The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“INTERNATIONAL POPULATION ASSISTANCE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E357-E358 on March 21, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
INTERNATIONAL POPULATION ASSISTANCE
______
HON. SAM GEJDENSON
of connecticut
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, March 21, 2000
Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, soon we will be debating one of the most important foreign policy questions to come before the House this session--international population assistance.
This is a very important matter that will directly affect the quality of life of individuals and families around the world. It deserves careful attention by all Members. A recent issue of the magazine Insight included an article by Warner Fornos, the President of the Population Institute, that discusses this issue. The Population Institute is a nonprofit organization that seeks to bring the world's population into balance with our resource base and environment through equitable and voluntary means.
I believe the article by Mr. Fornos makes points that should be considered in the upcoming appropriations debates. As a result, I am including it in the Record for the benefit of all Members.
Question: Should Population Control Be a Priority for the Third World?
Yes: Vanishing Forests and Widespread Famines Are Signs of Crisis in
Many Nations
(By Warner Fornos)
The term ``population control'' has an unfortunate and misleading connotation. ``Control'' seems to infer force and coercion, which I categorically oppose on moral and ethical grounds. My opposition goes beyond mere semantics. There are those who would have us believe that all population and family-planning programs are rooted in force and coercion; that simply is untrue. At least some of those who peddle that particular bill of goods are snake-oil salesmen who know better or should.
Fertility rates have declined during the last 40 years, from six children per woman to slightly less than three. Anyone who honestly thinks that this is the result of force and coercion simply does not understand human nature of the limitations on the ability of governments to make people do--or, perhaps in this case, not do--something against their will. The magnitude of the power that would have to be exercised to influence the most personal of decisions so successfully during the last four decades simply defies the imagination.
Voluntary family-planning information, education and services should be universally available and accessible. According to the United Nations, there are some 350 million couples throughout the world who lack access to, or the means to acquire, modern contraceptives. An estimated 120 million of those couples would use safe and effective family-planning methods immediately if they were available. The Population Institute strives for universal access to a variety of family-planning methods.
In the last year, world population surpassed the 6 billion mark. World population is growing annually by nearly 80 million
There are a number of environmentalists who can produce voluminous scientific data to demonstrate that our planet already has exceeded its sustainable limits. Just for starters, they point to such chilling statistics as the following: 1.3 billion people live in absolute poverty on the equivalent of one U.S. dollar or less per day, 1.5 billion people lack access to an adequate supply of clean water and 790 million people go to bed hungry every night.
There are those who say that poverty, hunger and water issues really are social, economic, technological and political problems--not population problems. Certainly politics, economics and technology all fit into the poverty/hunger/misery equation, but when you see abandoned children begging for a scrap of bread in the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, or Lahore, India, or Lima, Peru, can anyone deny that these are children whose parents were unable to care for them? And think back to the 350 million couples who are unable to regulate their own fertility because they lack access to, or the means to obtain, family-planning information, education and services.
Almost from the inception of the development of national family-planning programs some 40 to 45 years ago, the argument surfaced that there must first be economic stability before there can be a smaller-family-size norm. And, generally speaking, industrialized countries do tend to have fertility rates that are lower than those in less-developed countries.
I am a strong believer in the free-market system, though I have never been convinced that capitalism is the best contraceptive. But those who believe development must precede
Pronatalists seem to view the Earth through a peculiar prism that blocks out human activity as a factor in forests vanishing, water scarcity, topsoil erosion, desert expansion, unprecedented global climate change and diminishing finite resources.
There is, however, a preponderance of solid evidence to refute claims that population growth no longer is a significant issue. For example, while world population climbed by 75 percent in the 20th century, an estimated 75 percent of global forested area was lost--much of it for living space, farmland and firewood, which still is the leading source of cooking and heating fuel in the developing world. In addition:
Nearly half a billion people around the world face water shortages and, by 2025, the number is expected to grow to 2.8 billion--35 percent of the projected world population of 8 billion for that year.
The 15 warmest years on record have occurred during the last 21 years and all major scientific bodies acknowledge that climate change now is under way. According to the International Panel on Climate Change, a two-thirds reduction in global carbon-dioxide emissions would be required to avoid a doubling of atmospheric concentrations that may jeopardize food production, the Earth's biodiversity and entire ecosystems, as well as human health.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture notes that since the mid-20th century the world's population has soared by 132 percent, while the world's cropland has increased by only 19 percent.
Complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of mortality among reproductive-age women in many parts of the developing world. Nearly 600,000 women die each year of pregnancy-related causes--about one every minute--99 percent of them in developing countries.
An estimated 160 million children today are considered to be malnourished. A recent report by the International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that 20 years from now the number of malnourished will decline to 135 million--a decrease of only 15 percent.
Ten million children died before reaching their fifth birthday in 1998, and nearly 8 million of them did not reach
Thirty million new jobs must be found each year for the next 50 years in order to keep pace with projected population growth, according to a special report by the Worldwatch Institute.
At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, or ICPD, 179 nations approved the Cairo Program of Action, a blueprint for preventing world population from doubling again as it has in the last 40 years. To achieve a sustainable future, it is important to implement the Cairo document--especially in the areas of ensuring universal access to family planning; achieving greater male responsibility in sexual and reproductive behavior and parenthood; and eradicating female illiteracy and increasing employment opportunities for women, both of which would lead to gender equality and smaller family size.
They key to implementing the ICPD Program for Action is the mobilization of resources for population and family planning programs. It appears unlikely that the ICPD goal of raising
$17 billion for reproductive-health and family-planning activities by this year will be reached. According to a report by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the consequences of the failure to meet this goal include: an estimated additional 42 million unintended pregnancies, 17 million induced abortions and 90,000 maternal deaths.
By cutting back on its international population assistance from nearly $600 million in fiscal 1995 to $385 million in the current fiscal year, the U.S. government has ill-served the cause of stabilizing world population. As the world's only remaining superpower, the United States has abrogated its leadership in one of the most crucial issues of our time. The result has been a domino effect, with other nations choosing to follow the U.S. lead and reduce their population-assistance budgets. There is a ray of hope that the situation will change. The White House has signaled that it will seek to restore U.S. International population spending to its fiscal 1995 level of nearly $600 million. Additionally, Congress, after failing to appropriate any contribution at all to the U.N. Fund for Population Activities in fiscal 1999, has voted to contribute $25 million to the fund in fiscal 2000 and again in fiscal 2001.
In the final analysis, it is the childbearing decisions of 3 billion young people--who will reach their reproductive years within the next generation--that ultimately will determine whether world population will level off at the lowest possible figure that can be reached through voluntary family planning and humane interventions. At stake will be the kind of world they want for themselves and their children.
____________________
