NEW YORK, December 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A new study recommends contraception counseling for post-partum women in low- and middle-income countries to increase space between births of their children.
Published this month in a special issue of Studies in Family Planning, the study, titled “Postpartum and Post-Abortion Contraception: From Research to Programs,” also called for incorporating “family planning” into immunization and pediatric services and endorsed promoting contraception across the board during women's fertile years.
“Key findings include that counseling before discharge from a maternity unit likely has an impact on subsequent contraceptive use and that the integration of family planning into immunization and pediatric services is justified,” states News-Medical.net, reporting on the findings.
Drawing on 35 studies, including 19 that were not previously included in earlier analyses, the authors state in their abstract, “We outline policy and program implications for improving postpartum and post-abortion contraceptive use.”
“In view of the findings,” the authors wrote, “the ideal strategy is to incorporate contraceptive advice and services across the continuum of reproductive healthcare.”
Roughly 25% of inter-birth intervals (the elapsed length of time between births) in these countries are less than 24 months, resulting in risks of prematurity, low birth weight, and death, according to News-Medical.net. Evidence of these risks has emerged in recent decades: “after a period of neglect, interest in postpartum family planning has followed, supported by organizations like WHO and USAID.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) and USAID are known proponents of contraception, abortion, and sterilization.
The organization behind the study is the Population Council, which publishes research on “sexual and reproductive health,” fertility, and “family planning,” mainly focused on developing countries and advocating population control.
Pro-life advocates cried foul at the call for more contraception promotion from an organization that backs population control.
“The journal that published this article is a publication of the Population Council, which was created by the Rockefeller family in the '50s to promote its destructive eugenic philosophy,” Stephen Phelan, director of mission communications for Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.
Phelan said it should be no surprise that the study supports calls to integrate the promotion of contraception into even more, and unconnected, doctor-patient interactions, including with pediatricians.
“The Population Council sponsors scientific research, then broadcasts its findings, which we should not be surprised always has the same recommendation: more abortion and contraception, all the time, everywhere, free of charge,” he said. “The goal is to have everyone in the health industry promoting their ideology and the products (IUDs, Norplant/Jadelle, etc.) that they developed.”
Population Research Institute president Steven Mosher said pushing contraception on postpartum women is unacceptable and that doing so in this situation and with immunization and pediatrics amounts to strong-arming.
“I find the idea that women who have just gone through childbirth must be 'counseled' on the need for birth control 'before discharge from a maternity unit' to be objectionable,” Mosher said. “These women, who have already gone through the pangs of childbirth, should not be subject to contraceptive indoctrination while they are in that state, and certainly not as a condition of discharge. This smacks of the kind of heavy-handed propaganda techniques used in China and other countries.”
“They also propose that 'family planning' be 'integrated … into immunization and pediatric services,'” he continued. “This can and has been transformed on the ground into the denial of immunization and pediatric services to women who refuse to accept so-called modern methods of family planning. This amounts to the kind of coercion that is banned under U.S. law.”
Recently, 19 states in the U.S. began pushing for poor women to be provided an IUD after birth, with the cost being picked up by U.S. taxpayers.
The study did support relaxing stipulations for considering breastfeeding an effective postpartum method of contraception, something Mosher commended with some reservations.
“I do applaud the researchers for asserting the obvious – namely, that breastfeeding is an effective way of spacing children,” he told LifeSiteNews. “They put the matter cautiously, of course, because the population controllers cringe at the idea of giving women any kind of control over their own fertility, but they do say that 'the case can also be made for relaxing the strict conditions for LAM (the Lactational Amenorrhea Method) to be considered an effective postpartum contraceptive method.' Decades of research have shown that breastfeeding interferes with the release of the hormones needed to trigger ovulation.”
Phelan said that no matter the results of a study put forth by the Population Council, the recommendation would be more contraception and abortion.
“The outcome is predetermined, the science a pretext and 'authority' for expanding the use of the products they promote by poor women of color in the developing world,” he said. “This is an abuse of science for ideological ends, which is especially reckless, given how their products have harmed many thousands of women over the years.”
