By Irene Lagan
Herald Staff Writer
(From the issue of 10/16/03)

Population Research Institute (PRI) President Steven Mosher says that population pundits would have us believe that an ever-increasing number of people are the root of what plagues the world. Many think that by controlling population growth, we can control poverty and other pests, such as terrorism, and protect the earth’s diminishing natural resources.

But Mosher said the facts indicate a very different picture of reality. Population growth has already stabilized and will never again double. The world’s population, currently approximately 6.1 billion people, will level off at around 8 billion by 2050. Moreover, he said, the dire poverty that creates a breeding ground for terrorism and unrest is due to poor distribution of available resources and unjust social policies.

"Statistics gathered by the United Nations Population Division and the U.S. Census Bureau show that the birth rate is decreasing dramatically, astonishingly fast in country after country over the last 20 years," said Mosher. "The truth is that the world’s population could live comfortably in the state of Texas."

While some, including the United Nations Populations Division, are voicing concerns about aging populations and below-replacement fertility rates in developed countries, the United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA) continues to fund "population stabilization programs" aimed at reducing populations in third world nations.

Addressing the "demographic question" in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II wrote: "In the rich and developed countries there is a disturbing decline or collapse of the birthrate. The poorer countries, on the other hand, generally have a high rate of population growth, difficult to sustain in the context of low economic and social development, and especially where there is extreme underdevelopment. In the face of over- population in the poorer countries, instead of forms of global intervention at the international level … anti-birth policies continue to be enacted."

According to Mosher, population stabilization programs established in the 1960s were based on "silly extrapolations" ultimately dating back to a theory posited by the 19th century scientist Thomas Malthus, who believed that overpopulation was the cause of poverty, disease and war. In 1968, author Paul Ehrlich’s book titled The Population Bomb exacerbated Malthusian fears and claimed that too many people and too little food were the causes of our "dying planet."

"The idea that overpopulation is the cause of pollution, resource depletion, land erosion and deforestation stems from the 1960s overpopulation scare, which was based on a false theory," said Mosher. "Since then, we’ve been pouring billions of dollars into reducing fertility rates. Africa, the Philippines and other developing nations are targets for population control measures."

Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York based nongovernmental organization that monitors United Nations activity, also said the "chief feature of the population bomb scare has been coercion."

Based on fears of overpopulation and diminishing resources, the UNFPA, established by a U.S. initiative in 1969 as a nonpartisan clearinghouse for population information, soon adopted coercive measures aimed at reducing population growth in Third World nations.

In the early 1970s, a U.S. State Department document created under the direction of then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, identified population growth in Third World nations as "a matter of paramount importance." The document, the "National Security Study Memorandum 200" (NSSM200) argued that the growth of Third World nations ultimately posed a threat to U.S. economic interests and political security, and advocated adopting population control measures as a solution.

But rather than helping to stabilize economies and populations in third world countries, Mosher believes that policies adopted during the Cold War were economically and politically disruptive.

Since then, Mosher said, foreign aid packages have often been tied to a country’s adoption of population policies aimed at reducing fertility rates. "Voluntary family planning programs" he said, often adopt coercive tactics to limit family size, and "reproductive health services" are limited to providing abortion, sterilization and birth-control instead of basic health care.

Mosher said that "keeping the numbers down" in developing nations is a form of thinly-disguised imperialism that results in human rights violations and ultimately works against our national interests.

"It is the same as if our government were to say ‘there are too many people in the state of Texas, so we are going to pass out birth control, and push abortion and sterilization’," said Mosher.

Expressing the same concern for injustices resulting from coercive population control measures, Pope John Paul II wrote: "Today not a few of the powerful of the earth … are haunted by the current demographic growth, and fear that the most prolific and poorest peoples represent a threat for the well-being and peace of their own countries. "Consequently, rather than wishing to face and solve these serious problems with respect for the dignity of individuals and families and for every person's inviolable right to life, they prefer to promote and impose by whatever means a massive program of birth control. Even the economic help which they would be ready to give is unjustly made conditional on the acceptance of an anti-birth policy" (Evangelium Vitae, no.16.)

As a result of PRI’s work, the Bush administration has cut millions in funding earmarked for UNFPA funded reproductive health and family planning programs two years in a row.

While UNFPA officials claim that Mosher’s influence hinders its work of providing crucial aid to the world’s poorest, Mosher said PRI’s aim is to foster policies that help individuals "improve their lot in life."

"Instead of offering malaria medication, vaccinating children and providing maternal healthcare, these programs often push abortion, sterilization and contraception on women," Mosher said.

Mosher believes that monies directed to clean needle programs, nutritional supplements, maternal child health care, child protection programs, malaria medication and other primary health care initiatives would help ease grinding poverty, stabilize economies and ultimately family size in developing nations. Based on PRI’s investigation of population control programs in Peru, Congress approved a measure to ensure that women in developing countries are afforded the same protections as women in the United States. PRI’s documented evidence of coercive population control measures, such as using bribes or sanctions, and failure to provide informed consent for sterilization and abortion procedures, led to the 1998 Tiahrt Amendment.

The organization’s recent efforts have centered on exposing United States Agency for International Development (USAID) population stabilization programs in an effort to redirect funding to primary health programs.

PRI was established in 1989 by Benedictine Father Paul Marx, then-president of Human Life International, to "promote the culture of life within a context by fostering a pro-life, pro-family foreign policy." The Front Royal-based institute is dedicated to educating the public about population and life issues, including documented human rights violations, and to providing accurate research and information on population issues to public officials.

Mosher was named president in 1996 when PRI became an independent organization. His interest in population control stemmed from his work in China in 1979 when he was a doctoral student in anthropology at the Stanford University. While he was there, China established its one-child-per-family policy. Mosher reported witnessing forced abortions and other human rights violations. Branded as a spy by the Chinese government and shunned by colleagues at Stanford, Mosher said he was denied his doctoral degree.

"In retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me," he said. "It got me out of academe."