EXPOSÉ: The word "needs" often comes up in the discussion of "unmet needs for family planning". Very often, these needs are created by social marketing. For example, the DOH has a program called "SOMARC", an acronym for "SOcial MARketing for Contraception", the aim of which is to raise the demand for contraceptives through media, advertising and public relations gimmicks. In Cairo, then Health Secretary Dr Juan Flavier had declared that he had "won the media battle" to promote family planning. Then he spoke of the obligation to fill the "unmet needs for family planning". There is deception here. What is being done is to create an artificial demand for contraception, sterilization, and inevitably, abortion ─ ostensibly for "health", but really for depopulation.   LIST

CRITIQUE: If there is an authentic concern for health in all matters relating to the reproductive system, its functions and processes, then upsetting the ecological (hormonal) balance of the reproductive environment should be condemned. Contraceptives are actually chemical pollutants whose express purpose is to render the reproductive environment incapable of sustaining the human life it is designed by nature to nourish and preserve until birth. Another question is "Whose reproductive health - first world women or third world women?" It is an acknowledged fact that new procedures and pharmaceuticals are tested on third world subjects before they are marketed in the rich countries. Despite this, side effects are suffered in the long term, and then the products are sold or dumped on the third world as "aid".   LIST

CRITIQUE: The PfA vaguely refers to sex education and family planning methods as a way of avoiding sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. This term also finds relevance in condoning extramarital/casual sex, in which case the threat to be avoided is pregnancy. (See also "safe sex" & "responsible sex practices")   LIST

CRITIQUE: There is no contraceptive that is absolutely "safe". Abortion is unsafe first for the baby, then for the mother, if not physically, then psychologically. Sterilization has both physical and psycho-social consequences. If the intended meaning of "family planning" is what Dr Cushner says, then the meaning of "effective" and "affordable" are clear. What is not so clear is how it can be made "acceptable". Acceptability, it seems, would be the concern of social psychology and propaganda. Otherwise, the last option would be coercion and deception.

EXPOSÉ: When the UN and most governments say "family planning", they mean contraception, sterilization, and tacitly, "safe" abortion. In 1971, speaking in a symposium on the Implementation of Therapeutic Abortion, Professor Irvin Cushner of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine was explicit in stating the intended meaning of "family planning": "No matter how thin you cut it, ladies and gentlemen, family planning is a euphemism. We don't intend or desire to prevent conception for conception's sake; we want to prevent conception because of what follows conception. Family planning is the prevention of births, and as birth is the end of a sequence which begins with the sexual urge, then family planning is anti-conception, anti-nidation, and the termination of the conceptus if implanted. This is the societal role of abortion in the future." The leading abortion institution in the US, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) defines the acid test for "pro-choicers": "Do you believe that you have the right to choose your method of birth control with advice from your doctor? ... If you answered YES to this question, you are pro-choice."   LIST

EXPOSÉ: What can the "other methods" be, except for (a) abortion, and (b) new technologies like the forthcoming abortion pills, male contraceptives, and longterm contraceptive vaccines? Historical Note: IG Farben AG manufactured poison gas pellets for use in Nazi concentration camps. After the Nuremburg trials, IG Farben broke up into several chemical/pharmaceutical concerns, among which was Hoechst AG. Hoechst had tied up with the french drug company Roussel to form the Roussel-Uclaf Pharmaceutical Company. Supported by WHO funds, Roussel-Uclaf's Dr Etienne Baulieau embarked on research and development to produce the abortion pill RU-486. In June 1994, Roussel-Uclaf announced it was starting its Philippine operations through its partner, SmithKline-Beecham. On January 24, 1996, SKB formally inaugurated its connections with the Department of Health, with no less than former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher presenting the Department with 50,000 vials of DPT vaccines. It is possible that the groundwork is being laid for the "population" business.

CRITIQUE: The phrase "not against the law" is reminiscent of the explicit intention of the International Planned Parenthood Federation to vigorously pursue changes in all its member countries so that the laws are favorable to "family planning".   LIST

CRITIQUE: The definition is vague in excluding extramarital sex and perverted uses of sexual powers. In fact, the terms "enhancement of life and personal relations" can be very easily interpreted hedonistically.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: School-based clinics. See next entry.

CRITIQUE: This is perfectly acceptable, but is prone to admit promiscuous and/or adulterous relations, no matter how "respectful", these are. In the context and ambiguity of 96bis, which deals with "educational and service needs of adolescents", the phraseology opens the gateway to sexual activity for teenagers, provided that they are mutually consenting and non-abusive towards each other.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: Perhaps the most concise admission about the anti-life agenda for young people was made by Dr David Perkins during a 1987 conference on "A Strategy for Preventing Teenage Pregnancy": "Stopping teenage sex is not our objective. Stopping teen pregnancy is". Before he said this, Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood of America in 1986 said: "Too many of us are focused upon stopping teenage sexual activity. ... Sexuality education must be a fundamental part of the school curricula from kindergarten through twelfth grade in every school district in the country. ... Easier access to contraception must be another priority ─ access without any barriers. We must establish many more school-based health clinics that provide contraceptives as part of general health care." It was in the mid-1980s that pro-abortion advocates opened the new front in the West. In order to reach teenagers, they moved their abortion counselling and referral operations directly into the public schools, under the guise of "school-based clinics" or "SBCs". SBCs are the ultimate means to usurp parental rights to educate children. During a conference on Parents: Consent and Confidentiality held in Denver in October 1986, Asta Kenney of the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York approvingly admitted how SBC personnel assume the right to decide which medical treatment or counselling is most appropriate for a child. In the case of abortion counselling and referral services, the staff keeps parents in the dark because, Kenney asserted: "It is clearly in the child's best interests to be able to get those services. ... The bottom line is that you can go ahead and provide the services without parental consent, without parental notification, when you see that the kid is going to go without services otherwise." SBCs are now playing the role of surrogate parents. In sum, SBCs undermine parental authority and responsibility by administering pregnancy tests, pro-choice counselling, referral services to minors for abortion. In its extreme interpretation, the Beijing PfA means practically the same thing.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: The two men most credited with developing the birth control pill have acknowledged that their invention has led to widespread promiscuity. Dr Robert Kirstner of the Harvard Medical School has said: "For years I thought the pill would not lead to promiscuity, but I've changed my mind. I think it probably has." Dr Min-Chueh Chang, the pill's co-developer has admitted: "[Young people] indulge in too much sexual activity. ... I personally feel the pill has rather spoiled young people. It's made them more permissive." Dr Judith Bury of Canada's Brook Advisory Centre admits that: "There is overwhelming evidence that, contrary to what you might expect, the provision of contraception leads to an increase in the abortion rate" (Ref. "Sex Education for Bureaucrats, The Scotsman, June 29, 1981).

CRITIQUE: The scope of responsibility here is primarily clinical and only vaguely moral, since the document attempts not to impose values. Whenever the PfA mentions responsibility with regard to sexual and reproductive rights, the sense is primarily clinical responsibility, not moral responsibility.   LIST

CRITIQUE: The contentious word is "autonomy". If by autonomy is meant not being bound in any way whatsoever, not even by natural law, then, it means plain individualistic license. Moderately, "autonomy" could mean that women are not in full control of their health; or that they are less in control of their health and health procedures than men are.   LIST

CRITIQUE: We must admit that men are to blame for objectifying women and overpowering them to the point of sexual harrassment and abuse. But the blame must be shared by some women, too, for simultaneously underestimating men while they underdress themselves.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: The objective of population control establishment is to start them young by providing early access to contraception and abortion. School and Community-based clinics are envisioned. In pursuit of this goal, Information-Education-Communication (IEC) campaigns abound in mass media, and have infiltrated even the private business sector through sponsorships and advertisements. Pornography and sexually stimulating movies are the first come-ons for young people to engage in sexual activity. By his own admission, former Health Secretary Juan Flavier says it is the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications that is directing the IEC for the Philippines. The more precise term for IEC is propaganda. Propaganda is best achieved if psychological profile of the target population is obtained. this has been done through third party research projects and surveys which continuously monitor the effect of IEC on public opinion. IEC is probably the most well funded of all population-related activities.

CRITIQUE: Providing reproductive health information for adolescents is a part of what is otherwise known as "sex education". While sex education has many aspects, its primary components are spiritual and moral; and the natural primary educators of adolescent boys are their fathers, while those of girls are their mothers. The giving of health information, while not in itself immoral, should take into account the basic principles of pedagogy and the primary role of parents in the manner the facts of life are introduced to their children. The burden is on the spiritual and moral leaders to assist and encourage parents to do their duty or surrender their parental rights to the State.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: The extreme a-moral position on this issue is explained in the Annual Report for 1992-93 of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which says: "Reproductive health services for adolescents require: confidentiality, non-censure of users, free or affordable services, choice of methods, sympathetic well-trained providers, involvement of local youth, and peer education. Contraceptives sometimes fail, especially when users are inexperienced. Young women need to feel free to ask for safe abortions, and not to wait for late abortions or medical care complications. Early termination using vacuum aspiration is safe and cheap and can introduce women to family planning services." The IPPF's members were paramount contributors to both the Cairo and Beijing draft documents. IPPF President, Dr Fred Sai, was presiding officer in Cairo. "Services" in the extreme include "safe" abortion referrals (see above discussion on "school-based clinics").

CRITIQUE: The operative word here is "services". Services are a step beyond mere information. The bone of contention lies in what kind of "sexual services" and "reproductive health services" do adolescents have a right to? It is clear from common sense that the term "services" here is extremely dangerous if not neutralized and disarmed. It is almost univocally anti-life.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: The "right to privacy" can easily mean the right to conceal the grisly murder of an unborn baby. We must not forget that abortion was legalized in the United States on the basis of a "woman's right to privacy" allegedly granted by the US Constitution. When asked where they found the right, the Supreme Court Justice who wrote that opinion said that he found it in the "emanations" from the "penumbra" of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment had been adopted right after the American Civil War, and it gave civil rights to all people, specifically including black people. A closer look at the meaning of those terms reveals that "emanations" are vapors and a "penumbra" is a shadow. And so, the esteemed Justice found the right to abort in the `vapors' arising from the `shadow' of an amendment to the US Constitution! Therein lies the foundation stone of that tragic Roe vs Wade decision of January 22, 1973.

CRITIQUE: Every person has a natural right to privacy. However, in the context of the discussion of Par.95, it what is suggested is that the violators of privacy in the case of adolescents are their own parents. While parents do not possess absolute rights over their children, they have natural obligations of stewardship to fulfill. These obligations are commonly called "parenting", and in the case of believers, "Christian parenting". The only difference between Roe vs Wade and the Beijing Platform for Action is that Roe vs Wade gave the right to privacy to women, and the PfA will give it to young women. By the way, the name of the original "Jane Roe" is Norma McCorvey, who ended up not having the abortion she was given a right to after all. Today, her daughter is 22 years old and is a pro-life activist. Norma herself worked for abortion clinics, but underwent a conversion two years ago. She is now also a pro-life activist.   LIST

EXPOSÉ: Dr James Ford, writes ("Birth Control for Teenagers: Diagram for Disaster", Linacre Quarterly, Feb 1979): "It is clear that the family planning programs have contributed to an increase in the rate of abortion among teenagers." Dr Malcolm Potts, former medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation acknowledged it as early as 1973: "As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate" (Ref. International Review of Natural Family Planning, Winter 1980).

CRITIQUE: The document fails to distinguish between uninteded and unwanted pregnancies and tends to suggest that all unintended pregnancies are unwanted. This is a false presumption, since not all unintended pregnancies end up as unwanted. 'Wanting' or 'unwanting' are voluntary acts, not conditioned necessities. Where there is caring, and a compassionate presentation of options and alternatives, a woman with an unintended pregnancy can learn to want, and even to love her child. In a caring environment, women are more able to exercise free and informed wanting.   LIST

CRITIQUE: The term begs the acceptance of "safe abortion". Unfortunately, no abortion can ever by truly "safe", since the procedure has consequences which extend beyond the mere clinical and it involves persons other than the pregnant woman. The first victim, an innocent baby is killed. The second victim, the mother will certainly suffer a psychological Post-Abortion Syndrome (PAS), a complex pathology which has been found in fathers and other clinical personnel as well who had somehow participated in the procedure. The spiritual safety of all involved is lost as the canonical consequences for Catholics ─ ipso facto excommunication ─ is still in force.   LIST

CRITIQUE: It is a fact that women have born the brunt of contraception and abortion. It is they who have to get rigged up for sex and suffer the consequent side effects. The liberal feminist movement has since begun to advocate that men should share in the suffering. The term "shared responsibility" boils down to transferring the responsibility of birth control to the male partner. This is often referred to as "equal rights" in "family planning". It is, in fact, an equal wrong, which cannot rectify the previous wrong.   LIST

CRITIQUE: See also above, "Limited power ..."   LIST

CRITIQUE: Although the Beijing conference touches minimally on gay/lesbian issues, the term gender might still be "stretchable" enough to accommodate gay/lesbian "rights" at some future conference. This is why the Holy See Delegation took pains to set forth for the record that the term "gender" is understood as being "grounded in biological sexual identity, male or female." With a tone of forewarning, it points out that the PfA itself presently uses the term "both genders" (Par. 193c).   LIST

CRITIQUE: Since "mainstreaming" is a term coined by social engineers, it warrants vigilance, since it is subject to evolution. In clinical psychology, this is known as "psychological profiling" In the vocabulary of warfare, it is known as "psychological warfare" and in its extreme form is known as "brainwashing".   LIST