World forum advocates de-population.

A recent issue of Life magazine reported in photojournalistic splendour the goings on at the State of the World Forum held in San Francisco last fall. It seemed innocuous enough--black and white shots of entertainers, pop psychologists and assorted New Age luminaries pondering matters of great import. But behind the placid faces and the trendy talk there emerged serious threats to family life.

Reduce world population

One major theme of the State of the World Forum is to control or reduce world population. This is necessary, it is said, to maintain Western living standards.

Chaired by former Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the conference brought together some 500 delegates prominent in government, industry, the media and the New Age movement. Invitees included former U.S. President George Bush, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, entertainer John Denver and media mogul Ted Turner. Former Ontario Hydro chairman Maurice Strong was among the Canadians invited.

According to the Forum, the number one challenge facing world leaders today is protection of the environment. As people form the gravest threat to it, Gorbachev outlined measures to control the world's population in a pattern now well established by depopulation advocates, who often justify their position on the grounds of care for the environment.

The forum discussed:

* the need for increased cooperation among governments to deal with population growth;

* Religious institutions as the major contributor to the population "explosion";

* Churches as stumbling blocks to global population control efforts.

Fear of the future

Despite the large number of political and business dignitaries attending the forum, it received little attention in the North American media. Only Ted Turner's Cable News Network (CNN) devoted much coverage to the gathering.

Depopulation ideas are not limited to Gorbachev's State of the World Forum. In fact, the topic is attracting more and more prominent supporters in recent years. In February, 1996, for example, Canadian ecologist William Rees told delegates to a scientific conference in Baltimore that we need two more planets the size of Earth to support current population trends. It was another case of couching population fears in environmental terms.

The Canadian geneticist David Suzuki recently suggested that a massive die-off may be necessary either by plague or natural catastrophe. This, he said, can be one answer to the overpopulation problem. Suzuki's comments were reported in a university newspaper interview (Western Report, January 22, 1996).

Ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University proposed in 1994 that a two-thirds reduction in world population is in order if humanity is to survive to the year 2100. The alternative would be "absolute misery, poverty, disease and starvation," Pimentel stated. The first step in this population reduction plan, the ecologist said, would be to limit families the world over to a maximum 1.5 children. (Some people may know that China has been enforcing a one-child-per-family since 1971 with ruthless disregard of all civil and human rights).

U.N. agencies support de-population

Much of this depopulation thinking has found its way into U.N. and Third World development agencies. As well, a number of wealthy private foundations have been working behind the scenes to promote contraceptive devices, primarily among Third World women, with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) leading the pack.

As early as 1954, U.N. conferences have been set up to examine population questions. Subsequent conferences increasingly cited the traditional family planning methods--abortion, contraception, fertility control--as key components in a plan to check or even reduce world population.

As the 1994 Conference in Cairo demonstrated, IPPF, working through the U.N., wants to make abortion (disguised as a "reproductive right") legal throughout the entire world. Their efforts were repeated at the Beijing Conference in 1995. (See "Canada's shame in Beijing," Catholic Insight, December, 1995.)

Often U.N.-sponsored Third World aid programs are tied to family planning efforts. In Canada, for example, CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) has spent over one billion Canadian dollars in undermining families in Third World countries (see "A $1 billion conspiracy," Catholic Insight, July-August, 1995). Countries most in need of development aid are told to first implement family planning measures before they can receive U.N. assistance.

Istanbul: sustainable development

In 1996, there will be another International Conference, this one in Istanbul, Turkey, the Second U.N. Conference on Human Settlements. Canada's Campaign Life Coalition, participating in a pre-Conference session in New York in February, reports continued concern over the prevailing anti-population mentality, including that of the Canadian delegation. While U.N. literature produced in advance of the June, 1996 Istanbul Conference downplays the anti-population theme, pro-family groups are warned to look for the real agenda behind the term "sustainable development."

In Toronto, for example, June Callwood, a Director of CARAL (Canadian Abortion Rights Action League), advertised daily on the classical F.M. station during February 1996 for the Unitarian Children's Fund on behalf of "sustainable development." The term "sustainable" is loaded against people and procreation.

Too few people?

On the other hand, in the face of U.N.-inspired appeals for population control come recent studies suggesting that improved political, economic and geographic structures can help overcome the unequal distribution of resources. Vancouver's Fraser Institute, for example, in its report Exploding Population Myths, argues overpopulation claims have been exaggerated. In some cases, it says, it is underpopulation--too few people to sustain adequate economic development--that contributes to scarcity and famine. Occasionally, poverty, hunger and waste result from deliberate political decisions.

Vatican

Just under two years ago, the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family released Ethical and Pastoral Dimensions of Population Trends (available from Editions Paulines, Sherbrooke, PQ), which spelled out a number of pertinent concerns. It cited a number of criticisms more frequently levelled at population control advocates, including the tendency of Western countries and large international organizations to tie Third World aid to birth control-contraception-sterilization programs.

"It is well known that there is a vast international network of wealthy organizations which direct their efforts towards reducing population," the Vatican document says. "In different degrees, these organizations share a similar perspective and publically commend anti-natalist policies. Certain of these organizations often collaborate with companies which experiment with, and produce and distribute contraceptive substances or devices, or which recommend sterilization and abortion. These organizations counsel, promote and often impose this variety of methods for reducing population."

The Vatican document criticizes population controllers for instilling a "fear of the future." It urges confidence in mankind's ability to satisfy humanity's needs.

The Vatican text calls for a recognition of the rights of families:

"In discovering the family as the `sanctuary of life' and the `heart of the culture of life,' men and women can be freed from the `culture of death.' The latter culture begins with the anti-baby mentality, so widely developed in the ideology of coercive population control."

Canadian author and artist Michael O'Brien, editor of the quarterly Nazareth Journal, a Catholic family magazine from Combermere, Ontario, has long monitored anti-population trends. He suggests that a "relentless theme" of U.N. agencies is to equate many, if not most, world problems with women's fertility.