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USAID Population Control Activity Advances Despite Plummeting Birthrates

By Terry Vanderheyden

WASHINGTON, February 24, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The US Agency for International Development (USAID) continues to aggressively advance its population control agenda despite evidence that many countries it targets are actually in dangerous states of population collapse.

As reported by Joseph D’Agostino, Vice President for Communications at the Population Research Institute, “‘Population stabilization’ in developing countries is an official purpose of” USAID. D’Agostino points out that the US spends about $400 million per year to depopulate “Third World nations whose birthrates have already collapsed or are collapsing.”

“If USAID wants to promote long-term population stabilization in the Third World, it should be encouraging women to have more children rather than less,” he argues. “Birthrates have been on a rapid downward trajectory in almost every country in the world.”

D’Agostino explains that there are over 50 countries that are targeted for depopulation by USAID, citing examples such as Armenia, Georgia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, the Ukraine and Russia; with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro at 1.6, all have birth rates of 1.4 or less. The minimum reproductive rate for a population to simply replace itself is 2.1.

“Yet all these nations, with populations already contracting and with birthrates that will lead to more rapid contractions in the future, get family planning money from USAID,” he emphasizes. “Instead, the agency should be shipping badly-needed babies to these nations, whose social support systems are due to go bankrupt from lack of working-age people in the next few decades. These countries’ fiscal futures make the United States’ problems with Social Security and Medicare seem very minor indeed.”

Even in sub-Saharan Africa, countries ravaged by famine, war, and AIDS where population control measures are thought to be justified, D’Agostino explains that even these can not afford to reduce their birth rates. “Those famines, massacres, civil wars, and the AIDS epidemic mean that high birthrates are necessary to keep those nations alive,” he explains. “Even relatively affluent South Africa, on USAID’s list, has a birthrate of 2.6 but a net reproduction rate per woman of only 0.95. That means that, on average, less than one daughter is produced per South African woman. Despite having a birthrate well over 2.1, South Africa is on the path to extinction.”

D’Agostino points out that over 80% of the 25-28 million people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are of reproductive age and two-thirds are women. There are 34-46 million people living with HIV world-wide.

“To assist in population stabilization and deduct a little from the federal deficit, USAID should graduate nations from its family planning programs,” he concludes. “The damage has been done.”

Read the full column at:
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=12576

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