UNFPA Head Misstates Vatican Position on International Family

By Austin Ruse | 1999

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM)  UNFPA head Dr. Nafis Sadik claimed on Wednesday that the Vatican has capitulated in its long-standing opposition to international family planning programs that include contraception and abortion. "This doesn't mean that the Church at the top has changed its position. But it is accepted that the international community has accepted that family planning is one of the human rights of women," said Sadik in a London speech.

     Today the Holy See contradicted Sadik's comments saying, "….." Veteran observers see Sadik's remarks as part of a continuing effort to undermine the Holy See's negotiating position at the UN. Often the Holy See, along with a few Muslim and Catholic countries, is the lone opposition to the sexual and reproductive ideology of UNFPA and the rich industrialized nations. This has led to an effort by some NGO's to remove the Vatican's Observer status at the UN.

     Sadik's comments came as UNFPA released its Annual Report on the World's Population. The corner stone of the new report is that the world's population has doubled since 1960 and reached the milestone of six billion this year. UNFPA report also says that the world's population growth rate has slowed from 2.4 to 1.3 percent in the last 30 years. But the report charges that the current population bubble of 1 billion child-bearing adolescents presents a danger to the planet.

     As a reaction to their fear that this adolescent cohort will reproduce itself, in the just completed Cairo+5 conference UNFPA and its allies in the developed countries attempted to promote the broadest possible notions of reproductive health for young people. At the same time they attempted to eliminate all aspects of parental control.

     In light of recent criticism by American lawmakers, it was surprising that in her London talk Sadik also praised the government of China for its commitment to population control. Sadik said that the world's population would have reached six billion six years earlier if China had not adopted family planning programs. UNFPA has continuously praised China's efforts even though their family planning programs have included forced sterilization and forced abortion.

     Steven W. Mosher, population expert and president of the Population Research Institute, today criticized much of the new UNFPA report. Mosher called the report "statistically misleading designed to generate fear of an overpopulation crisis that simply does not exist." Mosher charges that the UNFPA report glosses over the emerging problem of "below replacement fertility." The UN's own statisticians believe that upwards of 87 countries will experience this phenomenon by the end of this year. "Below replacement fertility" means that a country is no longer reproducing itself and has begun to rapidly age. Much of the industrialized west is now experiencing this entirely new phenomenon.

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