Third World Poverty: Contraceptive Imperialism versus Gospel of Life

     The Catholic Church is the only worldwide institution that still relentlessly defends the constant and universal Judeo-Christian teaching on the inherent evil of contraception and abortion. The misconception that these teachings against abortion and contraception are the major hurdle in eliminating world poverty and suffering must be laid to rest, for contraception and abortion are a way of "alleviating" suffering, but only by eliminating the sufferers.

     In modern America, the majority of those targeted for contraception and abortion clinics are African Americans, Hispanics, and members of other ethnic minorities. Minorities in third world countries are targeted by our population control policies, which must be accepted as a stipulation for receiving international loans. This mirrors the policy of planned elimination of those deemed less desirable by Hitler and Margaret Sanger. Indeed the largest abortion and contraception services provider in the world is International Planned Parenthood and its affiliates, founded by Margaret Sanger.

     Women in Africa, South America, and Asia relate harrowing stories of complications due to IUD's implanted without their knowledge after their last delivery, tubal ligations performed without their consent, the refusal of the clinics responsible to reverse them, and other human rights violations. Third world governments must verify the success of their population control efforts to continue receiving loans from the West, and human rights violations related to coercive population control are multiplying. Basic health services and immunizations are often rare or non-existent in many of these countries while millions of dollars are spent on population control.

     Having spent time doing medical missionary work in Haiti, I know first hand the effects of the contraceptive imperialism the West imposes on the third world. It costs pennies to effectively treat many of the diseases from which Haitians suffer. But when a Haitian mother brings a dying child to a government clinic for a couple cents worth of antibiotics or antimalarial medications necessary to save his life, often there are few or none available on the shelves. I've personally seen this in government clinics there. Yet there are millions of dollars worth of contraceptives available in Haiti.

     Of course, we justify the need for our contraceptive imperialism by pointing out the "overpopulation" of the developing countries. The concept of poverty versus overpopulation needs close scrutiny. Poverty can be defined as too many people for the resources available in a geographic region. When we see humans living in poverty, we feel a certain solidarity with them. Our consciences tell us of our duty to help them out of their misery with food, shelter, infrastructure, and the means to develop their economy.

     Remember that verbal engineering always precedes social engineering. By calling poverty by a new name, "overpopulation," we remove the burden for their suffering from our conscience. No longer do we feel the need to feed them. We now can say, "It's your fault. If you'd just stop making babies, you wouldn't be living in poverty. Your suffering is your own creation." So instead of corn meal, we ship them condoms. Instead of antibiotics, we send them IUDs. Instead of the blessing infrastructure would bring, we send the curse of infertility.

     We're also destroying their societal structures. Haitian families often have eight children or more. Their infant mortality rate is so high, only 50% survive to age five. Still more perish before age 15. A couple starting with eight children can expect only two to three to survive to adulthood. These parents rely on their children to provide for them in their old age. In Haiti there is no social security check. They have very little food, clean water, few jobs, little hope. By imposing our contraceptive imperialism on them, we are taking away their families, the only comfort they have left. The West feels morally superior for these great acts of compassion, while the third world continues starving and dying.

     This is truly sinister. In America we can provide enough food to feed the entire world population. The problem is lack of distribution of available resources, not "overpopulation." Yet our government pays our farmers not to farm their fields to keep the price of grains up on the world market, and we dump excess grains in the ocean. Meanwhile Haitians an hour and a half flight from our shores starve to death and die of diseases we eradicated here decades ago.

     Chemical "contraceptives" and abortion drugs such as RU486 are advanced as a panacea for these problems. Few comprehend that the birth control pill, Norplant, and DepoProvera injections ALL allow breakthrough ovulation from 10 to 50% or more of a woman's cycle. When this occurs, they spontaneously abort a fertilized egg by preventing its implantation in the altered uterine lining formed under the influence of these hormonal medications. They are therefore abortifacient in nature, not contraceptive, at least part of the time. They are strictly abortifacient when used as morning after combinations because conception has already occurred. Once the egg has been fertilized, a growing human being is being killed, regardless if there are only one cell or a million present. One should not confuse contraception and abortion, regardless of their position on the subject. Even the most atheistic embryologist must admit that human life begins at conception.

     The lists of life threatening complications from these chemicals in the Physicians Desk Reference make one wonder why any woman would voluntarily allow her health to be threatened by these products, or why any man would endanger his spouse by allowing her to take them. The dangers of these medications are so well known that the federal Food and Drug Administration assigns them to a class of medications that protects physicians who prescribe them from litigation arising from possible complications. Another drug, RU486, is utilized up to the 9th to 12th week of gestation to initiate the spontaneous abortion of a growing baby. As far as safety is concerned, complete cardiovascular collapse and death immediately following administration of RU486 has been reported in the European medical literature.

     When contraception is accepted by society as a way of life and those contraceptives fail, what happens? A pregnancy occurs. But how do we now correct this "failure?" In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey the United States Supreme Court admitted that a society that contracepts must have abortion available as the consequence of widespread contraception. Fifty percent of women obtaining abortions today were contracepting when they became pregnant. No country in the twentieth century has accepted widespread contraception without legalizing abortion within one to three decades. Abortion follows the contraceptive mentality as night follows day. They are both fruits of the same tree of rejection of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. This fact is unpopular even with some pro-life advocates. But the logic cannot be denied. Abortion will never be defeated until the contraceptive mentality from which it grows is replaced with the consent of the will to the wisdom of God's laws.

     Finally, for those married couples with a serious reason to limit or space pregnancies, the Catholic Church supports the most effective, inexpensive, and safe method known to modern science. The Sympto-thermal method of Natural Family Planning, not to be confused with the less effective rhythm method, has been proven to be 95 to 99% effective. An article in the British Medical Journal of March 1993 entitled "Natural Family Planning: Effective Birth Control Supported by the Catholic Church," states:

     "Increasingly studies show that rates equivalent to those with other contraceptive methods are readily achieved . . . Indeed, a [World Health Organization] study of 19843 poor women in India had a pregnancy rate approaching zero [99.2%] . . . whatever the standpoint there is no doubt that it would be more efficient for the ongoing world debate on overpopulation, resources, environment, poverty, and health to be conducted against a background of truth rather than fallacy. It is therefore important that the misconception that Catholicism is synonymous with ineffective birth control is laid to rest. Understanding the simple facts about the signs of fertility confers considerable power to couples to control their fertility, for achieving as well as preventing conception."

     Unfortunately, the multi billion dollar contraception and abortion industry would suffer greatly from just such knowledge in the hands of couples. Therefore, they and their advocates have a vested interest in keeping the knowledge of the effectiveness of Natural Family Planning from the masses who would otherwise buy their products and obtain their abortion services. The derision of the Catholic Church and her teachings, and the insinuation that Natural Family Planning is inherently ineffective, serves to protect this vast industry.

     Once I teach a woman the art of Natural Family Planning, I may never see her again. There is no monetary gain for me. I will never get paid for an office visit to renew a prescription or a surgical fee to implant a device or to "fix" reproductive organs that were not broken, in order to cause sterility. But I have given her a power, an independence, and a freedom of choice she will never receive in a contraception or abortion clinic.

     Out of this true freedom, on a world wide scale, can come true solutions to the problems facing us. Freedom can never come from sin, and the sin of a contraceptive mentality and the abortion "rights" which spring from that mentality will only lead to temporal and eternal enslavement for the individual and for the world. Freedom can only be found within the will of God. The Catholic Church's beautiful teachings on marriage and family, the solidarity of those more fortunate with those in poverty and suffering, and the embrace of God's will in the service of the Gospel of Life, will provide the only true answers for the problems facing humanity as we enter the third millennium. The misconceptions must be laid to rest and the balm of the Gospel of Life must be allowed to start healing our suffering world.