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In justifying the importance of a State-run family planning program contemplated by House Bill 4110, its chief proponent, Rep. Edcel Lagman, has called the attention of Church leaders to supposed conditions in other Catholic countries.
In Italy, he said, the population growth rate is 0.2 percent; 0.3 percent in Spain, Poland and Ireland; 1.6 percent in Chile; 1.4 percent in Argentina; and 1.7 percent in Brazil. Lagman pointed out that in these countries the Church does not openly oppose or prevent contraceptive use. Compare this with the country’s population growth, which is 2.04 percent, he said.
Congressman Lagman seems to suggest that these European and Latin American countries are models in keeping birth rates down. And since the lawmaker merely passed off the figures without saying what the effects of a State-run family planning program to the economy and social order are, he seems to lead the public into thinking that the countries mentioned above have reached, or are about to reach, their economic potentials and that the future looks bright and rosy.
It’s a mindset of the ’70s, when developed countries, led by the United States, pushed population control programs in underdeveloped nations supposedly in order to save their future generations from hunger and environmental disaster. It was the demographic myth that recalls the so-called Malthusian trap, an idea that man will return to “subsistence-level conditions as a result of population growth outpacing agricultural production.”
The theory has long been considered a flop, with evidence to show by demographers and sociologists worldwide, but because of relentless population control, especially in wealthy countries, the dread raised by the demographic myth has been replaced by the “demographic winter,” a scenario where the world will grapple with staggering problems brought about by a population free fall.
Low birth rates in developed countries are very striking, especially in Europe, with a fertility rate of 1.4. The supposed “ideal” birth rate in developed countries is supposed to be 2.1 to enable sustainability, but the trend has continued without let up. In a few more years, it is projected that one-third of Europe’s population will consist of aging people and this will put a heavy burden on the young whose numbers are diminishing. Young people are needed to run public health and transport system, take care of factories, and tend farms – that is why Europe is opening its doors to immigrants to work as domestics and this has given rise to all sorts of social problems like crime and violence.
Let’s hear it from Steven W. Mosher, president of the non-profit Population Research Institute (PRI), widely recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on the population question. Mosher says that primary healthcare will suffer when a country allows population control. Having had observed many countries with such programs, Mosher asserts that government health officials and local medical associations will first be co-opted by “highly prized opportunities for advanced training overseas, or generous gifts of limousines or sought-after office equipment. Once a country’s medical establishment has agreed to make family planning a priority, national health budgets tend to be spent disproportionately in this area.”
“At the same time, fertility reduction programs funded by such groups as the US Agency for International Development, the United Nations Population Fund, or the International Planned Parenthood Federation, are set up. Generously funded by local standards, such programs become magnets for scarce local medical resources. Local doctors, attracted by the higher wages, abandon primary health care in favor of family planning. Local health care clinics are transformed into family planning stations, where the only readily available medical care involves contraception, sterilization and abortion.” Mosher foresees that the situation would ultimately lead to the collapse of the public health sector.
It is interesting to note that since 2002 the United States has stopped supporting family control programs under the aegis of the United Nations by withholding a total of $235 million from the UN Family Planning Agency (UNFPA). The Bush administration cited UNFPA’s activities in “providing financial and technical resources” for coercive abortions and sterilizations in China. UNFPA has denied allegations of human rights abuses in connection with family planning efforts.
Overpopulation is a myth, but politicians can see a great political platform when they see one, especially when food and fuel prices are soaring and the possibility of mass unrest casts a dark shadow on the horizon.
