Population Enrichment vs. Population Control

Dear Mr. President:

For 218 years the United States has been a champion of freedom, a land of opportunity, a symbol of hope to all the world's peoples In a matter of days, our government will have a new opportunity to demonstrate, in a critical international forum, that we continue to embrace those bold, inspiring principles. Are we ready to meet the challenge?

This September, the United Nations will convene an International Conference on Population and Development, to be held in Cairo. That meeting should be the occasion for a serious exchange on how we might help bring prosperity to the developing nations Regrettably, preparations for the conference have virtually ignored the great potential for population enrichment, economic progress, family values, individual development, and scientific advances in the areas of health, nutrition, and agriculture to concentrate on the issues of population control.

We are deeply troubled by the knowledge that our State Department has endorsed several radical proposals which will be presented in Cairo If the UN's working document is approved, it would:

• condone the use of abortion as a method of birth control;
• downplay the importance of the family as the basic unit of society; and
• press developing nations to promote population-control programs which maybe intrusive, unnecessary, and even dangerous.

We believe that these proposals are profoundly misguided--not only because of their disastrous practical implications, but also because they violate the traditional American dedication to freedom and human dignity Our government's intensive efforts to promote these proposals--often in the face of opposition from Third World nations--has prompted bitter criticism of American ``cultural imperialism.''

Time is short; the Cairo conference begins September 5. But it is not too late to reconsider our national policies, to withdraw our support for these proposals, and to fight for amendments in the UN's working document Mr. President, we urge you to consider:

1. IN CAIRO, WILL WE STAND WITH THE NATIONS THAT AFFIRM HUMAN DIGNITY?

• At the last worldwide conference on population, held in Mexico City in 1984, the US government insisted that abortion should not be used as a means of birth control.[1] That policy clearly matched the beliefs of the American people; 84% of all Americans oppose the use of abortion as a form of birth control [2]--recognizing the crucial distinction between avoiding the creation of life and destroying a life that has already been created. Yet the proposed Cairo statement affirms a universal right to fertility regulation,'' which the World Health Organization defines to include abortion. [3]
• In 95 of the world's nations-representing more than 1.8 billion people- the law protects life in the womb. In 53 nations, abortion is illegal except in those rare instances when the mother's life is endangered.[4] Yet our State Department cabled every American embassy, instructing our diplomatic representatives to insist: ``The United States believes that access to safe, legal and voluntary abortion is a fundamental right of all women.''[5] This policy would be an affront to national sovereignty and an offense to those cultures which reject abortion on moral grounds.
• The keystone of any consistent policy regarding population and development must be respect for human dignity. Yet by setting goals for population growth, the Cairo statement would supply strong incentives for countries to use force and fraud against their own citizens. We have already seen the evidence of such abuses. In China, a brutal government birth-control effort has produced widespread reports of forcible abortion and sterilization-and even infanticide.[6] In Brazil, in 1991, Health Minister Alceni Cuerra charged that more than 7 million women had been sterilized without being properly informed about the consequences of the operation; the Brazilian Institute of Statistics confirmed that during one 5-year period, 74% of the women who gave birth by caesarean section were sterilized in the process, apparently without their knowledge.[7] The heavy-handed emphasis on population control multiplies the risks of such abuse.

Mr President, both in our country and in the world at large, most people oppose the use of abortion as a form of birth control. If our national policy is truly governed by respect for human dignity, we cannot ignore the moral principles held by a clear majority.

2. IN CAIRO, WILL WE STAND WITH THE NATIONS THAT SUPPORT FAMILY LIFE?

• Growing troubles within American society make it increasingly clear that the traditional family is society's strongest hope for economic growth and social stability In the past 40 years the United States has seen a 600% rise in the rate of births to single women.[8] In 1991 the National Commission on Children argued that divorce and out-of-wedlock births ``are responsible for essentially all of the growth in poverty since 1970.''[9]
• Children raised in single-parent households are twice as likely to require treatment for emotional problems; three times as likely to fail in school; four times as likely to be expelled from school; and nears five times as likely to become involved in criminal activities.[10] A woman raised in a single-parent home is 111% more likely to become pregnant as a teenager, 164% more likely to bear children out of wedlock, and 92% more liked to see her own marriage end in divorce.[10]
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms: ``The family is the basic unit of society.'' But in one preliminary document for the Cairo meeting that sentence was inaccurate'' rendered: ``The family is a basic unit of society.''[11] Sure, the essence of ``reproductive freedom'' is the freedom of married couples to decide when to have children, free of government interference. Yet in its discussion of reproductive freedom, the draft document makes no provision for the institution of marriage. Similarly, when the document asserts that adolescents deserve ``privacy, confidentiality, informed consent, and respect''[12] in matters of sexual health, there is no mention of the parents' right and duty to guide their children's decisions.
• In other nations, where family life remains intact, political leaders recognize the need to defend the institution of marriage. In a June 1 letter to his fellow heads of state, expressing his alarm over the Cairo proposals, Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem wrote: ''``Our idea of a politics of development is one that includes the protection and well-being of the family, respecting its founding principles.''[13]

Mr. President, the breakdown of the American family has exacted enormous costs on our society. To cite just one statistic, the Justice Department has found that 70% of the youngsters in juvenile-detention facilities were raised in single-parent homes.[14] If our national policy is truly aimed at economic growth and stability, we cannot propagate in the Third World the problems which have proved so disastrous for American society.

3. IN CAIRO, WILL WE STAND WITH THE NATIONS THAT BELIEVE HUMAN BEINGS ARE A PRECIOUS RESOURCE?

• Our planet is not currently overburdened. Imagine an extreme hypothetical example: If the world s entire human population were confined to one area representing just 1% of the earth's land surface, each family of five could make their dwelling on one-third of an acre; the population density of that area would be well under that of Boston, Massachusetts today.[15]
• Today the world s population is growing at the rate of 1.7% per year. Contrary to widespread misinformation, the pace of population growth is slowing.[16] Every nation on earth has experienced a decline in the birth rate since 1950. Between the late 1960s and late 1980s, the average number of births among the world s women dropped by one-third.[17]
• The principal cause of world population growth is not an increase in the birth rate, but a remarkable drop in the death rate, caused by the tremendous medical advances of the late 20th century. As the Cairo working document acknowledges, ``In the past half-century, expectation of life at birth in the world as a whole has increased by about 20 years, and the risk of dying in the first year of life has been reduced by nearly two-thirds.''[18]
• Malthusian ``experts'' claim that population growth causes economic misery. Due to overwhelming contrary evidence, the National Academy of Science officially abandoned that theory in 1986.[19] In the world's developing countries, the rate of economic growth is faster than the rate of population growth.[20]
• Modern techniques have produced a spectacular increase in agricultural productivity. On American farms, the yield of food per acre has doubled since 1960.[21] In Third World countries, the supply of food is now increasing twice as fast as the population.
• The international campaign against population growth has drawn needed resources away from economic development. During the 1960s and 1970s, the ``Green Revolution'' in agriculture produced nearly miraculous advances against hunger in Asia. In the early 1980s, budget cuts at the World Bank thwarted plans to bring the ``Green Revolution'' to Africa.[23] Yet at the same time, in Bangladesh international donors had furnished enough contraceptive devices to supply the entire national population for 65 years, while in Nepal family-planning officials needed an extra $50,000 grant to dispose of the surplus condoms that had flooded their mission.[24]

Mr. President, the Cairo conference is charged with a discussion of both population and development. Yet the 113-page working document devotes only 9 pages to a cursory examination of economic development. If our national policy is truly guided by a desire to raise living standards in undeveloped nations, we cannot allow an exaggerated concentration on the ``problem'' of population growth to distract our attention from the real problems of economic growth.

4. IN CAIRO, WILL WE SHOW OUR RESPECT FOR THE CULTURES OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES?

• Ten years ago, when a previous administration unveiled the ``Mexico City policy,'' one prominent advocate of population control warned that the United States would be ``laughed out of the conference.''[25] He was wrong. Instead, undeveloped countries recognized America's sensitivity toward their own sovereign laws, their own cultural and religious standards, and their own patterns of family life.
• Twenty years ago, the National Security Council cautioned that in promoting contraception, the United States should work through international agencies, to avoid charges of ``imperialistic activities whose purpose is racial.''[26] Today, as the world's most aggressive sponsor of the Cairo proposal, our government is hearing precisely those accusations.
• Developing nations complain that international organizations let birth control efforts outweigh their urgent medical needs. In Kenya, a doctor points out that relief agencies readily furnish contraceptive devices, but cannot supply a simple dose of penicillin.[27] Poor parents notice that international programs are ready and anxious to help them prevent births, but markedly less prepared to help the children who are already born. In programs sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development, women in the Third World are encouraged to use contraceptive devices (such as the IUD) which are rarely recommended for use by American women-raising questions about whether our government gives equal weight to the health of Asian and African women.[28]

Mr. President, our Founding Fathers penned the Declaration of Independence with an eye to ``a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.'' Today millions of the world's neediest people believe that American policies are motivated by o selfish desire to protect our own luxuries. If our national policy is truly consistent with our country's founding principles, we cannot endorse a program that violates fundamental human rights, feeds anti-American hostility, and undermines our nation's proud historic identity as international champion of opportunity and freedom.

The Cairo conference offers the world's nations a superb opportunity to share success stories, offering new models for economic progress in developing countries. We could describe, for instance, the advances in health (prenatal care, infant nutrition, inoculations, well-baby clinics) and agriculture (hybrid seeds, fertilization, irrigation, pest control, soil conservation) which can immensely raise a nation's standard of living. Instead of a narrow preoccupation with population control, we should focus on population enrichment. This is an approach befitting a great and generous nation like the United States.

In summary, Mr. President, we urge you to instruct all U.S. government representatives at the Cairo conference to work toward changes in the U.N. policy which would:

• respect the cultural norms of developing countries;
• stress the importance of the family as the basic unit of society;
• insist that population programs must never involve coercion, or use abortion as a means of birth control; and
• emphasize the primary importance of health care, agricultural productivity, and overall economic growth in the developing world.

For our part, we reject the idea that the human family has outlived it's usefulness; we call for a renewed dedication to the enrichment of marriage and family life. We reject the notion that each newborn baby is an added burden on the planet; we embrace the timeless truth that children are a blessing. We reject the notion that the longer average human lifespan is a ``problem''; we rejoice in the medical advances that have made that achievement possible. We urge our national leaders--and the leaders of all nations--to abandon this misguided effort to impose arbitrary limits on human population and to turn their attention to the far more urgent questions of how we can best harvest and distribute the fruits of this bountiful earth.

Peter S. Lynch Carolyn A. Lynch Boston, Massachusetts Robert P Casey Governor Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Mary Cunningharn Agee Executive Director and Founder The Nurturing Network Boise, Idaho Thomas J. and Charlotte E. Flatley Braintree, Massachusetts John A. McNeice Jr.and Margarete E. McNeice Canton, Massachusetts John A. and Virginia M. Kaneb Boston, Massachusetts Philip C. and Margaret M. Haughey Waban, Massachusetts Philip F. and Leila M. Lawler Dedham, Massachusetts

Jon D. Levenson, PhD Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies Harvard University J. David Bleich, PhD Tenzer Professor of Jewish Law & Ethics Yeshiva University David Novak Edgar M Bronfman Professor of Modern Judaic Studies University of Virginia Jacob Neusner Distinguished Research Professor of Religious Studies University of South Florida Lawrence E. Sullivan PhD Professor of the History of Religions Harvard University Robert P. George, PhD Princeton University Michael Novak Templeton Prize Laureate

Jim Henry President Southern Baptist Convention Dr. James C. Dobson President Focus on the Family Robert P. Dugan, Jr. Director, Office of Public Affairs National Association of Evangelicals Bishop Clarence C. Pope, Jr., D.D. The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth Ralph Reed Executive Director Christian Coalition Gary L. Bauer President Family Research Council Allan Carlson President The Rockford Institute Bowie K. Kuhn President The Kent Group, Inc.

Abdurahman Alamoudi Executive Director American Muslim Council Nihad Awad Executive Director-National Council on American-lslamic Relations Arthur J. Decio Chairman and CEO Skyline Corporation John and Grace A. Joyce Dover, Massachusetts John J. and Mary E. Shaughnessy Milton, Massachusetts Anne Higgins Executive Director World Organization for the Family Cecilia Acevedo Royals President National Institute of Womanhood Mary Ann Glendon Learned Hand Professor of Law Harvard University

Sargent Shriver Potomac, Maryland Margaret H. Vanderslice Boston, Massachusetts Xavier L. Suarez Former Mayor City of Miami Denis P. Coleman, Jr. Palm Beach, Florida William E. Simon Morristown, New Jersey John R. and Anna-Mary Riley Wellesley, Massachuxtts Patricia Wesley, MD School of Medicine Yale University Kathryn D. Wriston New York, New York John M. Haas, PhD Havertown, Pennsylvania

1. Policy Statement of the United States of America at the United Nations International Conference on Population (2nd session), Mexico City, 1984. [back]

2. Wirthlin poll, conducted November 6 & 13, 1992. In 1989 a Boston Globe poll put the figure at 89%; see Ethan Bronner, ``Most in US Favor Ban on Majority of Abortions,'' Boston Globe, March 31, 1989, p. 11. [back]

3. United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, Programme of Action of the Conference, Paragraph 7.1 [back]

4. Family Planning Perspectives, a publication of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Vol. 22 Number 2, March/April 1990, p. 77. These are the most recent available figures. [back]

5. Department of State telegram from Counselor Timothy E. Wirth, October 18, 1993. [back]

6. For the most complete account, see Stephen Mosher, Broken Earth: The Rural Chinese, New York, Free Press, 1983. [back]

7. Antonio Gaspari, ``The War Against Babies,'' Catholic World Report, April 1993, pp. 26-27, See also, Population Research Institute Review Vol. 1 No. 1, Jan/Feb 1991, p. 9. [back]

8. Monthly Vital Statistics Report Vol 42 #3, September 9, 1993. National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, p. 9. [back]

9. Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families, Final Report of the National Commission on Children. Washington, US Government Printing Office, 1991, p. 24. [back]

10. Patrick F. Fagan, ``Rising Illegitimacy: America's Social Catastrophe,'' Heritage Foundation briefing paper, June 1994. See also Irwin Garfinkel and Sara S. McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma, Washington, Urban Institute, 1986; Deborah Dawson, ``Family Structure and Children's Health and Well-Being,'' presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America, May 1990. [back]

11. Programme of Action of the Conference, Paragraph 5.1. The inaccuracy has been corrected in the most recent draft. [back]

12. Programme of Action of the Conference, Paragraph 7.43. [back]

13. June 1 letter addressed to the heads of state of all countries belonging to the Organization of American States. [back]

14. Allen J. Beck and Karen Heimer, ``Survey of Youth in Custody, 1987,'' Special Report, U.S. Department of Justice, September 1988. [back]

15. Figures on population and land surface area are from World Almanac 1994 [World land surface area is 57.9 million square miles or 37 billion acres; world population is 5.4 billion (p. 828). Dividing 370 million acres (1% of 37 billion) by 1.08 billion (one-fifth of 5.4 billion) yields .34 acres for five people, or 14.6 people per acre. Boston's area is 46 square miles or 29,440 acres; population is 574,283 (p. 663); the same calculations yield 19.5 people per acre.] [back]

16. Programme of Action of the Conference, Paragraph 6.1-6.2. For an analysis of how population growth could reach zero, see Jacqueline Kasun, Population and Environment: Debunking the Myth; Washington, Population Research Institute, 1991. [back]

17. U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), The State of the World's Children, London Oxford University Press, 1993; p. 77. See also World Population Data Sheet, 1970-1990; Washington, Population Reference Bureau. Fertility statistics are published annually in the U.N. Demographic Yearbook. [back]

18. Programme of Action of the Conference, Paragraph 8.1 [back]

19. National Research Council, Population Growth and Economic Development: Policy Questions, National Academy of Sciences Press, 1986. [back]

20. For the most complete analysis of the relationship between population and economic development see Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton, 1981. A second edition of the book is forthcoming in 1995. [back]

21. Dennis T. Avery, ``Mother Earth Can Feed Billions More,'' Wall Street Journal, September 19, 1991, p. A12. [back]

22. ibid. [back]

23. Norman E. Borlaug, ``The Green Revolution: For Bread and Peace,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1971; Vidram Sarabhal, ``India and the Green Revolution,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 1972. See also D. Gale Johnson, ``World Food and Agriculture,'' in The Resourceful Earth, Simon and Kahn, editors; New York, Basil Blackwell, 1984. [back]

24. Baobab Press, newsletter of the Information Project for Africa, Johnson City, Tennessee, October 1993. [back]

25. See Paul Erlich, The Population Explosion, New York, 1990, p. 194. [back]

26. ``Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests,'' National Security Study Memorandum 200, dated December 10, 1974, declassified June 6, 1990, Paragraph 33. [back]

27. ``Report on Kenya,'' Dr. Margaret A. Ogola, testimony on International Population Control Activities, Population Research Institute, April 1994. [back]

28. ``The War Against Babies,'' Antonio Gaspari, Catholic World Report, April 1993, pp. 28-32. See also Edward Pohlman, How to Kill Population, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1971. [back]