By Carol Tobias, NRLC President & Host of Pro-Life Perspective
Beginning yesterday, we started to look at a fascinating, but oh-so-sad article that I recently came across published in the Spring 2012 issue of “The New Atlantis.” It was fascinating because of the depth of information and history about population control and the use of forced abortion and sterilization in such programs. It was sad because of the horror forced upon so many unwilling individuals worldwide. And it was sad because of the United States’ involvement in these programs.
The article, entitled “The Population Control Holocaust”, was written by Robert Zubrin, a contributing editor to “The New Atlantis.” Because of more recent avenues available for sending and receiving information, such as the internet and twitter, and thanks to the courageous efforts of some people in China who no longer want to accept their government’s edicts, more and more information is coming out and more attention is being given to China’s population control program.
And the end of yesterday’s show, I shared Mr. Zubrin’s observation that “Sterilization programs in this country were set up to target native American Indians, low-income, predominantly black neighborhoods, and in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.”
Today, I’d like to pick up there with more of Robert Zubrin’s article. He wrote
“However, it was not at home but abroad that the heaviest artillery of the population control onslaught was directed. During the Cold War, anything from the Apollo program to public-education funding could be sold to the federal government if it could be justified as part of the global struggle against communism. Accordingly, ideologues at some of the highest levels of power and influence formulated a party line that the population of the world’s poor nations needed to be drastically cut in order to reduce the potential recruitment pool available to the communist cause.
“President Lyndon Johnson declared to the United Nations that ‘five dollars invested in population control is worth a hundred dollars invested in economic growth.’ With the Johnson administration now backing population control, Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act in 1966, including a provision earmarking funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for population control programs to be implemented abroad. The legislation further directed that all U.S. economic aid to foreign nations be made contingent upon their governments’ willingness to cooperate with State Department desires for the establishment of such initiatives within their own borders. In other words, for those Third World rulers willing to help sterilize their poorer subjects, there would be carrots. For the uncooperative types, there would be the stick. Given the nature of most Third World governments, such elegant simplicity of approach practically guaranteed success. The population control establishment was delighted.
“An Office of Population was set up within USAID, and Dr. Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt was appointed its first director in 1966. He would hold the post until 1979, using it to create a global empire of interlocking population control organizations operating with billion-dollar budgets to suppress the existence of people considered undesirable by the U.S. Department of State.
(Mr. Zubrin then quotes author and China expert Steven Mosher) “Who was Dr. Ravenholt? An epidemiologist by training, he apparently looked on pregnancy as a disease, to be eradicated in the same way one eliminates smallpox or yellow fever.”
The establishment of the population office within USAID marked a new turning point for population control advocates. Mr. Zubrin spends a good deal of time talking about Dr. Ravenholt’s methods of operation.
Join me next week on Pro-Life Perspective as we continue our look at Robert Zubrin’s article on the history of population control, its foundations and origins, and how it’s impacted our entire world as a result. In the meantime, we’ve posted a link to the entire article– www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust
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