WASHINGTON, DC, September 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The head of UN Women, the recently created “gender equality and empowerment of women” branch of the UN, has called for a huge escalation of “family planning” in third world countries to deal with overpopulation.
At a recent population conference, entitled “7 Billion: Conversations that Matter,” hosted by the Aspen Institute on September 7, Michelle Bachelet, Under Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women said, “When we are 9, 10 billion people, what are we going to do? Go to Mars? Go to the moon? We are really going to have huge problems. Family planning is a huge issue.”
UN population experts have forecast that the world’s population will reach 7 billion on October 21 this year and will eventually reach 10 billion.
In a press release, UNFPA’s Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin stated, “a world of 7 billion is both a challenge and an opportunity. Globally, people are living longer, healthier lives and choosing to have smaller families.”
However, demographic experts have criticized the probabilistic model that UN statisticians used to make these new predictions as “severely flawed.”
Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D., pointed out in a recent C-Fam report, “The UN has reversed a decade of speculation about a demographic winter in the West, and now says that every country will achieve replacement fertility by 2100 resulting in a global population of 10 billion. The problem is there is no basis for their turnabout.”
“UN agencies are hailing new numbers as evidence of overpopulation in the developing world and vindication of decades of anti-natal policies in the West, but the scientific basis of the latest UN forecasts is slim,” Yoshihara remarked.
In the UNFPA press release Osotimehin went on to say, “the population projections underscore the urgent need to provide safe and effective family planning to the 215 million women who lack it. Small variations in fertility — when multiplied across countries and over time — make a world of difference.”
Bachelet echoed Osotimehin’s remarks, saying, “Family planning is essential for many of the problems. Look at maternal mortality. Every day, 1,000 women die due to pregnancy and complications during birth. That’s unacceptable. We are in the 21st Century. We know exactly what we have to do.”
However, one of the unforeseen consequences of promoting “family planning” as a means of combating overpopulation has been a growing gender imbalance in counties such as India and China, where sex-selective abortion is rampant. This issue, relevant to a woman’s agency since it is largely female babies who are the victims of sex-selective abortion, has received increased scrutiny in recent months after the publication of a book, “Unnatural Selection,” authored by Mara Hvistendahl, an abortion supporter.
According to one report, however, the issue of gender imbalance was glossed over at the Aspen conference.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, former president of Latvia and a member of Aspen’s Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health, reportedly told conference attendees she believed those issues would eventually “even” out, according to a Global Post report.
“Countries are now finding themselves in a bind,” Vike-Freiberga said. “Several generations of young men are in need of partners. In some villages, it is getting pretty dramatic, five boys to one girl. Life itself will teach them a painful lesson.”
Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute (PRI) observed that UN-style family planning always implies abortion as well as contraception.
“What PRI’s research has shown is that when population control ideas begin to drive policy, the results are always the same: human rights abuses, broken families, and bloodshed. China’s one-child policy, in which the UNFPA is an active partner, is the best example of where the UNFPA’s population obsession leads,” Mosher commented in a press release.
“While the UNFPA claims that hundreds of millions of women in the developing world are demanding contraceptives, our research around the globe has shown that this is simply not true,” said Mosher. “What they are actually crying out for is better primary health care for themselves and their families. We should stop funding population control programs and instead turn our attention to real problems like malaria, typhus, and HIV/AIDS.”
“People are our greatest resource. Everyone, rich or poor, is a unique creation with something priceless to offer to the rest of us,” Mosher stated.