United States Funding Sterilizations of Philippine Women

PHILIPPINES, July 14, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – United States tax dollars are funding sterilization programs in the Philippines, reported Focus on the Family’s Family News in Focus today.

Citing a US government report, the news source said USAID funds are contributing to the work of International Planned Parenthood affiliates, which are committed to establishing population control programs in the Catholic nation.

Female sterilization has become a favourite approach to artificially limiting family size in the country, although Filipino men have also been targeted with USAID-funded programs offering free chemical vasectomies.

USAID has followed an aggressive policy of promoting population control in developing countries.

“It’s special interest groups like Planned Parenthood who have been making a business out of this for I don’t know how long and as long as they continue doing this, they are making millions,� Mercedes Wilson with Family of the Americas Foundation told Focus news.

The Philippines has been fighting efforts to bring in mandatory policies restricting family size to just two children. The Filipino bishops have stepped to the forefront in the battle, rallying Catholic opposition to enforced population control.

In 2005, the Philippine Ambassador to the UN, Lauro Baja Jr., said the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had allotted the equivalent of US $26 million to fund reproductive health programs (typically including artificial contraceptives, sterilization and abortion).

In the declassified 1974 document, National Security Study Memorandum 200, the US listed the Philippines among nations to be targeted with radical population control measures, to be imposed through the United Nations aid programmes.

Reports of forced sterilizations taking place as part of the program have led to a call for US congressional hearings to undertake an investigation, reported Family News.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jul/06071404.html