Leading science experts and non religious reason on rh bill - feb 2012
1. Leading Science Experts and
Non-Religious Reason
on the
Reproductive Health Bills
By Dr. Raul Nidoy
Parents for Education Foundation
Science and Reason for Human Beings
2. Positive aims of the
Reproductive Health Bills
Lower maternal deaths
5.7 per day (WHO) not 10-11 per day
Proven method: birthing centers and improving
birthing services
Maternal, infant and child health and nutrition
Fostering breastfeeding
Elimination of violence against women
Covered by existing law: Magna Carta for Women
3. Key Questions
Medical Questions
Do the pill and IUD kill human beings?
Is the pill good for the health?
Will condom use help stem the AIDS epidemic?
Soci0-Moral Questions
Does availability of contraception lead to more
premarital and extramarital sex?
Ethical Question
What’s the moral difference between contraceptive sex
and Natural Family Planning?
Economic Questions
Will population control improve our economy? The
plight of the poor?
Historico-Political Questions
Where does this come from?
Does RH have a eugenics and racist background?
Is it imperialistic?
4. BBC: 15 secular moral arguments
vs contraception
1. is unnatural
2. is anti-life
3. separates sex from reproduction
4. allows people (even married people)
to have sex purely for enjoyment
5. prevents potential human
beings being conceived
5. 6. prevents people who might benefit humanity
from being born
14th of 16 children 7th of 11 children
6. 7. is a form of abortion
8. carries health risks
9. The "contraceptive culture" is dangerous
10. makes it easier for people to have sex outside
marriage
11. leads to widespread sexual immorality
12. may lead to depopulation
13. can be used as a eugenic tool
14. is often misused in mass population control
programs in a racist way
15. Mass population control programs can be a
form of cultural imperialism or a misuse of
power
7. In a debated issue, one position is
true and the other false.
Impossible for two contradictory positions
to be both true.
Since the questions are crucial (social morality
or immorality, life or death, health or sickness,
family stability or destruction), it is a grave
obligation for the nation to arrive at the
truth.
8. Resolving questions: leading experts
Expertise in the specific technical question
Unbiased
Not advocates with an agenda
Not political groups, e.g. United Nations agencies
If conclusions go against convictions, more credible
If experts disagree, choose:
Most authoritative expert
Most corroborated or comprehensive studies
Since the questions are crucial, seek out the
greatest , unbiased world experts who are
after the truth to resolve these questions.
9. Science Experts and World
Authorities to answer questions
Medical Questions
Harvard Medical School / Mayo Clinic
American Medical Association 2000
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 2005
International Agency for Research on Cancer 2007
Harvard Director for AIDS Prevention, Edward Green, agnostic
Social-Moral Questions
Social Science - George Akerlof, Nobel, behavioral economics
Contraception, an international reproductive health journal
Economic Questions
Simon Kuznets – Nobel Prize
Michael Spence – Nobel Prize
Historical and Political Question
Matthew Connelly. Columbia University. Harvard University
Press
US National Security Study Memorandum – primary document
10. Do the pill and IUD kill human
beings?
When does human life begin?
These sources agree: Ampatuan Massacre
Medical Dictionaries – at least 7
Oxford Butterworths Gould Stedman Harrup Mellon Pearce
Medical Textbooks - at least 13
Moore Larsen Sadler Rahilly and Miller Langman Potter and Craid
Vannillsen Cosidine’s Van Nostrand Turner and Helms Clark Scarr
Thibodeau and Anthony Decoursey
57 international experts called to eight day hearing at US Senate
Harvard Medical School
Mayo Clinic
Dr. Jerome Lejeune – Father of Modern Genetics
11. “Overwhelming agreement”: at fertilization
when the sperm penetrates the egg
US Senate Report 1981: There is overwhelming
agreement on this point in countless medical,
biological, and scientific writings.
Gordon, Hymie., Chairman of Medical Genetics,
Mayo Clinic: “By all criteria of modern molecular
biology… as soon as he has been conceived, a
man is a man.”
The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented
Embryology, 6th ed. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N:
“Human development begins at fertilization”
"Father of Modern Genetics" Dr. Jerome Lejeune: To
accept the fact that after fertilization has taken
place a new human has come into being is no
longer a matter of taste or opinion...it is plain
experimental evidence.
12. Do the pill and IUD kill human
beings?
Highly important question.
If just one person is going to be killed outside, we
will all do something to stop the killing.
If I step on an ant, there is no problem. But if I am
going to step on a baby, everyone in this room will
shout with horror.
This has to be resolved clearly and
definitively, because Filipino citizens cannot
knowingly be accomplices of a law that
deliberately kills human beings.
Story of Walter Larimore
13. Do the pill and IUD kill humans?
The pill has a secondary “post-
fertilization effect”, according to the
scientific journal of the American Medical
Association.
Larimore and Stanford (2000).
"Postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and their relationship to infor
Arch Fam Med 9 (2): 126–33.
IUD brings about the “destruction of the
early embryo.”
Stanford and Mikolajczyk (2005).
"Mechanisms of action of intrauterine devices: Update and estimation of pos
. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (W.B.
Saunders Comp) 187: 1699–1708.
14. Is the pill safe?
The pill causes cancer - the highest
level of carcinogenicity, the same as
cigarettes and asbestos
Confers the risk of stroke
Significantly increases the risk of heart
attacks.
"Combined Estrogen-Progestogen Contraceptives" IARC Monographs on the
Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans 91. 2007.
Kemmeren, et al. (2002).
"Risk of Arterial Thrombosis in Relation to Oral Contraceptives (RATIO) Study: Oral Contraceptives and the Risk of Ische
. Stroke (American Heart Association, Inc.) 33: 1202–1208.
Baillargeon, McClish, Essah, and Nestler (2005).
"Association between the Current Use of Low-Dose Oral Contraceptives and Cardiovascular Arterial Disease: A Meta-Ana
. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (The Endocrine Society) 90 (7):
3863–3870.
15. Will condom use lower the
rate of HIV/AIDS in a country?
"There is a consistent association shown
by our best studies between greater
availability and use of condoms and
higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates.”
Harvard Director for AIDS Prevention, Edward C.
Green. Availability of condoms makes people take
wilder sexual risks, thus worsening the spread of
the disease.
Green (2003) Rethinking AIDS Prevention.
Praeger.
16. Case of Thailand and Philippines
Thailand Philippines
AIDS Cases AIDS Cases
1987 112 135
Strategy 100% condoms NFP and chastity
580,00 12,000
2005
UN Description High incidence Low incidence
(UN is perplexed)
17. What are the socio-moral effects of
contraception?
George Akerlof, Nobel Prize winner in behavioral economics.
A liberal. Economist of President Clinton.
Wide contraceptive use leads to more premarital
sex, more fatherless children, more single
mothers, more poverty, more abortions
- decline of marriage, less domesticated men,
more crimes, more social pathology and
poverty
Akerlof, Yellent and Katz (1996),
"An Analysis on Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States", Quarterly
Journal of Economics (The MIT Press) 111 (2): 277–317
Akerlof, “Men Without Children,” The Economic Journal 108 (1998)
18. Lionel Tiger
Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University
and Co-Research Director of the Harry Frank Guggenheim
Foundation.
McGill University. London School of Economics
Consultant of the US Department of Defense on the future of
biotechnology.
Anti-Catholic
Contraception has led to the:
trouble in the relationship between the sexes
breakdown of families
single motherhood
female impoverishment
19. Contraception leads to more
abortion (no to new human life)
Contraception, an international reproductive
health journal (Jan 2011)
10-year period
Increase of contraceptive use: from 49.1 % to 79.9%,
Increase in abortions: from 5.52 to 11.49 per 1,000 women
Malcolm Potts, the first medical director of
International Planned Parenthood: “As people
turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not
a fall, in the abortion rate.”
Guttmacher Institute: “levels of abortion and
contraceptive use rose simultaneously” in six
countries: Cuba, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United
States, Singapore and the Republic of Korea.
20. Why is contraceptive sex bad while sex
within natural family planning good?
CONTRACEPTIVE SEX SEX WITHIN NFP
Willfully prevents human Abstaining from sex or
beings having sex during infertile
period
Lie: I give myself totally but I Sincere total self-giving:
keep my fertility from you I give myself to the other as I
am, fertile or infertile
21. CONTRACEPTIVE SEX SEX WITHIN NFP
Trivializes the sacred origins Shows reverence for the
of human life. Sex like drug sacred origins of human life,
taking: only for pleasure. and the real purpose of sex.
Partner is a sex object, used Partner is a spouse, treated
for pleasure. One becomes a with love based on mastery
user of persons . of passions.
22. CONTRACEPTIVE SEX SEX WITHIN NFP
Treats human beings as Treats human beings as
machines without voluntary responsible beings, capable
control, freedom and sense of of moral self-control and free
morality. self-giving; and teamwork
with spouse.
Irrational, selfish, pleasure-
seeking. People used for
enjoyment.
The end
Abuse of natural processes, does not
like vomiting in order to pig justify the
out more. means
23. Jose Rizal: Importance of Morality
Only virtue can save!
If our country has ever to be free, it will not be
through vice and crime, it will not be so by
corrupting its sons, deceiving some and
bribing others, no!
Redemption presupposes virtue, virtue sacrifice,
and sacrifice love!
24. Founders of the American Nation:
On religion and morality
George Washington: Of all the … habits which
lead to political prosperity, religion and
morality are indispensable supports… great
pillars of human happiness.
John Adams: It is religion and morality alone
which can establish the principles upon which
freedom can securely stand. The only foundation
of a free constitution is pure virtue.
25. Will population control
improve our economy? The
plight of the poor?
Is there a correlation between
population growth and economic
growth?
Simon Kuznets, Nobel Prize winner: no
clear association appears to exist
between rates of growth of population
and of product per capita
26. Later studies confirm Kuznets
1986 US National Research Council
1992 Ross Levine and David Renelt. Studied 119
countries over 30 years (vs UP study of few
countries over a few years)
2003 RAND Corporation – associated with 30 Nobel
Prize winners: little cross-country evidence that
population growth impedes or promotes
economic growth; with good fundamentals it can
promote growth
2007 Eric Hanushek and Ludger Wommann study
27. Concrete Examples
Julian Simon – Ultimate Resource
North Korea and South Korea
East Germany and West Germany
China and Taiwan
Philippines
1961-2000: Population increased almost
three times, poverty decreased from
59% to 34%
78% to 90% of the poor households had
heads with no high school diploma
28. Thailand and Philippines
Thailand Philippines
Agriculture Model of Neglected
agricultural agriculture in
development favor of capital
intensive
industrialization
Next Eleven No. Aging
No Yes. “Rapidly
Yes
Economies (after population growing
BRIC) growing faster populations”
than labor force.
HSBC Largest Rank 23 Rank 16 (Large
Economies 2050 Population)
29. Family and poverty:
The poor want more children
Big families are poor
Not because more children means more poverty
But because poor parents want more children
90% of the time the poor want the children they
have
-Lant Pritchett, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Children for the poor are:
Investments for secure old age
Helpers in the farm
30. Hierarchy of priorities of a
society
Morality - God Money – economic
Family prosperity
Life Health and fitness
Health and fitness Life
Money – economic Family
prosperity Morality - God
31. Use of 3 Billion pesos: which
will you choose?
1 year of pills for 366,300 women
OR
2053 classrooms P 1.548 B
2053 teacher salaries .493 B
1663 skilled
birth attendants .399 B
4000 low cost houses .566 B
From Dr. Roberto de Vera, Economist of UA&P
32. Where did the idea of population
control come from?
NSSM 200 or National Security Study
Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide
Population Growth for US Security and
Overseas Interests 1974
“U.S. economy will require large and increasing
amounts of minerals from abroad”
“The young people… are likely to be more
volatile, unstable, prone to extremes… can more
readily be persuaded to attack the legal
institutions of the government or real property of
the ‘establishment,' ‘imperialists,' multinational
corporations, or other -often foreign- influences
blamed for their troubles"
33. NSSM 200
Give "paramount importance" to population
control measures and the promotion of
contraception among 13 populous countries
US leadership to "influence national leaders" and
that "improved world-wide support for
population-related efforts should be sought
through increased emphasis on mass media and
other population education and motivation
programs by the U.N., USIA, and USAID."
34. Where did the idea of population
control come from?
Thomas Malthus (+1834) - population
growth always outstrips food production
Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist founder
of Planned Parenthood (1942) - birth
control for the "unfit“
Adolf Hitler (+1945) - extermination of
the Jews Belknap Press,
Hugh Moore (1954) Population Bomb – Harvard University
2008
influence on US policy
Paul R. Ehrlich (1968) The Population Matthew Connelly
Columbia University
Bomb – bestseller
35. What do we do?
Spread the truth widely : family, community, office,
parish, associations, media, facebook, blogs, email, etc.
Echo what you learn, organize forums, give talks
Express your stand publicly and use the means for political
campaigning: stickers, rallies, etc.
Convince your legislators and their staff
Personal talk: call 931 5001
Through their staff or email: http://www.senate.gov.ph/contact.asp
Tell them of the objectively harmful consequences of RH
If they are strongly in favor of RH, you will campaign against them
in the next elections
Fight for our lives and future
Not business as usual Phnom Penh
before the Killing Fields
36. I remember watching a TV news broadcast
from Phnom Penh. People were coming and going,
cars passing by, men riding bicycles. It looked like
normal city life. But in the background there was
persistent thunder. Only it wasn’t thunder. It was the
sound of artillery -- the final battle between the
government and the Khmer Rouge.
If all those people had only known what was going to
happen to them – that within the next few years, one in
every three or four of them was dead by murder or
starvation – they would have stopped what they were
doing, and made every effort to prevent the Khmer
Rouge from taking over. They would have run to the
government and begged for a rifle to go into battle.
It is the same with the battle over contraception: if the
people only knew what is going to happen to the Filipino
family and society if contraception becomes the way of
life here, they would do everything in their power to
stop it.
Tim Laws, Chairman of Alliance for the Family (ALFI)
41. Debate and Polls
ABS-CBN Debate
69.58% - anti-RH
30.42% pro-RH
TV5 Debate
100% of studio audience- anti-RH
0% -pro-RH
58.7% of the viewers – anti-RH
41.3% - pro-RH
Philippine Star
56% - anti-RH
44% - pro-RH
42. Non-Catholic constituencies
Imam Council of the Philippines, the top leaders of the
Moslem population which at 4.5 M constitutes 5% of the
Philippine population: Use of contraceptives "underestimates
God," and "makes one lose morality in the process.“
Chairman Eleem Said Akmad Basher: There are so many verses of the
Koran that state about pro-life [principles]. Sabi sa Koran, don’t kill
your children by fear of poverty. Huwag matakot because Allah will
sustain you.
Baptist Bishop Reuben Abante: Children are gifts from
God, not accidents to be avoided.
43. Philippines is not a welfare state:
Taxpayer's money - not for personal practices
(combs and lipstick)
Much less for objectively harmful and immoral
devices – Government must not distribute these
even if it is the “choice” of many
Freedom. Information. Access.
No opposing law restricting access and information
Contraceptives available in family planning NGOs,
stores. International Planned Parenthood has
hundreds of workers here. Also PH Government.
The poor can afford condoms as they can afford cell
phone load.
44. Surveys - objective measure of Filipino preference is
the consistent top electoral success of party-list
Buhay Hayaan Yumabong (Let Life Flourish).
Social Weather Stations 2008 Pro-RH Survey was commissioned
by the Forum for Family Planning and Development (FFPD), a
pro-RH advocacy.
SWS did not inform people of the penal provisions – Mangahas
admitted
Survey commissioned by pro-family groups - 92% in Manila reject
the survey when fully informed of the bill.
Penalties - private companies (including faith-
based) and public institutions - forced to provide
contraceptives to employees.
Jail: 1-6 months; Fine- 10K to 50K
Totalitarian. A violation of free choice and conscience, and
establishes religious persecution
45. The Leading Causes of Death in the Philippines (DOH): Daily death toll per
100,000 women:
1. Heart diseases - 80
2. Vascular diseases - 63
3. Cancer - 51
4. Pneumonia - 45
5. Tuberculosis - 23
6. Diabetes - 22
7. Lower chronic respiratory diseases – 16
9 Filipinos die of heart disease per hour
75 die of tuberculosis per day
5.7 die of maternal deaths per day (solution is birthing centers not
contraceptives)
THE INQUIRER’S EDITORIAL OF March 5, titled Intolerance, had two errors, and the first error is glaring. The editorial stated that the Catholic teaching on contraception is only a religious teaching. I’m sorry, but the Catholic hierarchy is not the only one that understands the immorality of contraception; the secular BBC also perceives it. And this provides 15 secular reasons to make the moral case against contraception. BBC’s Ethics Guide (http://www.bbc. co.uk/ethics/contraception/ against_1.shtml), which covers differing angles, argues that contraception prevents potential human beings from being conceived. And people who might benefit humanity will be included among these. Aside from stressing that contraception leads to widespread immorality, the BBC also argues that contraception is unnatural. It explains that the natural consequence of sexual intercourse is conceiving a child, and contraception interferes with this natural purpose of sexual intercourse. For sure, one can glean from this sampling that there is nothing biblical nor magisterial in these arguments. Nothing religious, really, that a reasonable secular State cannot adopt. The second error, hidden under the nuanced position taken by the editorial, is the false impression given when it said that Catholic teaching on the intrinsic evil of contraception took its present shape over 40 years ago, with Humanae Vitae Of course, the theologically precise terminology can be dated quite recently, but let’s not forget that language is but the expression of ideas. And the idea on the evil of contraception took shape from the very beginning of the Catholic Church. We just have to read what Clement of Alexandria, an early Church Father, wrote around 191 AD: Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted. And it is good for everyone to know that all the Christian denominations agreed with this idea --both secularly rational and theologically grounded -- until 1930, the era when the dictatorship of relativism was imposing itself on the world. http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/letterstotheeditor/view/20100313-258331/Two-errors-in-editorial-on-contraception ============== Abby Johnson reveals details of pro-life turnaround and Catholic conversion College Station, Texas, January 13 ( CNA ) .- Despite legal challenges and personal attacks from Planned Parenthood, Abby Johnson has published a new memoir explaining why she left the abortion industry to join the ranks of the pro-life movement. Going even further, she's also rejected contraception, and decided to enter the Catholic Church. Johnson's new book, "UnPlanned," hit stores on Jan. 11, 2011, one day after the Texas-based activist addressed more than 20,000 listeners in an online broadcast. The Catholic publisher Ignatius Press has released a special edition of the book, with extra material including a foreword by Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests For Life. In the webcast, Johnson explained how she became involved in the abortion industry, despite her strongly Christian upbringing. She found Planned Parenthood's booth at a job fair, she said, and embraced the group's rhetoric about reducing the rate of abortion while making it available as an matter of "personal choice." But through her experiences at Planned Parenthood, first as a volunteer and eventually as a clinic director, Johnson came to see the organization quite differently. As a business, Johnson said, Planned Parenthood was primarily focused on providing its most profitable service –abortion– as often as possible. Prior to the birth of her own first child, Johnson also had two abortions herself– something she had not discussed openly until the Jan. 10 webcast, although her former friend and Planned Parenthood colleague Laura Kaminczak had disclosed it to a reporter in January 2010 without her permission. As Johnson secretly bore this grief, she also became disillusioned with pressure to meet rising monthly abortion quotas at her clinic. Neither of these factors, however, drove her to reject Planned Parenthood's core ideology about abortion "rights." What finally did, was the experience of seeing an unborn child die before her eyes on an ultrasound monitor. Due to a personnel shortage, she was called in to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion for the first time in September 2009. She was initially disconcerted to note how much the unborn child, after 13 weeks, looked like the image she had seen of her own living daughter while pregnant with her. The next few minutes changed Johnson's life irrevocably, as she watched the baby –whom she had believed to be incapable of feeling anything– squirming and twisting to avoid the tube into which it would be vacuumed. "For the briefest moment," she writes in her memoir, "the baby looked as if it were being wrung like a dishcloth, twirled and squeezed. And then it crumpled and began disappearing into the cannula before my eyes." "The last thing I saw was the tiny, perfectly formed backbone sucked into the tube, and then it was gone." Although Planned Parenthood has denied that this abortion ever took place, their assertion conflicts with other comments from Laura Kaminczak, who said she spoke with Johnson shortly after it occurred. Shocked by what she had seen, Johnson still initially continued her work running the clinic and promoting its work. Just a few weeks later, however, she was in the nearby office of the Coalition For Life, telling its director Shawn Carney –with whom she was well-acquainted, from his years of opposition to Planned Parenthood– that she could no longer continue helping women have abortions. In an interview with CNA on Jan. 11, Johnson said she joined the pro-life movement to help women understand the truth about abortion, not to become a public figure. She explained that it was Planned Parenthood, not the Coalition For Life, that turned her departure into a public battle. The organization preemptively sought a court order that would have prevented Johnson from discussing her past work. Because of the legal battle that ensued, she was not previously able to speak about many aspects of Planned Parenthood's business model and its treatment of women. Much of the information in "UnPlanned" is reaching the public only because Planned Parenthood's lawsuit failed. Johnson said that although she wanted to spare her family the strain of attention and controversy, Planned Parenthood's efforts to silence her ultimately fueled her resolve to come forward. She stated that her critics –some of whom have attempted to question the sincerity of her new-found pro-life convictions– don't realize that she never wanted the publicity and personal exposure of her new role. "Planned Parenthood released this to the media" in late 2009, she said. "Planned Parenthood made this a news story. This is something that they did." "This is not what I planned for my life. But God set this up for me– and it would be the wrong thing, to turn away from something that He has planned for my life." Johnson and her husband have grown in their faith during the past year, and are now preparing to enter the Catholic Church in the near future. She said that one of the final obstacles, in the course of her Catholic conversion, had been the Church's teaching on the immorality of all artificial methods of birth control. Planned Parenthood's mentality toward contraception, as she explained, stuck with her for a period of time even after she rejected abortion. Even as she became interested in the Catholic Church, she clung to the notion that artificial birth control was an advance for women and society. But she kept an open mind, studying Pope John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" and other sources of Church teaching. Abby Johnson's final decision to reject contraception, like her change of mind on abortion, occurred suddenly, and because of something she saw. This time, however, the sight that changed her mind was not a child's death within the clinic walls, but quite the opposite. An experience in a Catholic church, she said, finally made her understand the fullness of the Church's teaching on sexuality. This time, the vision of a child was not shocking, but profoundly life-affirming. "One day, we were sitting in Mass … I was sitting behind this woman, who I don't know, and this little infant." Gazing at that child, she finally understood the Church's insistence on marriages remaining open to new life. "It was just clear to me, like a switch had gone off, that we had to stop contracepting."
A Physician's Commentary about Post-Fertilization Effects: Walter Larimore http://www.christianfamilyplanning.org/hormonal.php I have prescribed " the Pill " since 1978. My wife and I used the Pill for years, having no moral concerns about it. Then, in 1995 my friend and practice partner John Hartman, MD, showed me a patient information brochure--given to him by a friend--that claimed the Pill had a postfertilization effect causing "...the unrecognized loss of preborn children." John asked me if I had ever heard of such a thing. I had not. I did read the brochure and its claims seemed to be outlandish, excessive, and inaccurate. So, I decided to begin a literature search to disprove these claims to my partner, myself, and any patients who might ask about it. The more research I did, the more concerned I became about my findings. I called researchers around the country and interviewed them. During this process I met Joe Stanford, MD. Joe volunteered to assist in the research that ultimately became this systematic review. We were concerned enough about our findings and about the fact that so many of our colleagues and patients seemed to share our ignorance about this potential effect that we presented the preliminary results of our research at a number of research forums, just to see if we were off base. Most of the reviewers suggested that, although this evidence was new to them (as it was to us), it seemed accurate and not off target. Furthermore, several said that they thought it would change the way family physicians informed their patients about the Pill and its potential effects. The most difficult part of this research was deciding how to apply it to my practice. I discussed it with my partners, my patients, ethicists I know and respect, and pastors in my community. I studied the ethical principle of double effect and discussed the issue with religious physicians of several faiths. Finally, after many months of debate and prayer, I decided in 1998 to no longer prescribe the Pill. As a family physician, my career has been committed to family care from conception to death. Since the evidence indicated to me that the Pill could have a postfertilization effect, I felt I could no longer, in good conscience, prescribe it--especially since viable alternatives are available. The support and encouragement that my partners, staff, and patients have given me has been unexpectedly affirming. It seems that my patients have appreciated the information I have given them. Many have been surprised or even shocked (as I was) to learn about this potential effect. Many of my patients have chosen to continue taking the Pill, and we have physicians in our practice and community who will prescribe it for them. Patients who take the Pill tell me that they are much more careful with their compliance. Others have chosen other birth control options--especially one of the modern methods of natural family planning. So, this is research that has changed my soul and my practice. It has been an extraordinarily difficult issue with which I have had to wrestle. I suspect it will be so for many who thoughtfully read and consider the evidence contained in this review. Walter L. Larimore, MD Kissimmee, Fla Source: Author's Comment, WL Larimore, JB Stanford, Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent, Archives of Family Medicine, 2000;9:126-133.
A Physician's Commentary about Post-Fertilization Effects: Walter Larimore http://www.christianfamilyplanning.org/hormonal.php I have prescribed " the Pill " since 1978. My wife and I used the Pill for years, having no moral concerns about it. Then, in 1995 my friend and practice partner John Hartman, MD, showed me a patient information brochure--given to him by a friend--that claimed the Pill had a postfertilization effect causing "...the unrecognized loss of preborn children." John asked me if I had ever heard of such a thing. I had not. I did read the brochure and its claims seemed to be outlandish, excessive, and inaccurate. So, I decided to begin a literature search to disprove these claims to my partner, myself, and any patients who might ask about it. The more research I did, the more concerned I became about my findings. I called researchers around the country and interviewed them. During this process I met Joe Stanford, MD. Joe volunteered to assist in the research that ultimately became this systematic review. We were concerned enough about our findings and about the fact that so many of our colleagues and patients seemed to share our ignorance about this potential effect that we presented the preliminary results of our research at a number of research forums, just to see if we were off base. Most of the reviewers suggested that, although this evidence was new to them (as it was to us), it seemed accurate and not off target. Furthermore, several said that they thought it would change the way family physicians informed their patients about the Pill and its potential effects. The most difficult part of this research was deciding how to apply it to my practice. I discussed it with my partners, my patients, ethicists I know and respect, and pastors in my community. I studied the ethical principle of double effect and discussed the issue with religious physicians of several faiths. Finally, after many months of debate and prayer, I decided in 1998 to no longer prescribe the Pill. As a family physician, my career has been committed to family care from conception to death. Since the evidence indicated to me that the Pill could have a postfertilization effect, I felt I could no longer, in good conscience, prescribe it--especially since viable alternatives are available. The support and encouragement that my partners, staff, and patients have given me has been unexpectedly affirming. It seems that my patients have appreciated the information I have given them. Many have been surprised or even shocked (as I was) to learn about this potential effect. Many of my patients have chosen to continue taking the Pill, and we have physicians in our practice and community who will prescribe it for them. Patients who take the Pill tell me that they are much more careful with their compliance. Others have chosen other birth control options--especially one of the modern methods of natural family planning. So, this is research that has changed my soul and my practice. It has been an extraordinarily difficult issue with which I have had to wrestle. I suspect it will be so for many who thoughtfully read and consider the evidence contained in this review. Walter L. Larimore, MD Kissimmee, Fla Source: Author's Comment, WL Larimore, JB Stanford, Postfertilization Effects of Oral Contraceptives and Their Relationship to Informed Consent, Archives of Family Medicine, 2000;9:126-133.
There is," Green added, "a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates . This may be due in part to a phenomenon known as risk compensation, meaning that when one uses a risk-reduction ‘technology’ such as condoms, one often loses the benefit (reduction in risk) by ‘compensating’ or taking greater chances than one would take without the risk-reduction technology." ( see the full interview with Green here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTNlNDc1MmMwNDM0OTEzMjQ4NDc0ZGUyOWYxNmEzN2E = ) What does the evidence show about the effectiveness of condom-use strategies in reducing HIV infection rates among large-scale populations? It will be easiest if we confine our discussion to Africa.... There's no evidence at all that condoms have worked as a public health intervention intended to reduce HIV infections at the "level of population." This is a bit difficult to understand. It may well make sense for an individual to use condoms every time, or as often as possible, and he may well decrease his chances of catching HIV. But we are talking about programs, large efforts that either work or fail at the level of countries, or, as we say in public health, the level of population. Major articles published in Science , The Lancet , British Medical Journal , and even Studies in Family Planning have reported this finding since 2004 . I first wrote about putting emphasis on fidelity instead of condoms in Africa in 1988. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/marchweb-only/111-53.0.html In 2003, Norman Hearst and Sanny Chen of the University of California conducted a condom effectiveness study for the United Nations' AIDS program and found no evidence of condoms working as a primary HIV-prevention measure in Africa. UNAIDS quietly disowned the study. (The authors eventually managed to publish their findings in the quarterly Studies in Family Planning.) Since then, major articles in other peer-reviewed journals such as the Lancet, Science and BMJ have confirmed that condoms have not worked as a primary intervention in the population-wide epidemics of Africa. In a 2008 article in Science called " Reassessing HIV Prevention " 10 AIDS experts concluded that "consistent condom use has not reached a sufficiently high level, even after many years of widespread and often aggressive promotion, to produce a measurable slowing of new infections in the generalized epidemics of Sub-Saharan Africa." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032702825.html The Harvard AIDS Project’s webpage on Green lists his book " Rethinking AIDS Prevention: Learning from Successes in Developing Countries ". It is stated that Green reveals, "The largely medical solutions funded by major donors have had little impact in Africa, the continent hardest hit by AIDS. Instead, relatively simple, low-cost behavioral change programs—stressing increased monogamy and delayed sexual activity for young people—have made the greatest headway in fighting or preventing the disease’s spread." http://www.lifesitenews.com/?/news/harvard-aids-expert-says-pope-is-correct-on-condom-distribution-making-aids
International expert praises Filipino wisdom in halting AIDS Jason Evert, an international expert on sexuality and family, who was in Manila a year ago this month, heaped praises on the "wisdom of the Filipino approach to halting AIDS" and said that they are "living proof that self-control always trumps birth control," in his book If You Really Loved Me . He offers prestigious empirical research to support his statements. If people abstained from sex at least six months between partners, the odds of HIV transmission would be decimated. Therefore, countries that encourage monogamy and self-control enjoy much greater success in preventing HIV than countries that simply hand out condoms. A key example of this is in the Philippines, where condoms are rare, and so is HIV. A New York Times article entitled "Low Rate of AIDS Virus in Philippines Is a Puzzle" reported that the Church in the Philippines is "conservative and politically powerful." As a result, "the government has no AIDS-awareness program of its own and restricts the public campaigns of independent family-planning groups."289 But, the article reported, "public health officials say they are stumped by a paradox in the Philippines, where a very low rate of condom use [4 percent] and a very low rate of HIV infection seem to be going hand in hand." In this conservative Catholic country that shuns condoms, about twelve thousand of the eighty-four million residents are infected with HIV. Jean-Marc Olive of the World Health Organization said that he's not sure why this is, but he thinks they're "lucky." One gets the impression that "experts" would rather look puzzled than be forced to give credit to a chaste culture. To appreciate the wisdom of the Filipino approach to halting the spread of HIV, contrast their efforts with the "safe sex" program implemented in Thailand. Both countries reported their first case of HIV in 1984. By 1987 there were 135 cases in the Philippines, and 112 in Thailand. The World Health Organization predicted that by 1999, 85,000 people would die of AIDS in the Philippines, and 70,000 in Thailand. In an effort to prevent this tragedy, Thailand enacted a "one hundred percent condom use program" and promoted widespread availability of condoms.290 Meanwhile, the Filipino government backed the Church's plan to prevent the epidemic.By 2005, Thailand's HIV rate was fifty times as high as the Philippines (580,000 vs. 12,000).291 But because Thailand's rate of new HIV infections is not as high as it used to be, it is hailed by "safe sex" experts as the model of how to protect a country against HIV. Health officials warn that an HIV epidemic has "the potential to explode" in the Philippines, but they are slow to acknowledge that if Filipinos hold fast to their morals, they'll have nothing to fear.292 Compared to Western culture, Filipinos have a delayed sexual debut and a reduced number of partners.293 They are living proof that self-control always trumps birth control. While some people see the Catholic Church as an obstacle to HIV prevention, the British Medical Journal noted, "The greater the percentage of Catholics in any country, the lower the level of HIV. If the Catholic Church is promoting a message about HIV in those countries, it seems to be working. On the basis of data from the World Health Organization, in Swaziland, where 42.6 percent have HIV, only 5 percent of the population is Catholic. In Botswana, where 37 percent of the adult population is HIV infected, only 4 percent of the population is Catholic. In South Africa, 22 percent of the population is HIV infected, and only 6 percent is Catholic. In Uganda, with 43 percent of the population Catholic, the proportion of HIV infected adults is 4 percent."294 In the Philippines, over 80 percent of the population is Catholic, and only .03 percent of the population has HIV!295 References: 289 Seth Mydans, "Low Rate Of AIDS Virus In Philippines Is a Puzzle," The New York Times (April 20, 2003). 290 Human Life International, "Condom Expose" www.hli.org, 16. 291UNAIDS "Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic," 2006, Annex 2 292 Mydans. 293 Cecile Balgos, "Philippines Proud of its Low Infection Rate, Number of Cases," San Francisco Chronicle (May 21, 2003). 294 Amin Abboud, "Searching for Papal Scapegoats Is Pointless," British Medical Journal 331 (July 30, 2005), 294. 295 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, "International Religious Freedom Report 2004," U.S. Department of State (September 15, 2004); UNAIDS "Philippines" Country Situation Analysis (www.unaids.org).
The Lancet, one of the world's oldest and most respected medical journals (Oct 2011 publication): "We followed up 3790 heterosexual HIV-1-serodiscordant couples participating in two longitudinal studies of HIV-1 incidence in seven African countries. Among 1314 couples in which the HIV-1-seronegative partner was female, rates of HIV-1 acquisition were 6·61 per 100 person-years in women who used hormonal contraception and 3·78 per 100 person-years in those who did not. Among 2476 couples in which the HIV-1-seronegative partner was male, rates of HIV-1 transmission from women to men were 2·61 per 100 person-years in couples in which women used hormonal contraception and 1·51 per 100 person-years in couples in which women did not use hormonal contraception." http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2811%2970247-X/fulltext#bib28 Bad shot: when will WHO warn women about the contraceptive jab? The latest strong evidence that hormonal contraception is linked with AIDS finds experts still dallying. Early this month The Lancet medical journal published a study that should have stopped birth control missionaries in Africa dead in their tracks. An international research team reported finding a strong link between HIV transmission and the use of hormonal contraceptives, particularly injectable hormones such as Depo-Provera, which may double the risk both of acquiring and passing on the AIDS virus. This is very big, very alarming news. About 12 million women in sub-Saharan Africa receive contraceptive shots every three months because injectables are regarded as the most efficient method for women who are often poor and without easy access to transport. A nurse or other health worker can give the injection so there is no need for a doctor. The wife need not bother her husband for any special consideration; the teenage girl need not remember to take a pill (and she is certain to forget the condom). It is the dream method in the eyes of “reproductive health” promoters who believe that the greatest favour they can do Third World women -- and the underclass in developed countries -- is prevent babies arriving. Now they are faced with robust evidence that DMPA (depot medroxyprogesterone acetate) is probably helping to drive the HIV-AIDS epidemic in the worst affected region of the world. Oral contraceptives are implicated too, and the role of other hormonal devices is not known. This much we do know, however: the international population control establishment has a major crisis on its hands. But don’t imagine that health authorities have called for an immediate suspension of the very convenient contraceptive jab. For one thing, it is not news to them. The study was reported at an AIDS conference in Rome back in July, but it is only since the Lancet published the research that the mainstream media have picked up the story. The World Health Organisation is still working out what to say. It has scientists reviewing the evidence and will hold an experts meeting in January. Then it might issue formal advice about the use of DMPA at least. Then it will certainly call for more research on the subject. Meanwhile, nothing must be allowed to halt the birth control programme in Africa -- or anywhere else. As a WHO spokeswoman told the New York Times : “We want to make sure that we warn when there is a real need to warn, but at the same time we don’t want to come up with a hasty judgement that would have far-reaching severe consequences for the sexual and reproductive health of women,” she said. “This is a very difficult dilemma.” An old concern As a matter of fact it would not be hasty to issue a red alert right now. According to WHO itself, the interaction between hormonal contraception and HIV infection has been a concern since the early days of the AIDS epidemic -- that is, the early 1980s. Thirty-odd years. Given the high stakes in human life and suffering, one would think that it would have been a priority for rigorous research. But after all that time no randomised control trial has been set up to thoroughly test the link. There have, however, been a number (at leat 20 by my count) of studies that have addressed the question -- usually by a secondary analysis of data that was collected for another purpose. The new study , “Use of hormonal contraceptives and risk of HIV-1 transmission: a prospective cohort study”, is one of those. Renee Heffron and others involved in the Partners in Prevention HSV/HIV Transmission Study re-analysed data originally gathered to investigate whether treatment of genital herpes would reduce transmission of HIV. While some previous studies had looked at high risk groups, such as prostitutes (“sex workers”), this one involved 3790 couples in which one partner was infected with HIV -- in most cases, the woman. They were from seven countries in East and Southern Africa and most were married with children. A little more than one third (1321) of the women used hormonal contraception at some point during the study -- the preferred method among couples with young uninfected partners -- although some changed methods, some stopped and some became pregnant. If previous research showing a significant increased risk of HIV transmission where hormonal contraceptives were in the picture (there are at least four, plus monkey studies supporting them) could be filed under “maybe” because of one flaw or another, the new study is generally considered strong. The evidence that risk at least doubles for women on injectable progesterone -- and, what has been largely unobserved until now, for their male partners -- is something that a leading researcher in the field, also involved in this study, takes seriously. “ We were frankly quite disappointed to see that we had a doubling of HIV risk,” said Professor Jared Baeton of the University of Washington. “We analysed the data several ways, to be sure we had confidence in the results.” “This is a good study, and I think it does add some important evidence,” said Charles Morrison, another expert on the subject working out of FHI 360 (Family Health International), a family planning organisation doing HIV prevention work as well.
Ratzinger on contraception God and the world with Peter Seewald Is it a different understanding about life, about people, that makes the Church forbid contraception? Indeed, the Church sees sexuality as a central reality of creation. Here man is brought into the closest proximity with the Creator, into the highest degree of responsibility. He himself is allowed a responsible share in the source of life. Each single person is a creature of God—and he is at the same time the child of his parents. For this reason there is to some extent an intermingling of divine creativity and human fruitfulness. Sexuality is a powerful thing; we can see that in the fact that it also involves the responsibility for a new person, who belongs to us and yet does not belong, who comes from us and yet not from us. From that viewpoint, I think, it’s understandable that it is at the same time something sacred to be able to give life and, in return, to have responsibility for it beyond its biological beginning. For all these various reasons, the Church had to expound what is important here and what is basically being said to us in the Ten Commandments. She has always, again and again, to bring this as a responsibility into human life. Can you be a good Christian if in questions of sexual morality you are always running counter to the Church’s ideas of what is right? The other side of this is that we always fall short of the great things that the Church, in expounding the Word of God, proclaims man to be capable of. If, at any rate, one wants to stay on the path, if one retains a basic recognition of the sacred nature of this co-creation with Christ, then one does not cease to be a Catholic simply on account of failure. Then, in our very searching, we remain, if you want to put it like that, a “good Catholic”. The Italian bishops have asked people to have more courage in begetting offspring. For a society that is afraid to beget children is, they proclaim, becoming “less human”. Wherever love for children is extinguished, then really a great deal is lost. Italians used to be famous for their love of family and children. Today, some regions of Italy have the lowest birthrate in the world. Here, something fundamental has changed with newfound wealth. This is in fact a great temptation for Western societies, to see children as competitors who take away from us something of our living space, something of our future. In just the same way, children are then regarded at best as a possession and as an image of oneself. People are not, in the end, ready to accept them in their own right, with all that must be given them in terms of time and the whole of one’s life. An Italian bishop once said to me that poor people invest in life; they look on children as their future; rich people invest in things. I don’t want to exaggerate what he meant by that, but it is obvious with us the investment in things, insuring oneself by the value of things, which are a multiplication of our own self, is stronger than our readiness to stand at the service of another life. Even if we take the problem of population growth quite seriously, we still have to recognize, on the other hand, the problem of an aging society that is robbing itself of its own future. The catchword population growth.The Church is accused of aggravating serious problems in some parts of the Third World with her strict policy of forbidding the use of contraception, to the point of real misery. That is of course complete nonsense. The misery is the result of a breakdown of the moral sense that once gave order to life in tribal societies, or in the community of believing Christians, and that thus prevented the great misery we can see nowadays. Reducing the voice of the Church to no more than a prohibition against contraception is utter rubbish, based on a completely distorted picture of the world, as I will explain in a moment. The Church still teaches above all the sacredness of marriage and faithfulness in marriage. That is her true voice. Where people listen to this voice, then children have a sphere of life in which they can learn love and self-restraint, the discipline of the right way to live, in the midst of any poverty. Where the family is functioning as a sphere of fidelity, people have patience and consideration for each other, providing the necessary preconditions for the practice of natural family planning. The misery comes, not from the large families, but from the irresponsible and undisciplined procreation of children who have no father, and often no mother, and who, as street children, have to suffer the real distress of a spiritually distorted world. We all know, besides, that in Africa today the opposite danger has long since arisen, through the rapid spread of AIDS: not a population explosion, but the dying out of entire tribes and the depopulation of the countryside. When I think, besides, that in Europe they pay farmers subsidies to kill off their livestock, to destroy grain crops, grapes, all kinds of fruit, because we supposedly cannot control overproduction, then it seems to me that these knowledgeable managers ought still to reflect on how, instead of destroying these gifts of creation, we could make good use of them all. The misery is not produced by people who bring up children to learn faithfulness and love, respect for life and self-restraint, but by those who try to talk us out of morality and who see man only in a mechanistic way: the condom seems to them more effective than morality, but when they think you can replace the moral dignity of man with condoms, so as to make his freedom no longer a danger to him, then they have stripped man of all dignity, down to his most basic self, and have produced exactly what they claim to be preventing: a selfish society in which everyone lives his own life and is responsible for nothing and no one. Misery comes from demoralizing society, not from moralizing it, and the condom propaganda is an essential part of this demoralizing, the expression of an attitude that despises people and that in any case thinks people capable of nothing good whatsoever. West: Contraception is like killing grandma, while natural family planning is like waiting until she dies naturally By Christopher West We’ve observed that sexual intercourse is meant to incarnate the marriage commitment itself, and that an integral part of that commitment is openness to children. So, does fidelity to the wedding vows imply that couples are to leave the number of children they have entirely to “chance”? No. In calling couples to a responsible love, the Church calls them also to a responsible parenthood. Pope Paul VI stated clearly that those are considered “to exercise responsible parenthood who prudently and generously decide to have a large family, or who, for serious reasons and with due respect to the moral law, choose to have no more children for the time being or even for an indeterminate period” (HV 10). Notice that large families should result from prudent reflection, not “chance.” Notice too that couples must have “serious reasons” to avoid pregnancy and must respect the moral law. Assuming a couple have a serious reason to avoid a child (this could be financial, physical, psychological, etc.), what could they do that would not violate the consummate expression of their sacrament? In other words, what could they do to avoid conceiving a child that would not render them unfaithful to their wedding vows? You’re doing it right now (I presume). They could abstain from sex. There is nothing wrong with abstaining from sex when there’s a good reason to do so. The Church has always recognized that the only method of “birth control” that respects the language of divine love is “self-control.” A further question arises: Would a couple be doing anything to falsify their sexual union if they embraced during a time of natural infertility? Take, for example, a couple past childbearing years. They know their union will not result in a child. Are they violating their vows if they engage in intercourse with this knowledge? Are they contracepting? No. Contraception, by definition, is the choice to engage in an act of intercourse, but then do something else to render it sterile. This can be done by using various devices, hormones, surgical procedures, and the age-old method of withdrawal. Couples who use natural family planning (NFP) when they have a just reason to avoid pregnancy never render their sexual acts sterile; they never contracept. They track their fertility, abstain when they are fertile and, if they so desire, embrace when they are naturally infertile. Readers unfamiliar with modern NFP methods should note that they are 98-99% effective at avoiding pregnancy when used properly. Furthermore, any woman, regardless of the regularity of her cycles, can use NFP successfully. This is not your grandmother’s “rhythm method.” To some people this seems like splitting hairs. “What’s the big difference,” they ask, “between rendering the union sterile yourself and just waiting until it’s naturally infertile? The end result is the same: both couples avoid children.” To which I respond, what’s the big difference between killing Grandma and just waiting until she dies naturally? End result’s the same thing: dead Grandma. Yes, but one is a serious sin called murder, and the other is an act of God. If a person can tell the difference between euthanasia and natural death, he can tell the difference between contraception and NFP. It’s the same difference. I’m not equating contraception and murder. That’s not the analogy. Rather, Grandma’s natural death and a woman’s natural period of infertility are both acts of God. But in killing Grandma or in rendering sex sterile, we take the powers of life into our own hands—just like the deceiver originally tempted us to do—and make ourselves like God (see Gn 3:5). This is why Pope John Paul II concludes that contraception “is to be judged so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God” (address Oct. 10, 1983). If you have resisted the Church’s teaching on contraception, maybe it’s time to give it some more thought.
RAND stands for R esearch AN d D evelopment, a world leader in policy research, associated with 30 Nobel Prize Winners. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2007/MR1274.pdf Most economic analysis has examined the statistical correlation between population and economic growth and found little significant connection . Though countries with rapidly growing populations tend to have more slowly growing economies, this negative correlation typically disappears (or even reverses direction) once other factors such as country size, openness to trade, educational attainment of the population, and the quality of civil and political institutions are taken into account. Figure 1.4 shows the portion of economic growth unexplained by these other factors. It shows that this “residual” growth bears little correlation to population growth rates. In other words, when controlling for other factors, there is little cross-country evidence that population growth impedes or promotes economic growth. This result seems to justify a third view: population neutralism. The neutralist theory has been the dominant view since the mid- 1980s (Bloom and Freeman, 1986). Although there are some variations within the neutralist school—with the NAS concluding in 1986 that “on balance … slower population growth would be beneficial to economic development of most developing countries” (National Research Council, 1986; italics added), and many World Bank economists suggesting that in some countries bigger populations can boost economic growth—the overall tendency is to accord population issues a relatively minor place in the context of the wider policy environment. Allen Kelley has suggested that population neutralism has in fact been the predominant school in thinking among academics about population growth for the last half-century; for example, the academic background papers to even the most pessimistic UN and NAS reports are much more moderate in tone than the reports themselves (Kelley, 2001). Kelley cites three major research areas that influenced the rise of population neutralism in the 1980s: • Natural Resources. Exhaustion of natural resources was found not to be as strongly affected by population growth as the Pessimists thought. Technology, conservation, and efficient market allocation of resources all play a part in preserving natural resources, and per capita income has been shown to be a key determinant of supply and demand for these resources. • Saving. The negative impact of population growth on savings (and a consequent negative effect on economic growth) was not borne out by studies. • Diversification of Resources. Whereas the Pessimists had thought that population growth would lead to a diversion of resources from the formation of physical capital (which20The Demographic Dividend would yield quick returns) to the formation of social capital(e.g., child health and education, whose returns would take longer to be realized), multi-country studies showed that this did not in fact happen to any great extent. According to Kelley, these studies, coupled with the impact of Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource on extending demographers’ view into the longer term, were crucial in bringing neutralism to the fore, and the theory has since had an enormous influence on policy-makers in developing countries and on the international development community. The Reagan administration and several donor agencies sought to limit support of population programs and simultaneously appealed to neutralist theory. ===== For info on the RAND Corporation: http://www.rand.org/ Wikipedia on RAND: Over the last 60 years, more than 30 Nobel Prize winners have been involved or associated with the RAND Corporation at some point in their careers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation#Notable_participants
Julian Simon compared parallel countries such as North and South Korea, East and West Germany whose birthrates were practically the same but whose economic growth was entirely different due to different governance factors. See Primer of Dr. Roberto de Vera: http://www.scribd.com/doc/26705870/Economic-Historical-and-Demographic-Evidence-vs-RH-Bill
Why is the Philippines still poor? By Dr. Bernardo Villegas MANILA, Philippines?Overseas Filipino workers ask why the Philippines remains to be a poor country while many of our East Asian neighbors, who used to be less developed economically than we (such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia) have eradicated or significantly reduced mass poverty. Why are close to 30 percent of our population still suffering from dehumanizing poverty? It is grinding poverty that drives millions of Filipinos to incur very high social and spiritual costs, leaving their loved ones at home, in order to eke out a decent living for their respective families. I do not pretend to know all the answers. I have been asking myself the same question over the last 40 years and have come out with a few basic answers. I hope I can contribute some light especially to our OFWs who are sacrificing some of the best years of their lives to help us combat this most important economic challenge through the remittances that they send year in and year out. As I have said in several occasions, this year 2009 we may get as much as much as $18 billion from our OFWs, contributing to the 4 percent GDP growth that I am personally forecasting for 2009, surpassing the more pessimistic prognostications of international and national agencies. It is easy to blame corrupt government officials and greedy capitalists for our enduring poverty. Without condoning corruption and dishonest practices, I must point out that, with the exception of Singapore, East Asian countries that have eliminated poverty were also notorious for corruption. Just think of Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. Their government officials and private entrepreneurs were not exactly paragons of honesty and fair play during the decades when their respective economies were growing by leaps and bounds. Every society has to uproot corruption for moral reasons. Dishonesty is immoral. It should never be tolerated in any democratic society. But it does not explain the main difference between countries that succeed in eliminating poverty and those that fail. We must find the difference somewhere else. The neo-Malthusians blame rapid population growth for our poverty situation. I find this explanation laughable especially during these times when the only countries in Asia that are posting positive GDP growth rates are the countries with huge populations, and therefore sizable domestic markets which partly immunize them from collapsing export markets. If one takes a look at the so-called emerging markets that are forecasted to dominate the global economy in the next 20 years, they have a common denominator: they all have at least 50 million people, i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, etc. Large and young populations have two advantages: They provide low labor costs and attractive consumer markets. The ones who are afraid that the Philippines will have Standing Room Only (SRO) if our population keeps growing should be told that our rich East Asian neighbors have population densities much higher than the Philippines: Singapore (7,223 per sq. km), Hong Kong (6,501), Taiwan (625), and South Korea (483). When Philippine population peaks in 2025, the population density will not even exceed 400 persons per sq. km. In addition, the Philippines is much richer in natural resources than these four tigers. Then why is the Philippines poor? The main answer is that for 30 long years after the Second World War, our leaders adopted economic policies that fostered an inward-looking, import-substitution industrialization based on protectionist, anti-market, and ultra-nationalist ideologies not very different from what most Latin American countries implemented with the same dire consequences. Over-reacting to our colonial past (as did the Latin Americans), we equated economic development with capital-intensive industrialization that did nothing to address our massive unemployment and underemployment problem. The worst consequence of these failed economic policies was not the eventual demise of the so-called infant industries that never grew up. The most devastating result was the almost criminal neglect of countryside and agricultural development. Because we used up our capital resources in the white elephants of the manufacturing sector, there were no resources left to build farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities, seaports, and airports that were essential to making our small farmers productive. Agrarian reform failed, not because of the fragmentation of land, but because we did not provide the small farmers with the wherewithals to be both productive and cost-effective. For some of our economic policy makers during this sad stage of our history, the neglect of countryside and agricultural development was more of a sin of omission: They were so obsessed with industrialization that they were blind to the needs of the rural populations, which accounted for 50 percent or more of the labor force. For a few others, however, the neglect of the countryside was based on an ideology that agriculture was a despicable sector that was the very symbol of colonial servitude. I remember debates that the late Jimmy Ongpin (who served as Finance Secretary under President Cory Aquino ) and I had with some leading economists who were hell bent on investing more heavily on capital-intensive industries oriented to the domestic market. Because we were arguing for more investments in agriculture, we were accused of wanting to keep the Philippines as a "hewer of wood and a drawer of water." Jimmy Ongpin even made a trip to southern Spain to present evidence to these critics of agriculture that agribusiness can be even more high-tech than the old-fashioned manufacturing projects that the fanatics of industry wanted to push. The rest is history. The bias against agriculture was so ingrained at the highest levels of Philippine society that it took almost till the end of the last century before a real shift toward agricultural and rural development could take place. In the meantime, our non-identical twin in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Thailand, was busy building farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, post-harvest facilities, etc. The result was dramatic. Whereas we were well ahead of Thailand in almost all indicators of human development in the late 1970s, today Thailand?the agribusiness superpower of Southeast Asia?has twice our per capita income and a poverty line one-third ours. It has become the largest rice exporter in the world and a large exporter of many other high-value agricultural products. Because of the enlightened policy of focusing on rural and agricultural development, Thailand has been able to attain a higher level of development and significantly reduce poverty, despite the fact that corruption has also been rampant in that country. Our story does not have to have an unhappy ending. In 1998, when Senator Edgardo Angara was the Secretary of Agriculture under the Estrada Administration, we saw a definitive shift away from inward-looking, import-substitution industrialization toward rural and agricultural development. Fortunately, this redirection of economic policy has been retained under the Administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Witness the significant improvements in countryside infrastructure represented by the Philippine nautical highway which has greatly improved the efficiency of transport of agricultural products from one island to another. The very visible improvements in Central Luzon (Clark-Subic-Tarlac highways) are being replicated in the Northern Luzon Agribusiness Quadrangle, in many regions in Mindanao, in very poor provinces like Aurora and Bicol, etc. As long as the next President will continue the focus on countryside infrastructure, we can be optimistic that we can make a dent on our serious poverty problem in the next 10 to 20 years. After all, 70 percent of the Philippine poor are in the rural areas. There is one advice I would like to give to the OFWs reading this column. If and when you return to the Philippines, use your talents, experiences, and capital to engage in small- and medium-scale businesses in your respective provinces. You can grow high-value crops like tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, papaya, sweet pineapple, honey dew melon?especially in provinces like Laguna, Cavite, Batangas, and Bulacan which have the 10 million consumers of Metro Manila as your market. You can also operate restaurants, bed-and-breakfast and other tourist facilities, nurseries and kindergartens, and other service establishments in the increasingly urbanized rural areas in Central and Northern Luzon and in Northern and Southern Mindanao. Staying in the provinces does not mean that you have to be necessarily involved in agriculture. You can be in the many small-scale industries and services that are now dotting the countryside as better infrastructures are helping to disperse population away from the National Capital Region . As you come close to retirement age, you will find living in the Philippines much more pleasant than staying wherever you are. As you helped them with the remittances you sent all these years, you can also help to take care of your aging parents and grandparents with your physical presence upon your return. Economic benefits of a large growing population: what experts say HSBC, a global British bank, predicted that the Philippines will be the 16th biggest economy by 2050, surpassing Australia, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. It means the Philippines will leapfrog 27 ranks! The explanation of HSBC, among others, is the Philippines' large growing population. Why? In a nutshell, the experts say: A large population stimulates investment in knowledge, attracts investors, provides a greater domestic market and more new ideas which improve productivity, and increases learning-by-doing due to pressures of increased production volume. It means more young people energizing the economy, increased consumption driving manufacturing and services, and an increased national savings. A big home market is an attractive prize for successful new products. Gary Becker, Nobel Prize Winner: In modern knowledge-based economies, on balance population growth helps rather than hurts income growth and general welfare. Larger populations stimulate greater investments in knowledge that tend to raise per capita welfare. Rand Corporation (2003) Though countries with rapidly growing populations tend to have more slowly growing economies, this negative correlation typically disappears (or even reverses direction) once other factors such as country size, openness to trade, educational attainment of the population, and the quality of civil and political institutions are taken into account. Bernardo Villegas, Doctor of Economics, Harvard University in Benefits of Large and Young Population: Lessons are being learned from the ongoing global economic crisis. One of them is that a large and young population can partly insulate a country from the ill effects of a global recession. It should not come as a surprise that in Southeast Asia, there are three countries that are still posting positive growth rates in Gross Domestic Product, i.e. Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines (VIP). … The VIP countries, like the so-called tiger economies such as Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea, are also experiencing precipitous drops in their exports (declines of 30 percent or more). Their economies are still growing, however, because their businesses can still sell to their respective domestic markets. Indonesia, for example, has close to 250 million consumers. … Vietnam and the Philippines have each close to 90 million consumers. Their GDP is being fueled by private consumption, thanks to large and young populations. The VIP countries also share a common feature: their populations are relatively young. Close to 70 percent of their populations are less than thirty years old. Those who are over 65 are less than 5 percent (in contrast with Japan, where those who are over 65 are nearing 20 percent of the entire population). Young populations tend to consume more. They also are magnets for foreign investors from the developed countries that are looking for lower labor costs. .. Among the so-called emerging markets that are led by the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries, those that have the best of both worlds are those with large and young populations and are endowed with rich natural resources… Julian Simon, Senior Fellow at Cato Institute and Professor of Business at University of Maryland, Is Population Growth A Drag to Economic Development? In the very long run more people have a positive net effect. This is because the most important positive effects of additional people -- improvement of productivity through both the contribution of new ideas, and also the learning-by-doing consequent upon increased production volume -- happen in the long run, and are cumulative... It may at first seem preposterous that greater population density might lead to better economic results. This is the equivalent of saying that if all Americans moved east of the Mississippi, we might not be the poorer for it. Upon reflection, this proposition is not as unlikely as it sounds.... Such a change would bring about major benefits in shortening transportation and communication distances , a factor which has been important in Japan's ability to closely coordinate its industrial operations in such a fashion as to reduce costs of inventory and transportation. Additionally, greater population concentration forces social changes in the direction of a greater degree of organization , changes which may be costly in the short run but in the long run increase a society's ability to reach its economic and social objectives. If we were still living at the population density of, say, ten thousand years ago, we would have none of the vital complex social and economic apparatuses that are the backbone of our society. Prof. Casey Mulligan, University of Chicago in the New York Times The more people on earth, the greater the chance that one of them has an idea of how to improve alternative energies, or to mitigate the climate effects of carbon emissions. It takes only one person to have an idea that can benefit many. Plus, the more people on earth, the larger are the markets for new innovations. Thus, even if the brilliant innovators would be born regardless of population control, their incentives to devote effort toward finding new discoveries and bringing them to the marketplace depend on the size of that marketplace. And it’s clear that incentives matter for innovative activity: That’s why we have a patent system that helps innovators obtain financial rewards for their inventions. Not surprisingly, research has shown that market size stimulates innovative activity, as in the case of pharmaceutical research that is especially intense for conditions that have more victims. Marie Powell Many economists contend that larger numbers of young people energize an economy by growing the productive labor pool, driving manufacturing and services through consumption and increasing the national savings rate. Young people have incentives to save for purposes like home purchases, college tuition for children and retirement plans. Businessweek: Is it coincidence that the most innovative major industrialized country, the U.S., also has the fastest growing population and the most young people? No coincidence at all, as it turns out. Surprisingly, a nation with a large population may have an advantage when it comes to innovation and the adoption of new technologies. Why is that? For one thing, innovation is risky. Most new products and new technologies fail. But a big home market offers a very attractive prize for success: Lots and lots of potential customers. And that tends to encourage innovation.
Source of picture: http://phnompenhplaces.blogspot.com/2009/10/psah-thmei-1960-1974.html “ The black and white one is from 1974, at the height of the civil war.“