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MANILA, December 2, 2002 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Nov. 25, Sen. Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., told the Philippine Parliament that the promotion of population control in the Third World comes from United States policy spelled out in the 1974 US National Security Study Memorandum 200 entitled “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for US Security and Overseas Interests”.  Pimentel explained that the self-serving purpose of the document, developed by Henry Kissinger, was to protect U.S. economic and military interests from growing populations in the developing world.  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), backed Pimentel’s assertion, noting that NSSM 200 and U.S. policies it spawned are the reasons behind the “huge funding in the millions of dollars of USAID promoting contraceptives and population control.” So far, U.S President Bush has not indicated any concerns or even awareness of NSSM 200 and the many anti-third world programs and policies that it has created.  Pimentel also attacked House Bill 4110 and Senate Bill 2325 bill as being unconstitutional since they would legalize abortifacient contraceptives.  He stated, “The two bills would make all sorts of contraceptives available to women regardless of whether or not those contraceptives may be suspect as abortifacients. Women would have the power to end unwanted pregnancies. In blunt talk, that means aborting the fetus; safely, perhaps for the mother, but most certainly unsafely for the baby whose life would be terminated with extreme prejudice,” he said.

The bills proponents claim that the bills do not promote abortion but only contraception, but Pimentel exposed their duplicity by recalling the origin of the bills.  “The original explanatory note [of the bill] advocated the legalization of abortion. It was only because it had drawn a furious outcry from the public that the authors beat a hasty retreat and changed it with a less confrontational one,” he said.  The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), in a statement, agreed with Pimentel’s opinion that artificial birth control methods run counter with the Constitution. “I personally express my concurrence with the insights and invaluable thoughts of Senator Pimentel on this issue of population management,” said CBCP spokesman Msgr. Hernando Coronel.

For more on NSSM 200 including the actual document see LifeSite at:  https://www.lifesitenews.com/waronfamily/nssm200/index.html See coverage from the Filipino news service ABS-CBN:  https://www.abs-cbnnews.com/abs_news_body.asp?section=Metro&OID=10052