that the
citation of one particular source may be misleading.
6 Whelan, Choices, passim.
7 Ibid., 2.
8 Examples of countries that do not trust parents with
the task of determining the size of families and of
countries that use coercive methods are given below.
9 In India, common people equate the phrase “family
planning” with contraception or sterilisation.
10 “To help assure others of our intentions we should
indicate our emphasis on the right of individuals and
couples to determine freely and responsibly the number
and spacing of their children and to have information,
education and means to do so, and our continued interest
in improving the overall general welfare. We should use
the authority provided by the World Population Plan of
Action to advance the principles that 1) responsibility
in parenthood includes responsibility to the children
and the community and 2) that nations in exercising
their sovereignty to set population policies should take
into account the welfare of their neighbors and the
world.” National Security Council of U. S. A, National
Security Study Memorandum 200 [book-online] (Washington,
D.C.: White House, 1974 accessed 20 October 2006);
available from http://www.population-security.org/28-APP2B.html#I-F;
Internet.
11 Ibid. Apart from the fact that the so called “right”
is nullified, a question arises here. If the U.S. in the
NSSM200 was concerned only about “U. S. interests” why
should they require other nations to be mindful of
interests other than their own? For more about “U.S.
interests”, please refer to the following section on
“Strategic and Racial Reasons Driving Population
Control.
”12 Kingsley Davis, “Population Policy: Will Current
Programs Succeed?” Science (10 November 1967), 738.
13 Frederick S. Jaffe, to Bernard Berelson, 11 March
1969, Memorandum titled “Activities Relevant to the
Study of Population Policy for the U. S.” Originally
printed in Family Planning Perspectives, October, 1970.
14 Whelan, Choices, 5.
15 Ibid., 5-6. Whelan notes that N. C. Wright (the
Deputy Director General of FAO) recommended, in 1963,
the addition of contraceptives to cooking salt; Sir
Graham Hills, the Principal of Strathclyde University
recommended the addition of heat resistant
contraceptives to milled cereals to make selected
populations infertile.
16 Ibid.
17 Whelan, Choices, 22.
18 Margot Cohen, “New Strategies in Indonesia,” People
18/2 (!991), 13.
19 The Population Council, Studies in Family Planning
9/9 (Sept 1978), 235-237.
20 S. Surjaningrat and R H Pardoko, “Review of some of
the management aspects of the Indonesian Population and
Family Planning Programme.” Technical Report Series of
the National Family Planning Co-ordination Board,
Monograph No. 37, Indonesia, (1983), 3.
21 United Nations Populations Fund, “United Nations
Population Award Laureates,” [online]; accessed on 25
October 2006); available from http://www.unfpa.org/about/Popaward/laureates.htm;
Internet.
22Ibid.,http://www.unfpa.org/about/popaward/index.htm.
23 Stephen Moore, “Don’t Fund UNFPA Population Control,”
[article online] (Washington D.C.: Cato Institute, 15
May 1999), accessed on 25 October 2006; available from
http://www.cato.org/ dailys/05-15-99.html; Internet. Cf.
Whelan, Choices, 30.
24 Mao Tse-Tung, “The Bankruptcy of the Idealist
Conception of History,” 16 September 1949. The Selected
Works of Mao Tse-Tung Volume IV [book online]
(Washington: U.S. Government’s Joint Publications
Research Service, 1978); accessed on 25 October 2006;
available from
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/
mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_70.htm; Internet.
25 Whelan, Choices, 30.
26 Stephen Moore, “Don’t Fund UNFPA Population Control,”
http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-15-99.html.
27 Steven Mosher, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese,
(London: Collier MacMillan, 1983), passim. Cf. Steve
Mosher, “The Case Against UNFPA Funding,” [article
online]; Population Research Institute Weekly Briefing
4/2 (11 January 2002), accessed on 25 October 2006;
available
from. http://www.pop.org/main.cfm?EID=179; Internet.
28 John S. Aird, Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive
Birth Control in China (Washington: AEI Press, 1990),
passim.
29 Lin Yin, “China’s Unwanted Children,” The Independent
11 Sep 1991, cited by Whelan, Choices, 33.
30 It was not until mid-2002 that the U. S. cut off its
funds for UNFPA for its support of the gross violations
of human rights in China. Sichan Siv, to the President
of UNFPA, 24 September 2002, Letter released by U.S.
Mission to the United Nations, [online]; U.S. Department
of State Website; accessed on 25 October 2006; available
from http://www.state.gov/p/io/rls/rm/2002/13677.htm;
Internet.
31 Whelan, Choices in Childbearing, 35.
32 Stephen Moore, “Don’t Fund UNFPA Population Control,”
http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-15-99.html. Mao’s “Great
Leap Forward” killed 10-20 million people; the “one
child” policy resulted in 5 to 10 million deaths through
forced abortions, selective abortion/killing of the
female foetus/child.
33 Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report
2005 [book online]; accessed on 25 October 2006;
available from http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/chn-summary-eng.
Internet.
34 Ibid.
35 Stephen Moore, “Don’t Fund UNFPA Population Control,”
http://www.cato.org/dailys/05-15-99.html.
Ppe@praisethealmighty.com
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This page
is updated on Dec 1, 2009 |
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