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NEW! Communist China Headed for Consequences of One Child Policy – 35,000 Abortions There Every Day

Quebec Family Programs Doomed Due to Low Fertility, Abortion, Debt: Report

UNFPA’s 7 Billion Population Graph is Erroneous

7 Billion People: What Population Control Advocates Don’t Say

Baby Number Seven Billion Not an Overpopulation Concern

CONSIDER: Sex-Selection Abortions Devalue Women, But Feminists Are Silent

Wikileaks Cable: U.S. Gov’t Has Been the Largest Supporter of Philippines Population Control in Past 40 Years

ANALYSIS: United Nations Projections of High Fertility STILL Show Rapid Global Aging

Population to Reach 7 Billion This Year? ‘Just Relax!’ States the Fifth 'Overpopulation is a Myth' Cartoon

Legacy of Population Control: 163 Million Missing Women

Al Gore Promotes Population Control as Answer to Climate Change

Commentary: How Western Agencies Are Using Billions to Foist Their Population Agenda on Filipinos

Commentary: Why Is the UN Arbitrarily Inflating Population Predictions?

‘Africans Love Children’: Nigerian Engineer Busts Population Growth Propaganda

Overpopulation is a Myth: Plenty of Food and Space Exists

Russian Duma Drafts Bill to Cut Abortions Citing Underpopulation

In Midst of Demographic Collapse, Japan Approves ‘Morning After’ Pill

Overpopulation is a Myth

Population Growth Challenges Can Be Met with Human Ingenuity, Say Engineers

One Planet, Too Many People?

China Aid Director: U.S., Western Countries ‘Accomplices’ in China’s Brutal One Child Policy

New Population Count May Complicate Obama 2012 Bid - Yahoo News

Japan Records Fourth Year of Plummeting Population

Ted Turner Calls for Global One-Child Policy Like China’s

Poverty: Where We All Started

STUDY: Fewer Children, Later Marriage, More Divorce in Canadian Families

U.S. Pregnancies, 2005

QuickStats: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Race and Sex --- United States, 1970--2007

Islamic Terrorism and Fertility...

Communist China Headed for Consequences of One Child Policy – 35,000 Abortions There Every Day

Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry (R-Texas) said that China was “destined for the ash heap of history” because of its immoral government -- "they are not a country of virtues” -- citing the fact that an average of 35,000 abortions are performed there every day.  [GOP presidential debate on Nov. 22]

... Perry’s statement that there are 35,000 “forced abortions” in China every day is true, at least according to Chinese figures.

A July 2009 report in the state-controlled China Daily stated that there were 13 million abortions in China every year. That figure works out to an average of 35,616 abortions per day.

That report also said that approximately 62 percent of those abortions were performed on women between the ages of 20 and 29.

Further, approximately 10 million abortion-inducing drugs are administered each year in China.

According to the China Daily article, the average surgical abortion in China costs approximately $88.

China, a country of 1.3 billion people, has had a population-control policy known as the One Child Policy since 1978 that mandates that couples can only have one child.

To enforce this policy, China often forces women to undergo surgical abortions if they become pregnant with a second child.
[Matt Cover, November 23, 2011, CNSNews.com,  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/perry-communist-china-destined-ash-heap-history-35000-abortions-every-day-there ;  LifeSiteNews.com, 27 Dec 2011]

Quebec Family Programs Doomed Due to Low Fertility, Abortion, Debt: Report

A report released last week criticizes Québec’s oft-extolled set of family programs as unsustainable and “problematic” due the province’s snowballing debt and low fertility rates.

“There are real reasons to be concerned about the sustainability of the rather ambitious Québec welfare state. Without substantial fiscal restructuring, the province may not be able to afford to maintain the extensive social benefits it currently offers families,” argues the report, titled “A Québec Family Portrait.” The report was produced by The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada (IMFC), an organization that performs research on marriage and family issues in Canada.

In outlining the “real reasons to be concerned about the sustainability of the rather ambitious Québec welfare state” the report highlights Québec’s debt-to-GDP ratio (the 5th highest in the world at 94%), a low fertility rate (1.74 as of 2008, well below the 2.1 replacement level), and a province-wide “marriage deficit” (63.1% of children in Québec were born outside of marriage in 2010).

“If the Québec experiment in social engineering is ever to unravel, the cause will almost certainly involve fiscal woes flowing from the constant need to refill government coffers, combined with the same low fertility levels experienced by most Canadian jurisdictions,” says the report.

“An astoundingly high abortion rate combined with stubbornly low fertility rates remains a longer term cultural question that Québecers will need to address.”

The report urges the Government of Québec to revive a “strong marriage culture” so as to avoid the possibility of “instability” in family life should government programs “cease or be curtailed due to tightening budgets.”

Andrea Mrozek, IMFC’s Manager of Research and Communications and a co-author of the report, told LifeSiteNews that what is happening in Québec is a “foreshadowing of things to come for Canada.”

“As a province they [the people of Québec] are not alone in having a fairly robust set of social programs and low fertility which means you are lacking the tax payers to pay for said social programs,” she said, adding that IMFC started with an analysis of Québec because it offered the “most contrast” to the rest of Canada.

Mrozek says she hopes that the report will bring people to an awareness of what is actually happening in their provinces, and provide good information to policy makers. “There is a tremendous capacity of governments—combined federal and provincial—to conceal any problems that do exist,” she said.

“They do need to recover a model of family that we identify as being the strongest way to raise children, which is by their own married parents.”

IMFC’s report acknowledges that such a revival of the family would “mark a 180 degree turn around in Québec’s current approach to family life,” and that it would require a “long term effort, involving non-governmental organizations and religious groups—a broader cultural effort.”

Read the full report: A Québec Family Portrait -- http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/Quebec_Family_Portrait_November_2011.pdf

[Nov 14, 2011, Peter Baklinski, OTTAWA, Ontario, November 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/quebec-family-programs-doomed-due-to-low-fertility-abortion-debt-report?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dde33c9aaf-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines11_14_2011&utm_medium=email

UNFPA’s 7 Billion Population Graph is Erroneous

In the run up to its ominously entitled “Day of Seven Billion,” the United Nations Population Fund has released a preview of its State of World Population Report 2011.

The preview opens with a graph of population over time that seems to show the world’s population climbing ever higher in the decades to come. In fact, the scaling suggests to the eye that the number of people will more than double by century’s end.

The trouble with this graph is that it is, to put it bluntly, an absolute fabrication.

It is designed, I believe, to create the impression that human numbers are spinning out of
control. It is a population bomb graph, if you will.

No demographer I know of believes that our numbers will ever double again.

For the remainder of this article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/26/unfpas-7-billion-population-graphs-completely-erroneous/

7 Billion People: What Population Control Advocates Don’t Say

International population advocates and their allies in the media have decided that October 31, 2011 is the day that the world’s population will reach 7 billion. How convenient for them; they get to play off the day dedicated to spooky tales with a spooky tale of their own.

Over the weekend, some version of the Associated Press (AP) article “World Population Nearing 7 Billion” ended up in most major newspapers. Here’s the gist of the article: Women and their families living in poverty, not enough food, water, or access to education – all because they have too many children. The intended message? The world is going to collapse under the weight of its burgeoning population unless something is done.

United Families International has been contacted by several individuals asking for a rebuttal to this claim. So we decided to share some thoughts on the topic.

Is the world’s population spiraling out of control?

No, global fertility rates are half of what they were in 1970 and are continuing downward.

The number of children the average woman has during her childbearing years fell from five in the mid-1960s to 2.7 today.

With the exception of some sub-sarahan nations such as Niger, Yemen and Uganda, fertility rates have fallen rather dramatically around the world. (UN, World Population Report, 2010)

By 2020, for the first time, the global fertility rate will dip below the global replacement rate of 2.1.
For remainder of the article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/21/7-billion-people-what-populaton-control-advocates-dont-say/

Baby Number Seven Billion Not an Overpopulation Concern
Sometime late this year a baby will emerge from the womb of its mother, draw its first breath, and announce its arrival into the world with a tiny cry. Thus will Baby Seven Billion be born.

Everyone agrees that Baby Seven Billion's birthday-the day that our planet becomes home to seven billion human beings-marks an important milestone. But is it a milestone on humanity's upward path that we should celebrate, or a warning sign of impending catastrophe?

The prophets of doom and gloom, of population bombs and the baby booms, would have preferred that Baby Seven Billion never be born.

We at PRI have a different take on the matter. We believe that the birth of Baby Seven Billion is cause for celebration. He or she has been born into a world that is more prosperous than our forebears could have imagined.

As our numbers have climbed so has our well-being. In 1800, when there were only 1 billion people, per capita income was a mere $100. By 1900, as the population was closing in on 2 billion, it reached $500.

Currently, with 7 billion people, per capita income has soared to over $5,000. In 2100, when the population is projected to be between 7 and 8 billion (and falling), it will be $30,000 in current dollars.

Driving the so-called "population explosion" has been a real explosion in health and longevity. As late as the 19th century, four out of every 10 children died before reaching age five. Today under-five mortality is under 7 percent. Two hundred years ago, human life expectancy was under 30 years. Today it is closer to 70 years.

As people live longer, naturally there are more of us around at any given time. This is cause to celebrate, not to despair.

By nearly every measure of well-being, from infant mortality and life expectancy to educational level and caloric intake, life in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has been getting dramatically better. According to the World Bank, the average income in the developing world has more than doubled since 1960.

Enough grain is produced for every person on earth to consume 3,500 calories daily. There is no need for anyone to starve in the midst of this plenty.

Population has doubled since 1960, but world food and resource production has never been higher. Economies continue to expand, productivity is up, and pollution is declining. Life spans are lengthening, poverty is down, and political freedom is growing. Even the intractable Middle East, thought to be forever the playground of dictators and ayatollahs, is astir. The human race has never been so well off.

In fact, underpopulation, not overpopulation, is the biggest threat facing the world today. Over eighty countries representing well over half the world's population will have below replacement fertility-defined as 2.1 children per woman.

The populations of the developed nations today are static or declining. The UN predicts that, by 2050, Russia's population will have declined by 25 million people, Japan's by 21 million, Italy's by 16 million, and Germany's and Spain's by 9 million each. Europe and Japan will lose half their population by 2100.

Countries with below replacement rate fertility will eventually die out. It's just a matter of time.

Even in the developing world family size has shrunk, from around 5 children per woman in 1900 to well under 3 today. And the decline continues.

According to the UN's "low variant projection"-historically the most accurate-the population of the world will peak at 8 billion in 2040 or so, and then begin to decline.

High fertility rates are becoming rare. The UN numbers for 2008 show only a handful of countries with population increase rates at or above 3.0 percent.

By 2050, persons aged 65 and above will be almost twice as numerous as children 15 years and younger. The economic consequences of population aging will be closing schools, declining stock markets, and moribund economies.

Ignoring these facts, the population controllers continue to spread their myth of overpopulation.

The UNFPA and other population control organizations are loath to report the truth about falling fertility rates worldwide, since they raise funds by frightening people with the specter of overpopulation. They tell us that too many babies are being born to poor people in developing countries. This is tantamount to saying that only the wealthy should be allowed to have children, and is a new form of global racism.

We should stop funding population control programs, and instead turn our attention to real problems like malaria, typhus, and HIV/AIDS.

Let us also join together in celebrating the birth of Baby Seven Billion. He or she is a sign of our future, our hope and our prosperity.

People are our greatest resource. Extraordinarily gifted people have helped to enrich civilization and lengthen life spans. But the fact is, everyone, rich or poor, is a unique creation with something priceless to offer to the rest of us.

Baby Seven Billion, boy or girl, red or yellow, black or white, is not a liability, but an asset. Not a curse, but a blessing. For all of us.
[23 Feb 2011, Steven Mosher; Washington, DC | LifeNews.com; 2 Mar 2011, www.humanlife.org]

Sex-Selection Abortions Devalue Women, But Feminists Are Silent

Asia has a big problem.  According to some reports 163 million Asian women are “missing.”  Actually, they are not missing.  We know what happened to them.  They have been killed in the womb simply because they are girls.

Asian cultures have always had a preference for boys and female infanticide has been reported for many years.  But not until abortion was made legal and ultrasounds commonplace did Asian women begin to disappear in the millions.

The natural sex ratio is 103-106 boys to 100 girls.  Anything more than 106 boys to 100 girls is unnatural and will produce a male-heavy society. The Economist reported that in 1985 to 1989 the ratio of boys to girls in China was 108. 

From 2000-2004, the sex ratio jumped to 124 boys for every 100 girls.  Today in India, where they measure sex ratios by comparing the number of females to 1000 males the ratio is as low as 830 girls to 1000 boys.. Normal ratios would be 952 girls per 1000 boys.

Sex selective abortion is the culprit.  Far from liberating women, it is killing millions of girls and magnifying the prejudice and mistreatment of the girls that do make it out of the womb.  And as women become more scarce, their value rises which some have suggested means that women will be treated better. 

But exactly opposite is true. 

Women have become commodities to be bought and sold.  Parents all over Asia are guarding their girls against kidnappers who would sell them to rich families who want to guarantee a future bride for their son.  Women are routinely kidnapped and dragged across boundary lines to be forced into the sex industry.  Poor families, who could not afford sex selective procedures are selling their daughters to rich families who could. 

Sex selective abortion ensures that women are born only to poor families who cannot afford sex selection and then those women are treated as commodities.

In an interview with TrustLaw, gender expert Tanushree Soni from Plan International reports that sex selective abortion is having devastating consequences for women.  Soni told TrustLaw:

    “There are 60 million girls who have been aborted and missing in Asia which has created gender imbalance and other serious problems,” Soni, Plan’s regional gender programme specialist, told TrustLaw in a phone interview from India.

“An imbalance of sexes fuels human trafficking and sexual exploitation,” she said. “It endangers economic development and increases social instability as a growing population of men search for partners.”

Worse, she said, “When you see very highly skewed ratios of sex, it’s very likely you’ll get a high prevalence of violence against women and girls.”

Soni goes on to point out that this is not a problem with poverty since only well-to-do families can afford the ultrasounds.  Instead it is a deeper problem exacerbated by the abortion of millions of girls:

    “The thing is girls are not valued, they are not given their due and because of a high rate of gender-based violence happening in the world, parents feel a girl child needs much more protection and does not see them as empowered,” she said.

India has tried to remedy this egregious situation.  First they made sex selection abortion illegal.  Then in 2002 they made the simple act of finding out the sex of a fetus illegal.  The preference for boys is so strong that parents are finding ways around the law.  None of the laws against sex selection has helped.  Now India is resorting to giving out cash to increase the number of girls born.  >From The Christian Science Monitor:

    Not long ago, Mullahera, a village on what was then the outskirts of New Delhi, was the kind of place where families wanted a boy. Their reasoning was simple: A boy could inherit farmland, work the fields, and provide space in his future home for elderly parents.

    But in January, local officials came to Mullahera – now nestled alongside the glass towers of the ever-expanding city – to present residents with a significant gift: a check for 100,000 rupees, or $2,200, for producing more girl than boy births.

    With selective abortion of girls in India worse than ever, the state of Haryana – which has one of the worst birth ratios – has started to reward the village in each district that is defying the odds.

So now India is paying to save their girls.  In reality there is only one thing that can stop sex selective abortions.  It is not paying people to keep their girls or limiting access to potentially valuable prenatal care like ultrasounds.  It is stopping abortion all together.  That is the only way to make sure that girls, and boys alike, do not go “missing.”

One may ask where are the feminists in the face of this disastrous practice that marginalizes all women?  Where are the champions of women and their reproductive rights?  They are mostly silent.  They championed choice and now that choice is being used to kill millions of female fetuses and subjugate women, they have nothing to say lest the sacred abortion cow be slaughtered.  Pro-abortion writer Mara Hvistendahl understands that the pro-abortion feminists are abandoning their Asian counterparts in the name of “choice.”  She boldly declares in her book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men:

    In a world in which women are unnaturally scare, the right to abort will be the least of our worries.

Feminists all over the world must realize that abortion is far from the liberator of women that some say that it is.  Abortion is the greatest deliberate killer of women in the world today.  And it further degrades the value of women who do survive the womb.  The sooner the women of the world wake up, the better all of our lives will be.

LifeNews.com Note: Rebecca Taylor is a clinical laboratory specialist in molecular biology who writes at the bioethics blog Mary Meets Dolly. She has been writing and speaking about Catholicism and biotechnology for five years and has been interviewed on topics from stem cell research and cloning to voting pro-life. Taylor has a B.S. in Biochemistry from University of San Francisco with a national certification in clinical Molecular Biology MB (ASCP).
[Rebecca Taylor | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/13/11,  http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/13/sex-selection-abortions-devalue-women-but-feminists-silent/]

Wikileaks Cable: U.S. Gov’t Has Been the Largest Supporter of Philippines Population Control in Past 40 Years
A diplomatic cable recently published by the controversial website Wikileaks confirms the depth of support by the U.S. government for population control initiatives in the Philippines over the past 40 years, including support for the highly contested Reproductive Health (RH) Bill currently under consideration in the Philippine legislature.

“Landmark appropriations and draft legislation reflect increasing commitment within the Philippine Government to further expand and sustain programs started forty years ago with U.S. Government’s assistance through USAID,” former U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenny said in the cable. “The U.S. Government continues to be the largest donor in the Philippine population sector supporting efforts to improve local government service delivery and increase private sector contributions to family health outcomes.”

The cable, sent from Manila to Washington, D.C. in July of 2008, was released by Wikileaks at a time of intense debate within the Philippine legislature, and among the Filipino people, about the state funding of contraceptives, abortifacients and other “family planning” services through the RH Bill. As the cable notes, the Catholic Church in the Philippines has led the opposition to the bill with the backing of pro-life organizations across the country.

“The new bill and its previous versions have raised the volume of the vigorous public debate on reproductive issues among between [sic] civil society, NGOs, the Catholic Church and legislators,” said Amb. Kenny. “The controversy has generated news media coverage and editorial commentary from all sides.”

Many Filipinos have openly questioned the international support of the bill by organizations pushing a population control agenda.

Philippine Senate Majority Leader Vicente Soto recently expressed concern over the “sinister” population control motives of some of the bill’s backers, saying, “We find groups, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies or business interests behind the bill or supporting people behind the bill, so this adds to our fears.”

“The same bill has been filed and re-filed since 1998’s 11th Congress (it is now the 15th), but as we have seen, its Western promoters have no intention of taking ‘no’ for an answer this time around,” said Dr. Ligaya Acosta, Regional Coordinator for Asia and Oceania for the international pro-life organization Human Life International (HLI), earlier this year.

“Why, one might ask, does it keep reappearing, sometimes with different names or slightly revised content, if the people of the Philippines have so clearly rejected it? It reappears because it is fueled by mind-boggling amounts of money from international population control organizations, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who have long expressed their concern that there are too many poor Filipinos for their comfort.”

Rep. Kimi Cojuangco of the Pangasinan province in the Philippines, a co-sponsor of the RH Bill, actually admitted that the bill was a means of population control during an exchange with another representative, saying the bill was “definitely” a population control measure, and agreeing that to curb poverty, the country needs a smaller population.

Another pro-RH Bill legislator Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago also admitted Monday that the bill still needs to be cleaned up of all references to population control, while acknowledging the influence in the bill of U.S. National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200 during Senate debate.

NSSM-200, authored by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, “explicitly laid out a detailed strategy by which the United States would aggressively promote population control in developing nations in order to regulate (or have better access to) the natural resources of these countries,” according to Dr. Brian Clowes, Director of Research at HLI, in his 2004 publication Kissinger Report 2004: A Retrospective on NSSM-200.

“According to NSSM-200, elements of the implementation of population control programs could include: a) the legalization of abortion; b) financial incentives for countries to increase their abortion, sterilization and contraception-use rates; c) indoctrination of children; and d) mandatory population control, and coercion of other forms, such as withholding disaster and food aid unless [a country] implements population control programs,” wrote Dr. Clowes. “[T]he U.S. government has never renounced NSSM-200, but has only amended certain portions of its policy. NSSM-200, therefore, remains the foundational document on population control issued by the United States government.”

While it is highly unlikely that parties involved in promoting the RH Bill in the Philippines, or elsewhere, are directly familiar with NSSM-200, it is clear that its goals and assumptions have now become fundamental to the human development policies of the U.S. and other international governments and non-governmental organizations.

“USAID technical assistance enables pharmaceutical companies to launch lower-priced contraceptive products,” Amb. Kenny said in the cable, later adding, “Within the past three years, annual funding levels for population and family planning from the US Government have increased from around $13M to $15M.”

Under a section titled “So far, so good,” the ambassador noted that, “The use of oral contraceptive pills has increased steadily among the poor (by 30% in the past five years),” adding, “The poor spend around US$0.40 for pills, and the rich pay about US$1 for the same method.”

Amb. Kenny also pointed out that USAID assistance is “expanding the availability of accurate information on modern family planning methods within grass-roots communities.” [emphasis added]. The RH Bill currently contains a provision to fine and jail opponents who spread as-yet-undefined “malicious” falsehoods about the bill.

Dr. Acosta, who lives and works in the Philippines, said in an excerpt of a soon to be released interview while visiting the U.S. last month, “The American people have to know that America, very sadly, has become the greatest exporter of the culture of death – abortion, contraception – all of these things.”

“There’s so much money…I’m so amazed. I know that America is in crisis, but why is it…that America is giving billions of dollars, not only to my country, the Philippines, but all over Asia, Oceania and all over the world, to promote abortion and contraception?”

“What is important to note is not so much the scary-sounding name of a forty-year-old document like NSSM-200 that very few people have read, but to note how this new cable shows that its policy recommendations have been so perfectly implemented, and how language has evolved to make it sound like a positive thing for poor nations to stop having children for the sake of wealthy nations,” said Dr. Clowes in response to the release of the Wikileaks cable. “Even a proponent of the Philippines RH Bill, Senator Santiago, admits the concerns about population control, and stresses the need to use less offensive language – women’s health, poverty alleviation, and the like – to achieve the very same ends.”

“The question remains unanswered,” added Dr. Clowes. “When did it become acceptable for rich nations to pour billions of dollars into poor nations, all in an effort to get the poor to behave as the rich would prefer?”
www.HLIWorldWatch.org
[9 Sept 11, Adam Cassandra,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/wikileaks-cable-us-govt-largest-supporter-of-philippines-population-contr?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=73dbb2a7be-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_09_2011&utm_medium=email




ANALYSIS: UN’s High Fertility Projections Still Show Rapid Global Aging

Even with its highly optimistic fertility projections, the new UN population forecast predicts a grayer world than the one imagined by its 2009 report which used much lower fertility estimates.

Perhaps most significant is the steep rise in society’s proportion of the old (65 years or older) and very old (80 years and older). By 2050, these groups will be 2 percent more of the population in Germany, India, Japan, Russia, the UK, and the US than previously estimated.

Whereas just 7.6 percent of Chinese were old in 2005, more than a quarter of the population will be over 65 in 2050, up from a projected 20 percent in the UN’s 2009 medium variant calculation in its bi-annual population figures. In Russia and the UK, the expected percentage of elderly in 2050 has jumped from 20 to 23 percent since the last report, up from 14 percent in Russia and 16 percent in the UK in 2005. Britain’s proportion of very old is now projected to have doubled from 2005 to 2050 and reach 9 percent, up from a projected 7.7 percent in the 2009 report.

Japan remains the oldest country in the world, its over-65 and over-80 cohorts expected to reach 35.6 percent and 14.6 percent of the population by 2050, respectively. The United States remains the youngest of developed nations, but the number of its elderly is among the highest in the world due to the large size of its population. Twenty percent of Americans will be over 65 by 2050, up from 12 percent in 2005. While the US over-80 cohort will have doubled in the same time, it remains the lowest percentage of very old in the developed world.

The new report shows an increase in the median age over the last two years. The US shows the smallest increase, less than a year, and Germany shows the largest rise, more than two years. China and India have seen a two year increase in median age, the age at which half the population is older and half younger. Life expectancy has remained steady in Europe at around 80 years of age, while it has increased slightly in the US, India, and China. Russians have seen a rise in life expectancy, but their lives are still a decade shorter on average than their peers in the developed world.

The fact that mid-century aging projections are even more severe in the 2011 report than in previous revisions is made more striking by the fact that this year UN demographers decided to ratchet up the expected fertility rate to 2.1 children per woman, above replacement levels, for every country in the world. Previous versions assumed global fertility would remain at 1.85, below replacement levels.

Global aging is caused by the decline in fertility rates which reduces the proportion of young people in society, along with longer life expectancies.

“Small variations in fertility can produce major differences in the size of populations over the long run,” the UN report says. But even the UN’s very optimistic expected fertility rates are not high enough to slow down the graying of the great powers...
[15 Sept 2011, Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D., New York; 19 Sept 11, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-graying-of-the-world-uns-high-fertility-projections-still-show-rapid-gl?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=51b2a35fb1-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_19_2011&utm_medium=email]
For remainder of this article, visit http://www.c-fam.org/fridayfax/volume-14/analysis-un%E2%80%99s-high-fertility-projections-still-show-rapid-global-aging.html






Population to Reach 7 Billion This Year? ‘Just Relax!’ States the Fifth Overpopulation is a Myth Cartoon

The Population Research Institute (PRI) just released the fifth episode of their highly popular YouTube cartoon series—just in time for the world’s population to reach 7 billion people, according to UN data. The series, which has to date garnered over 800,000 views, is designed to humorously refute the idea of overpopulation with stick figure animation.

The latest video, available at Overpopulationisamyth.com, is about two minutes long, and it deals with the issues surrounding our population’s latest milestone. The video aims to show that, according to the UN’s latest data, the world’s population is not skyrocketing out of control, but rather slowing to a standstill before plummeting downward again. 

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/04/new-video-7-billion-people-on-earth-is-not-overpopulation/

“We set out to be entertaining first,” says Colin Mason, PRI’s Director of Media Production and the video’s editor. “We figure if we can be funny and interesting visually, people will absorb the concepts.”

“Essentially,” Mason continues, “when people see the rate at which we’re adding a billion people, they automatically assume that our population is ballooning at an unsustainable rate. But that’s not the case at all . . . and most of the time, all it takes is a simple explanation of the math and people get it. The hard part is getting them interested enough to do that. That’s what we hope to accomplish with these videos.”

“The fight against the myth of overpopulation does not have to be a bare-knuckled brawl,” says Steven Mosher, PRI’s president. “These videos are funny and easy to digest, the very opposite of Al Gore’s boring pronouncements on the ‘dangers’ of too many people. Our viewers end up considering the science that supports our pro-people position, often for the very first time. We say to our skeptics: watch, laugh, and learn.”

EASY & FUNNY VIDEO EXPLAINING POPULATION GROWTH FACTS -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/04/new-video-7-billion-people-on-earth-is-not-overpopulation/
OR  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-overpopulation-is-a-myth-cartoon-released-as-population-reaches-7-billi?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2f27ffba53-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines10_03_2011&utm_medium=email

[Oct 03, 2011, FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-overpopulation-is-a-myth-cartoon-released-as-population-reaches-7-billi?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2f27ffba53-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines10_03_2011&utm_medium=email]

Legacy of Population Control: 163 Million Missing Women

163 million women are missing from Asia. That is the entire female population of the United States.

The culprit is sex selective abortion according to Mara Hvistendahl’s fascinating book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men. Hvistendahl is not pro-life nor is she Catholic, but that is what, I believe, makes this book courageous. Of course in typical pro-choice fashion, she refuses to address the facts of when human life begins, but she does tackle the sacred cows at the root of the devastation that now faces Asia: widespread abortion and the population control movement of the West.

What I loved most about this book is that it goes beyond the typical reasons why Asians are aborting their girls in record numbers. We know they have a preference for boys and China has a one-child policy. But Asia has always prized their sons and only China has a one-child policy. Yet all over Asia, in the last few decades, millions of girls have gone missing.

Why? Hvistendahl makes a compelling case that the Western world shoved population control down the throats of Asians and presented sex selective abortion as the “ethical” means to do it.

The typical arrogant and fearful Western minds thought they had to control the growth of Asian populations and reasoned that if Asians kept having children until they got a boy, then providing sex selective abortion was the answer. They could just abort all their girls until they got a boy and then they would be happy with only one child. Hvistendahl writes... Read remainder of article here -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/03/legacy-of-population-control-163-million-missing-women/

Al Gore Promotes Population Control as Answer to Climate Change

 The effort to curb climate change demands that we “stabilize the population,” according to former Vice-President Al Gore.

Speaking at the Games for Change Festival in New York City on Monday, the leading environmental activist reiterated his demand for the promotion of “fertility management” among the poor to reduce the world’s population.

“One of the principle ways of [stabilizing the population] is to empower and educate girls and women,” he said, as reported by the Daily Caller. “You have to have ubiquitous availability of fertility management so women can choose how many children to have, the spacing of the children.”

“You have to lift child survival rates so that parents feel comfortable having small families and most important — you have to educate girls and empower women,” he continued. “And that’s the most powerful leveraging factor, and when that happens, then the population begins to stabilize and societies begin to make better choices and more balanced choices.”

While the question of whether climate change is, in fact, man-made is a contentious issue among scientists, it has nevertheless been used as a rallying cry for the international population control movement, including by leading international abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes.

Gore himself has advocated “family planning” measures, including abortion, to curb population as a means of protecting the environment for at least fifteen years.

Though the “education” in “fertility management” that Gore advocates is technically voluntary, critics have pointed out that such methods are often promoted by coercing poor women into accepting contraception who would actually prefer help bearing their children safely.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) claims that over 200 million women have an “unmet need” for contraception.  But, according to Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), when that figure was developed, women were deemed to have such an “unmet need” based simply on the fact that they had had a baby in the last two years and were not currently sterilized or on contraception.

Further, PRI’s surveys in countries like Kenya, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Mexico have found in every case that “reproductive health” was lowest on women’s list of health care priorities.
[Jun 23, 2011, Patrick Craine, NEW YORK CITY,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/al-gore-promotes-population-control-as-answer-to-climate-change?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3d0010fd54-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines06_23_2011&utm_medium=email]

Commentary: How Western Agencies Are Using Billions to Foist Their Population Agenda on Filipinos
People around the world have become aware of the goings-on in the Philippines, perhaps the most... pro-life country in the world... Filipinos have been successful in fighting off a sustained assault from the West in the form of a “Reproductive Health (RH)” bill that threatens the families and future of the Philippines. But the bill’s proponents seem undaunted and incredibly well-funded, so we wanted to help [people] around the world understand the situation on the ground...

The Philippines does not need and does not want the RH [Reproductive Health] bill.  
It is a foreign imposition, the contents of which are alien to Filipino values and culture.

The vast majority of Filipinos oppose the bill, as proven by the many huge rallies over the country – the biggest of which saw almost 500,000 gather in Manila last March.  The same bill has been filed and re-filed since 1998’s 11th Congress (it is now the 15th), but as we have seen, its Western promoters have no intention of taking ‘no’ for an answer this time around.

Why, one might ask, does it keep reappearing, sometimes with different names or slightly revised content, if the people of the Philippines have so clearly rejected it?

It reappears because it is fueled by mind-boggling amounts of money from international population control organizations, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who have long expressed their concern that there are too many poor Filipinos for their comfort. Most recently, the European Union added to the pot, promising 35 million euros as a further enticement for the Philippines to embrace the desired “health reforms.” These groups have essentially bottomless bank accounts, and will not stop until they have reduced Filipino fertility to levels that they are comfortable with.

Sadly, almost everything in the bill has already been implemented surreptitiously by both government and non-governmental organizations. The Philippines now has “population officers” to keep tabs on poor women and try to get them to stop having children. Ubiquitous promotion of “safe,” promiscuous sexual activity has given the Filipinos increasing rates of teenage pregnancy, and many people now think that those who created the problems are the ones to provide the solutions. Slowly, the language of the population controllers is taking hold among young people, the government and the media, while voices of opposition, such as those of the bishops, are increasingly portrayed as being in opposition to Filipino progress.

But the bill will have further and even more devastating consequences if it becomes law. It has provisions to force medical professionals and businesses to promote and perform a full range of “reproductive health services,” regardless of conscientious objection. It promises to fine and jail opponents who spread as-yet-undefined “malicious” falsehoods about the bill. It requires couples to undergo government-mandated RH training and certification before they can obtain a marriage license.

Its primary goal, however, is to define the governmental roles, relationships and structures needed to fully implement the draconian population control program that is being pushed so aggressively by Western elites. And although the bill does not specifically legalize abortion, this omission is widely understood to be a temporary, pragmatic concession to the strongly anti-abortion Filipinos. No abortion – for now. Abortion, as it always does, will soon follow once the rest of the program is adopted, and once the true changes in behavior sought by Western elites are effectively mainstreamed.

Around the world, without exception, “reproductive health” always means contraception and abortion, and is always implemented surreptitiously until the society buys into the false solutions to problems they didn’t have before the population controllers showed up.

The disingenuousness of the bill’s promoters is truly stunning.

While they claim it is pro-woman, it actually harms women by promoting hormonal contraceptives that are increasingly tied to various cancers and lethal, stroke-causing blood clots.

While they say that the bill is an attempt to alleviate poverty, their proposed solution is actually to eliminate the poor rather than to confront the rampant corruption in Filipino government and business. 

While they preach about responsible parenthood, they promote radically irresponsible sexual behavior and seek to eliminate its natural consequence – pregnancy – with contraceptives, and soon, abortion. 

And while they say that population growth must be managed by the government because of limited financial resources, they spend hundreds of millions of dollars promoting their false solutions, leaving the real cause of the Philippines’ poverty unaddressed.

It is truly sad that while “Catholic” Philippine President Benigno Aquino ran successfully on an anti-corruption platform, he is pushing a bill which would institutionalize the worst corruption of all – the corruption of human lives and moral values. And while he talks about poverty alleviation, he is promoting the greatest poverty of all – spiritual poverty.

Following his recent public promises to push for the bill even at risk of being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, President Benigno Aquino has placed himself firmly with the Western elites who think there are too many Filipinos, and against the bishops. This is indeed a sad turn of events. His mother, the late, beloved former President Corazon Aquino, who always stood with Filipino families and the Church, must be turning in her grave.

As mentioned earlier, however, Filipinos have been successfully fighting the bill in the legislature for over a decade, and have no intention of giving in now, even as a new congressional session has begun and the population controllers increasingly express confidence that it is only a matter of time before the bill is passed. We have hope and trust in the Lord of Life, and united with you in prayer, we will continue to fight this bill with all we have.

Based in Manila, Dr. Ligaya Acosta is Human Life International’s Regional Coordinator for Asia and Oceania, and is a former health officer of the Philippines. Stephen Phelan is HLI’s Director of Communications and writes from Front Royal, Virginia.
[Jun 06, 2011, Dr. Ligaya Acosta, Co-authored with Stephen Phelan,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/how-western-agencies-are-using-billions-to-foist-their-population-agenda-on?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3a49b844b2-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines06_06_2011&utm_medium=email]

 






Commentary: Why Is the UN Arbitrarily Inflating Population Predictions?

You will be glad to learn that we all have official permission from the UN people-counters to panic about about “overpopulation” — yet again.

The U.N. Population Division apparently decided that its earlier predictions about world population growth were too restrained. So it upped the ante in its 2010 report, revising almost all of its numbers upwards. According to the new numbers, the world’s population will reach 9.3 billion by the time 2050 rolls around — or several hundred million higher than earlier predictions. Not only that, instead of beginning to fall at that point, the UN now claims that the numbers will continue to grow until the end of the century, reaching 10.1 billion in 2100.

But these new predictions fly in the face of all we know about human fertility. It turns out that every last one of the factors affecting fertility — with the sole exception of advances in reproductive technology — are moving in an anti-natal direction. Factors like age at marriage, age at first child-bearing, educational levels, etc., are all tending to lower fertility. Birthrates are falling everywhere, farther and faster than anyone thought possible several decades ago.

The UNDP itself admits that 79 countries, including several dozen in the less developed world, now have fertility rates that are below the level needed to ensure the long-term survival of the population. Most of the rest, everybody except the UN now seems to know, are likely to cross this demographic fault line over the next few decades.

Whistling in this looming demographic darkness, the UNDP blithely predicts that people in low fertility countries will suddenly become enamored of babies again. You got that right. They predict, without providing a shred of evidence, that birthrates will somehow gravitate to the replacement levels again.

What planet are they living on?

Many of today’s young adults in Europe, Latin America, Asia and elsewhere are too enamored of sex, the city, and the single life to think about marriage, much less about replacing themselves. A single Swedish woman may eventually bear one child, as her biological clock approaches midnight, of course, but she is unlikely to bear a second. What was supposed to be the perfect family — a boy for you and a girl for me and heaven help us if we have three — has been scorned by moderns on their way to extinction. The declining number of traditional families has been unable to fill the fertility gap thus created.

The UNDP is supposed to be objective in its predictions, but its latest batch of junk science suggests that it has become anything but. In fact, after the retirement of Director Joseph Chamie, its prognostications seem more and more driven by politics. At the very least, it has produced numbers that tend to show population growth as far more exuberant than it really is.

The reason for this, I fear, is that the UN Population Fund provides part of the UNDP budget — and the UNFPA is first, last, and always a population control group. The UNFPA seems to be using its funding to “leverage” the UNPD into producing numbers that the UNFPA can in turn use to justify the continuation and expansion of population control and abortion.

There is a real population crisis, of course. I am speaking of the crisis of aging and dying populations, for which there seems to be no easy solution. It is a crisis that, by reducing the amount of human capital available, will have a dramatic and neative impact on every aspect of life. Peter Drucker, the late management guru, wrote way back in 1997 that “The dominant factor for business in the next two decades — absent war, pestilence, or collision with a comet — is not going to be economics or technology. It will be demographics.”

Drucker was particularly concerned with the “increasing underpopulation of the developed countries,” but a decade later this reproductive malaise has spread even to the less developed world, and is a truly global phenomenon.

The UN needs to stop spending time, money and resources trying to solve a problem that we’ve never had. Science shows that the world’s population is due to fall dramatically, not rise uncontrollably. To recklessly seek to curb procreation in countries that are, or soon will be, dying will only compound the tragedy.

People are our greatest resource.

Everyone, rich or poor, is a unique creation with something priceless to offer to the rest of us.

Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute. This article is reprinted with permission from pop.org
[Jun 06, 2011, Mosher,   http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/why-is-the-un-arbitrarily-inflating-population-predictions?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=3a49b844b2-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines06_06_2011&utm_medium=email]

‘Africans Love Children’: Nigerian Engineer Busts Population Growth Propaganda
Just two weeks ago the UN predicted the birth of the world’s 7 billionth baby this October.  Calls for measures to control the world’s population growth immediately surged, with some pointing particularly to Nigeria’s rapidly growing population.

Some Nigerians, meanwhile, are celebrating their growing population as the country’s greatest asset.

“We Nigerians are rejoicing,” said Chinwuba Iyizoba, an electrical engineer in Enugu, Nigeria, in a recent article for MercatorNet. “Africans love children.”

Despite warnings that Nigeria’s population could reach 725 million people by 2100, coupled with calls by Western media for population control in the country, the nation’s citizens will not buy the propaganda, said Iyizoba.

While the Western world suffers from the crippling effects of an aging population with fewer youth to provide care, Nigerian parents live in financial security provided for by their larger families.  Elderly Nigerians, explained Iyizoba, have no social security in the form of pensions.  Instead they are provided for by an “informal pension scheme” that consists in contributions from their children.  “Having more children means a better pension,” said Iyizoba.

“We know that in Europe and America, birthrates are far below replacement level. Their populations are ageing and a huge pension debt is resting on the shoulders of a shrinking numbers of their working youths. A day of reckoning is looming for them. Nigerians want to avoid this,” he said.

The Nigerian economy is growing and expanding, added the engineer, precisely because of, rather than in spite of, the country’s large population.  “Our large population supplies our economy with the dynamic and youthful workforce it needs to grow, as well as huge markets for all types of businesses.”

“Why are Westerners so nervous?” he asks. “Perhaps they believe that Africans will consume all the food.”

However, Iyizoba dismisses the Malthusian notion that food production cannot keep pace with population increases, explaining how nations rapidly increase their food supply with a larger population and that poor government, not population, results in poverty.

“The Western propaganda that people make us poor blares on. It is often parroted by our own local media and now many Africans fear having many children.”

“The comfort of a small family is deceptive. Many young people in advanced countries are so spoilt by luxury that even the smallest setback feels intolerable,” said Iyizoba. “Euthanasia and birth control result from an inability to cope with suffering, pain and self denial. As one American lady said to me: ‘My biggest fear is suffering and I am so scared of pain.’ No wonder they have high suicide rates!”

Nigeria and other African countries, concludes the engineer, may become world leaders in future generations. “They will [be] helping Europe and the US to fill gaps left by acute shortages of manpower. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a Nigerian father of five is the new head of the United Nations Population Fund. ‘A world of 7 billion is both a challenge and an opportunity,’ says Dr Babatunde Osotimehin. I totally agree with him.”

Read the complete article here.
 [May 25, 2011, Rebecca Millette, NIGERIA, LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/africans-love-children-nigerian-engineer-busts-population-growth-propaganda?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=67bce41153-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines05_25_2011&utm_medium=email]
    

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Overpopulation Is A Myth
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

POP 101... A Primer on the Future of Planet Earth...The Science
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/category/categories/pop101 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Overpopulation is a Myth: Plenty of Food and Space Exists

Proclamations of overpopulation have circulated for decades. Are they true? First off, what is meant by the word “overpopulation”? It has nothing to do with the amount of people but rather to the resources and the capacity of the environment to sustain human activities.

To be overpopulated, a nation must have insufficient food, resources and living space.

With the world population  at around 6.8 billion last year, food and living space are hardly a concern. In 1990, it was estimated that the world could feed up to 35 billion people. Most sources estimate that the global population will level out at around 9.2 billion in 2050, and then start to decline.

Indian economist Raj Krishna estimates that India alone is capable of increasing crop yields to the point of providing the entire world’s food supply.

Lack of food is not the problem but rather the need for more efficient distribution.

Another supposed problem is living space.

In 2003, the entire population of the world could fit inside the state of Arkansas. The world may seem crowded, but it’s because humans cluster together for trade and companionship, not for lack of room. Even so, there are those who insist that we will continue to breed exponentially, causing a population explosion.

Paul Ehrlich first introduced this idea in 1968 with his book, “The Population Bomb.” It succeeded in scaring the masses, just as Thomas Malthus did, but these theories suffer under the impression that humans are the only thing fluctuating.

“Population rose six-fold in the next 200 years. But this is an increase, not an explosion, because it has been accompanied, and in large part made possible, by a productivity explosion, a resource explosion, a food explosion, an information explosion, a communications explosion, a science explosion, and a medical explosion,” wrote community development specialist Abid Ullah Jan in an article earlier this year called “Overpopulation: Myths, Facts, and Politics.”

Poverty, too, is not the effect of overpopulation, but rather the aftermath of poor leadership. In Ethiopia, government officials are blamed for causing poverty by confiscating food and exporting it to buy arms.

In Africa, economic problems are seen as a result of excessive government spending, taxes on farmers, inflation, trade restrictions and too much government ownership.

Depopulation is more likely to cause economic distress than these other factors.

Consumers are the largest component of GDP. If you drop that, it drags down the whole economy. Schools close for lack of students, neighborhoods are void of children, labor shortages cramp productivity and the list goes on.

With fewer children we would be faced with an aging population causing generational warfare on government spending. Social Security and Medicare are unsustainable unless each generation of taxpaying workers is larger than the one before it. Fertility should be encouraged, not seen as a crime.

The myth of overpopulation has been exposed as fertility rates continue to fall drastically, in many cases below replacing rate. The lowest replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman, yet many countries like Italy and Russia are closer to 1.69.

Even without so-called “population control,” fertility rates have dropped as women put off marriage and children to pursue higher education.

Population control, often mislabeled as “reproductive rights,” today consists of sterilization, contraception, abortion and open discouragement of fertility.

China’s notorious one-child policy which includes forced abortions and sterilizations will lead to a collapsing culture as the population plummets.

The sad reality of sterilization is if a woman has a child, and gets sterilized afterwards, and her child tragically dies young, she can never have another.

Not only are forced abortions  a waste of human potential (which developing child could have been the next Mozart or Einstein?), abortion drugs administered to women in foreign countries also often cause serious complications. Medical posts in Africa or Peru are filled with contraceptives and other population control related items, but they often lack basics needed for overall health.

These options are wrong, not just morally, but logically and medically speaking. If the money spent on population control were moved to child survival programs, imagine the positive results.

Instead of pushing so-called “safe sex” we should promote the Catholic Church’s teachings on responsible parenthood. In this modern world, sex has become solely a source of pleasure, with children as a side effect. Sex should be recognized for what it is — an act of life.

Natural family planning, in which couples are open to the miracle of new life, is the only form of spacing of children acceptable to the church because it does not separate the two components of the sexual act — union and procreation. Catholicism stresses heavily the importance of both components being present.

Our faith calls us to be generous in welcoming children into this world.

Yes, our lifestyles need to change, but not in the way population control advocates prescribe. The world’s problems cannot be defined by one false theory.

The myth of overpopulation needs to be dispelled. The proof is before our eyes.

LifeNews.com Note:  This column was adapted from Mia Harren’s first place essay in the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church Respect Life Essay contest for 11th and 12th grade students in Anchorage. Harren is a junior at Service High School. This article originally appeared in the Catholic Anchor newspaper and is reproduced here with permission.
[Mia Harren | Anchorage, AK | LifeNews.com | 5/29/11  http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/29/overpopulation-is-a-myth-plenty-of-food-and-space-exists/

Russian Duma Drafts Bill to Cut Abortions Citing Underpopulation

Abortion has become such a pervasive form of birth control that the nation is seeing worker and population shortages that are already beginning to take an economic toll. The nation’s Duma is considering legislation to address the problem.

Lawmakers in the lower house of the Russian parliament are working on legislation that they hope will cut the more than 1 million officially counted abortions taking place annually in the nation.

“The bill aims to create the conditions for a pregnant woman to opt for giving birth. We have public support but does the ruling party hear us?” Yelena Mizulina, head of the State Duma committee for family, women and children told the Ria Novosti news outlet.

The bill makes it so abortion would no longer be qualified as a medical service under the nation’s government-run health system, thus allowing physicians to opt out of doing them. The measure would also increase the monthly payments to pregnant women from the current 2,000 rubles ($70) a month until birth. The legislation could also make it illegal to do abortions in the second half of pregnancy.

“Doctors’ consent to do such operations is not the only problem. There are social and legal reasons behind the woman’s choice,” Mizulina said.

In a speech late last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged to raise the nation’s birthrate by up to 30% in just three years. Due to a rapidly falling fertility, Russia has experienced a dramatic population decline, going from 148.5 million people in 1995 to 143 million today despite efforts by various governments to boost the birth rate. Unofficial estimates indicate that there are nearly 4 million abortions per year in Russia yet only 1.7 million live births.

Putin’s plan calls for spending the equivalent of 33 billion pounds to encourage Russian families to have more children. But World Congress of Families director Larry Jacobs says that more than cash incentives and government benefits will be needed to raise Russia’s well-below-replacement birth rate.

Against this underpopulation backdrop, the World Congress of Families will hold the world’s first demographic summit – “Moscow Demographic Summit: Family and the Future of Humankind” – at the Russian State Social University (RSSU), June 29-30.

RSSU is one of Russia’s largest public universities, with over 100,000 students, and the nation’s leading institution for educating social workers.

Jacobs noted the Summit comes at a crucial time. “It’s not Russia alone that’s experiencing demographic winter,” Jacobs observed.

“Worldwide, birthrates have declined by more than 50% since the late 1960s. By the year 2050, there will be 248 million fewer children under 5 years-old in the world than there are today. This birth dearth will be one of the greatest challenges confronting humanity in the 21st century,” he said.

Jacobs noted: “The Summit will include discussions of The Demographic Potential of Russia – The Importance of Pro-Family Public Policy in Russia and the West – Demographic Indicators of Developed and Developing Nations – The Crisis of Family: Marriage, Abortion, Contraception – Population Control – Influence of Demographics on Economic Processes – Human Capital and Family-Friendly Business Practices – Population Aging and Ways to Overcome Demographic Challenges.”

An array of prominent Russian speakers will include: Metropolitan Hilarion (Foreign Affairs coordinator of the Russian Orthodox Church), Dr. Zhukov V.I. (Rector of RSSU), Bishop Panteleimon (Russian Orthodox Church Social and Charitable Activities), Dimitry Smirnov (ROC – Bioethics Commission), Natalia Yakunina (Sanctity of Motherhood Program, Center of National Glory), Fr Maxim Obukhov (ROC – Pro-Life Activities), Rostislav Ordovsky-Blanco (owner of Rosinter restaurant chain), Vsevolod Chaplin (Relations of ROC and Society), Professor Anatoly Antonov (demographer, Moscow State Lomonosov University) and Igor Beloborodov, PhD (Institute of Demographic Research).

International Speakers confirmed include: Anna Zaborska (Member EU Parliament), Allan Carlson, Larry Jacobs and Don Feder (World Congress of Families), Patrick Fagan (Family Research Council), Steven Mosher (Population Research Institute), Philip Longman (New America Foundation), and Janice Shaw Crouse (Concerned Women for America).

Invited speakers include demographers, sociologists, economists, scholars, elected officials and leaders from around the world.
[Ertelt | Moscow, Russia | LifeNews.com | 4/25/11,  http://www.lifenews.com/2011/04/25/russian-duma-drafts-bill-to-cut-abortions-citing-underpopulation/]

In Midst of Demographic Collapse, Japan Approves ‘Morning After’ Pill

At same same time as Japan is suffering rapid dmeographic collapse, the country’s Ministry of Health has approved the sale of the NorLevo brand of the abortifacient “emergency contraceptive.”

A press release from the drug’s manufacturer in Japan, the Sosei Co., Ltd., said the biopharmaceutical company was granted approval for its emergency contraceptive pill by the Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on February 23, making it the first ‘morning after’ pill available in Japan.

Sosei acquired the exclusive distribution rights to the product in Japan and Australia from Laboratoire HRA Pharma in April 2001. NorLevo was first launched in Europe in 1999 and is currently approved for use in some 50 countries.

The pills will be marketed in Japan by ASKA Pharmaceutical, which is expected to launch the product in the middle of May 2011.

The pill’s developer and manufacturer, European pharmaceutical company HRA Pharma, states on its website that the active ingredient in the pill, levonorgestrel, works by means of “several mechanisms ... such as impairment of ovulation, or modification of the uterine lining. In any case, emergency contraception takes effect before the implantation of the egg in the uterus.”

The phrase “the modification of the uterine lining” indicates that, as with other “emergency contraceptive” drugs, one mechanism of the drug is to ensure that the womb is made hostile to a fertilized embryo, ensuring that the newly conceived human life will be unable to implant, and will therefore die.

The Japanese distributor states that the NorLevo pill is to be “taken within 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure to prevent unwanted pregnancy.” While HRA Pharma claims that the drug is 95% effective if taken within 24 hours, this drops to 85% within 48 hours, and 58% if taken within 72 hours.

HRA Pharma notes on its website that the known side effects include “nausea and vomiting, dizziness, fatigue, headache, lower abdominal pain, breast tenderness, and vaginal bleeding.”

Numerous studies have linked contraceptive drugs to greater health risks for users. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine states that women using pills containing levonorgestrel were 2.4 times more likely to have a heart attack as non-users.

In 2010 Japan recorded 1.07 million births and 1.19 million deaths — the highest number of deaths since 1947 when the post-war health ministry began keeping records — resulting in a net loss of population.

With Japan’s well-below-replacement-level birth rate, and an ever-increasing number of deaths, the country’s population figures showed a decline of 123,000 in 2010, the fourth consecutive year of demographic collapse.

In November 2010, The Economist magazine noted, “Japan is heading into a demographic vortex. It is the fastest-aging society on Earth and the first big country in history to have started shrinking rapidly from natural causes.”

The causes that the Economist calls “natural” include artificial contraception and abortion, as well as a tendency to later marriage or for the country’s young people to remain single.  [Mar 07, 2011, T. Baklinski, TOKYO, LifeSiteNews.com,
 http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/in-midst-of-demographic-collapse-japan-approves-morning-after-pill?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=de32775ebd-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_05_2011&utm_medium=email

Overpopulation Is A Myth
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

POP 101... A Primer on the Future of Planet Earth...The Science
http://overpopulationisamyth.com/category/categories/pop101

Population Growth Challenges Can Be Met with Human Ingenuity, Say Engineers
While overpopulation doomsayers continue to call for reductions, forcible if necessary, of the human population, a report by the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME) has presented a more hopeful view, saying that future demographic challenges can be addressed by human ingenuity.

The report’s lead author, Dr. Tim Fox, said the conclusion is not based on speculative guesses about as-yet undeveloped technologies: “We can meet the challenge of feeding a planet of 9 billion people through the application of existing technologies.”

In answer to the widespread idea that human population growth will put unsustainable pressure on resources, the report has called for governments more broadly to disseminate engineering knowledge to help the developing world meet upcoming challenges.

The report, titled, “One Planet; Too Many People?” acknowledged that a potential human population of 9.5 billion by 2100 will present governments with “significant challenges.”

However, “the evidence shows that sustainable engineering solutions largely exist for many of the anticipated challenges.

“What is needed is political and social will, innovative financing mechanisms, and the transfer of best practice through localisation to achieve a successful outcome.”

The report examined four areas which governments need to address and which engineers in particular will play a role: food, water, urbanization and energy. In these areas, engineers have “the knowledge and skills to help meet the challenges that are projected to arise,” the report says.

“The provision of sufficient food through a doubling of global agricultural production in 40 years will be a challenge that engineers can help society meet.” Food processing and distribution, application of existing biotechnologies, improvements in mechanization and automation, masterplanning for urban production and more efficient irrigation can be employed to address any food-related challenges of the future.

“Given current techniques and capabilities there is no valid reason why there should be a shortage of water for human use,” the report noted.

The engineers recommend that governments adopt “five Engineering Development Goals” in addition to the UN’s Millenium Development Goals: “Use existing sustainable energy technologies and reduce energy waste, don’t wait for new technologies to be developed; replenish groundwater sources and improve storage of excess water and increase energy efficiencies of desalination; reduce food waste and resolve the politics of hunger; meet the challenge of slums and defending against sea-level rises; empower communities and enable implementation.”

A big part of the problem of hunger, the report said, is the lack of engineering skills in developing countries.

Just as developed nations provide medical and educational aid, the Institution recommends that governments train civil, mechanical, water, agricultural and electrical engineers “to provide other governments with low-cost, practical and up-to-date engineering expertise.”

Such expertise could also answer environmental concerns by helping developing countries “leapfrog” over the “resource-hungry dirty phase” that marked the early stages of industrialization in Britain and that so marks the industries in post-Soviet states.

The report also noted that Britain’s birth rate is low and that Europe’s population as a whole is projected to decrease by 20 per cent from 0.73 billion to 0.59 billion.

It also noted that with such a low birth rate, “domestic challenges will come from a greater proportion of elderly people in society with those over 65 years making up 23 per cent of the UK population by 2050.”

Fewer young people will be available to support them with 34 percent under the age of 30.

“This will create challenges regarding workforce composition, economic development, healthcare, transport strategies and changing consumption patterns for food, energy and consumer goods.”

Dominic Lawson, writing in The Independent, under the headline “The population time bomb is a myth,” highlighted the report and decried the bias of the mainstream media and its refusal to give any airtime to opinions contrary to those of the population doomsayers.

The IME report went almost unnoticed by mainstream media sources, Lawson said, and the “distinct lack of column inches” is because the IME “answered its own question in the negative.

“No, there are not (and will never be) too many people for the planet to feed.”

Lawson noted that the IME’s conclusions coincide with that of a recent report on “sustainability” by French scientists with the national agricultural and development research agencies who said that a global population of 9 billion could easily have a diet consisting of 3,000 calories a day at the same time that the agriculture industry reduces the use of fossil fuels.

The IME report is also in agreement with a statement last year from the head of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation, Dr. Jacques Diouf, who told a gathering of African bishops in Rome that “food security” is possible in Africa now with existing technologies, but there needs to be the political will to achieve it.

“Transparency… the application of law by an independent justice” and peace will create an environment where food production and distribution can be increased, Diouf said.

To read the IME report, One Planet, Too Many People?, click -- http://www.imeche.org/knowledge/themes/environment/Population
[see part of article below]
[January 20, 2011, Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/population-growth-challenges-can-be-met-with-human-ingenuity-say-engineers?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8d058f7f47-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_20_2011&utm_medium=email ]

One Planet, Too Many People?
http://www.imeche.org/knowledge/themes/environment/Population

By 2100, the global human population may reach 9.5 billion with 75% of these people located within urban settlements.  Meeting the needs and demands of these people will provide significant challenges to governments and society at large, and the engineering profession in particular.

Four key areas in which population growth and expanding affluence will significantly challenge society are: food, water, urbanisation and energy.

Food: An increase in the number of mouths to feed and changes in dietary habits, including the increased consumption of meat, will double demand for agricultural production by 2050. This will place added pressures on already stretched resources coping with the uncertain impacts of climate change on global food production.

Water: Extra pressure will come not only from increased requirements for food production, which uses 70% of water consumed globally, but also from a growth in demand for drinking water and industrial processing as we strive to satisfy consumer aspirations. Worldwide demand for water is projected to rise 30% by 2030, this in a world of shifting rainfall patterns due to global warming-induced climate changes that are difficult to predict.

Urbanisation: With cities in the developing world expanding at an unprecedented rate, adding another three billion urban inhabitants by 2050, solutions are needed to relieve the pressures of overcrowding, sanitation, waste handling and transportation if we are to provide comfortable, resilient and efficient places for all to live and work.

Energy: Increased food production, water processing and urbanisation, combined with economic growth and expanding affluence, will by mid-century more than double the demand on the sourcing and distribution of energy. This at a time when the sector is already under increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (on average across the globe to 50% of 1990 levels), adapt to uncertain future impacts of a changing climate and ensure security of future supply.

China Aid Director: U.S., Western Countries ‘Accomplices’ in China’s Brutal One Child Policy

By funneling tens of millions of dollars to organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which support China’s brutal One Child Policy, the United States and other Western countries are “accomplices” to “murder on a massive scale,” said the Director of China Aid in an interview this week.

The remarks by Mr. Bob Fu were echoed by the Population Research Institute, an organization that has been instrumental in exposing the human rights violations of the policy, as well as UNFPA’s complicity in it.

In an interview with ACN News this week, Fu said that the Chinese government carries out “birth control” or the One Child Policy based on the theory that there are limited resources and “the only way to make the existing population achieve economic wealth is to limit the size of the population.”

In general, each family is permitted to have only one child.  When a couple wants to have their first child, Fu explained, they are “required to get a pregnancy permission card – a yellow card before your wife can legally get pregnant.”  If a woman is pregnant without the permission card, she is arrested and forced to have an abortion.

The “massive practice” of forced sterilization and abortion has a huge impact on China.  Last year, said Fu, there was “a report of about 20 million babies, which were aborted … abortion being performed as late as nine months.”

“I, personally, had a phone conversation with a Christian lady … who said that she was in a hospital and was eight months pregnant and beside her on another bed was a lady who was nine months pregnant. That night 80 pregnant women were forced to have an abortion by poison being injected into the fetus. This is murder on a massive scale.“

In addition to the pervasive practice of abortion, Mr. Fu cites the “huge crises of ageing parents” as another major effect of China’s One Child Policy.

Just last week, China Daily cited a report released by the China National Committee on the Ageing that found that, as of 2009, the number of senior citizens over 60 years of age had reached 167 million, accounting for 12.5 percent of the country’s total population.

In response to the crisis, the Chinese government recently issued revised legislation that could potentially permit aging Chinese parents to sue their children for not paying them enough attention... [Jan 20, 2011, Rebecca Millette, CHINA, LifeSiteNews.com,   http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/china-aid-director-us-western-countries-accomplices-in-chinas-brutal-one?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8d058f7f47-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_20_2011&utm_medium=email

New Population Count May Complicate Obama 2012 Bid - Yahoo News
The population continues to shift from Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states to Republican-leaning Sun Belt states, a trend the Census Bureau will detail in its once-a-decade report to the president.

Political clout shifts, too, because the nation must reapportion the 435 House districts to make them roughly equal in population, based on the latest census figures.
[Charles Babington, Associated Press – 19 Dec 2010, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101219/ap_on_el_ge/us_census_redistricting;_ylt=AvSRqudrF9URn0WlHjHuQNMDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTJzNnNtOWthBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAxMjE5L3VzX2NlbnN1c19yZWRpc3RyaWN0aW5nBHBvcwM4BHNlYwN5bl9hcnRpY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDbmV3cG9wdWxhdGlv

Japan Records Fourth Year of Plummeting Population

Japan’s well-below-replacement-level birth rate, combined with an ever-increasing number of deaths has resulted in the country’s population falling by 123,000 in 2010, the fourth consecutive year of demographic implosion.

In 2005 the Washington Post correctly predicted that Japan’s population would begin to decline the following year. They predicted it would drop from the-then current 128 million to 126 million by 2015, and to 101 million by 2050.

According to an AP report, Japan recorded 1.19 million deaths in 2010 — the highest number since 1947 when the post-war health ministry began keeping records. The number of births recorded was 1.07 million, resulting in a net loss of population.

The health ministry report states that at the end of 2010 Japan’s total population was 125.77 million, with those aged 65 and older making up about a quarter of the population. The number of aged is expected to reach 40 percent by 2050.

Of even greater concern is the rapid increase in the number of old people relative to the number of available workers.

According to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, in 1995 the working age population of Japan hit its high point, at 87 million. In 2004 this had dropped to 85.08 million and by the end of 2010 stood at 81.07 million.

An article late last year by the Economist magazine stated that, “If current trends continue, in 20 years time it will have dropped by 20m. By 2050 it will have fallen below 50m, forming an almost perfect bell curve in one century. Among rich nations, only Germany will suffer a similar fall.”

“When public pensions were introduced in the 1960s there were 11 workers for every pensioner,” said the Economist. “Now there are 2.6, with an OECD average of four. In a sign of growing disillusionment with the pension system, almost 40% of the self-employed fail to pay contributions.”

The health ministry reported 706,000 marriages in 2010, the fewest since 1954, blaming a later age of marrying and reluctance by women to forego careers and marry at all as primary reasons for the decline.
Related:
Economist magazine admits low fertility is killing Japanese economy -- http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/economist-magazine-admits-low-fertility-is-killing-japanese-economy
[Jan 06, 2011, JAPAN, January 6, 2010, Thaddeus Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/japan-records-fourth-year-of-plummeting-population?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e30e494f90-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines03_06_2011&utm_medium=email ]

Ted Turner Calls for Global One-Child Policy Like China’s

Media billionaire Ted Turner called on world leaders Sunday to institute an international one-child policy akin to that being enforced in China.

The CNN founder said that under this scheme the world’s poor could sell their fertility rights and thereby profit from avoiding procreation, reports the Globe and Mail.

Radical solutions are needed, he said, because of the environmental crisis facing the planet.  “If we’re going to be here [as a species] 5,000 years from now, we’re not going to do it with seven billion people,” he explained.

China’s coercive approach to implementing their policy includes forced abortion, imprisonment, and fines many times greater than a family’s annual income. The policy has faced strong criticism from human rights organizations, such as the pro-abortion Amnesty International.

Turner, however, who is renowned in pro-life circles for using his massive wealth to promote abortion and population control, raised eyebrows last year when he claimed that China does not use “draconian steps” in enforcing the policy.

When the interviewer pointed out that in enforcing the policy China has “done more than encourage on several occasions,” the media mogul admitted he was “not intimately familiar with everything.”  He nevertheless did not retract the comments.

Turner was a featured speaker this past weekend at the World Climate Summit in Cancun, a conference for business leaders staged during the UN’s Climate Change Conference in the same city to ‘accelerate solutions to climate change.’

He made the comments during a luncheon on Sunday where economist Brian O’Neill of the U.S.’s National Center for Atmospheric Research presented his new study on the impact of demographic trends on greenhouse gas emissions.

O’Neill argued that promoting access to “family planning” could be a major boon to those seeking to reduce greenhouse emissions.  O’Neill, however, advocated voluntary approaches.

Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute, said today that instead of China’s coercive brand of population control, Turner instead “wants to pursue a less populated world by bribing women into giving up their fertility.”

“There is ... something despicable about offering a poor, hungry woman food, money, or clothing in exchange for her surrendering her fertility,” said Mosher, who has studied China’s one-child policy for over three decades.

Yet while Turner has not advocated coercion, Mosher explained that the population policy he is promoting will inevitably lead that way. Population control programs are all voluntary “until someone refuses to submit to the knife, at which time the pretense of ‘voluntarism’ is abandoned, threats start being made, and forced sterilizations follow,” he said.
[6 Dec 2010, Patrick B. Craine, CANCUN, Mexico,  LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ted-turner-calls-for-global-one-child-policy-like-chinas?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=270b9834cb-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines12_06_2010&utm_medium=email



Poverty: Where We All Started

The Population Research Institute (PRI) has just released the fourth episode of their highly popular YouTube series aimed to expose the myth of overpopulation through humorous stick-figure animation.

The latest video, available on Youtube and at PRI’s website, tackles the root causes of poverty and how to alleviate it.  It argues that mankind has always improved its lot by increasing (not reducing) the number of people.

“Reducing the number of people in the world would not make those who remain any wealthier,” says Joseph Powell, the creator and animator of the series. “That’s not how it works, and population control won’t change that.”

“We set out to be entertaining,” adds Colin Mason, PRI’s Director of Media Production and the video’s editor. “The idea is to artfully enthral the viewer, who at the same time effortlessly absorbs certain demographic truths, chiefly, that people in their numbers create wealth, not poverty.”

The series, which has to date garnered more than half a million views, has previously tackled such topics as the development of the overpopulation myth [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZVOU5bfHrM ], the necessary replacement rate [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBS6f-JVvTY ] to maintain a stable population, and the myth [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXrN9HhnCcM ] that reducing population would solve world hunger.

“The fight against the myth of overpopulation does not have to be a bare-knuckled brawl,” says Steven Mosher, PRI’s president. “These videos are funny and easy to digest, the very opposite of Al Gore’s boring pronouncements on the ‘dangers’ of too many people. Our viewers end up considering the science that supports our pro-people position, often for the very first time. We say to our skeptics: watch, laugh, and learn.”

Find the latest video, ‘Poverty: Where We All Started’, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUY4ztwIVfA
[Dec 09, 2010, Patrick B. Craine, FRONT ROYAL, Virginia, LifeSiteNews.com, http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/fourth-part-of-humorous-video-series-debunking-overpopulation-released?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=dea3bf1859-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines12_10_2010&utm_medium=email ]

Fewer Children, Later Marriage, More Divorce in Canadian Families: Study
The Vanier Institute of the Family has released "Families Count: Profiling Canada’s Families IV," the fourth in a series of publications since 1994 that draw on the most recent data to provide a new picture of Canadian families and the challenges they face. For pro-family advocates, the report paints a worrying picture of increased cohabitation and divorce, later marriages, and fewer children.

Timed to provide a backdrop for National Family Week (October 4-9), Families Count details the trends that are reshaping family life in Canada.

“National Family Week gives us occasion to celebrate the central place of families in our lives, and to acknowledge the incredibly vital role that families play in society. Few things are of greater importance to Canadians than the health and well-being of our families,” said Clarence Lochhead, Executive Director of the Vanier Institute of the Family, in a press release.

“Canada’s families may be changing in some remarkable ways, but in all their diversity, they remain the cornerstone of our lives,” Lochhead said.

"The research shows we are too often taking the remarkable resiliency and strength of families for granted,” said Lochhead. “Many families are simply being stretched beyond their capacity. The evidence can be seen in rising rates of poverty, growing levels of household debt, and the many stresses emanating from the severe time crunch so many Canadians routinely face.”

The structure of families has changed dramatically in the last three generations, according to the report.

"Today's families are smaller. Adults wait longer to marry if they do so at all. Common law unions are no longer just a preliminary or trial stage before marriage but, for many, an alternative to marriage," the study reveals. The study found that ‘Married with children’ families now represent only 39% of all families, versus 55% in 1981, with cohabiting couples with children, and married couples with no children, now also representing about 38% of families.

"By and large, Canadians view cohabitation as a complement to marriage rather than a substitute for it," the study says, adding that less than half of Canadian adults are now married, and over half of first unions are now common law for Canadians between 20-29.

The age at first marriage has risen significantly, with 30.5 years the average age for men and 28.5 years for women, with a consequent older age for bearing a first child.

"On average, Canadians wait longer than did their parents or grandparents to have children. They are more likely to separate or divorce. In less than a lifetime, the dual-earner family has gone from an exception to the norm, and a growing number of women are primary income earners within their families," the report notes.

"These fundamental changes in the structure of families compel us to rethink how best to respect and support families in all of their diversity - at every level from policy to programs," the authors of the report state.

The report also highlights the fact that "family and child poverty remain persistent social problems, while enormous inequalities of wealth and income continue to separate rich and poor. Particularly vulnerable are Canada’s Aboriginal families, new immigrants and families that rely on a single earner. Food banks have become familiar community institutions."

Pointing out the ease with which families may sink into debt thanks to the availability of easy credit, the report says that, "Within a generation, the availability and use of credit has fundamentally altered the ways in which families purchase goods and services, and manage household finances. Household debt is at record levels, and savings at record lows. That picture is set against an increasing wealth inequality. Economic security is an elusive goal for many."

Katherine Scott, the Vanier Institute of the Family's Director of Programs and principal author of Families Count, concludes that, “Our success as a nation – whether it’s the economy, the environment, health care, or our aging population – will depend on the health of our families, and there’s much we can do to increase our chances of success by supporting families.”

An abstract with links to the full text of the report "Families Count - Profiling Canada's Families IV" is available here -- http://www.vifamily.ca/node/371
[October 5, 2010, T. M. Baklinski, OTTAWA, (LifeSiteNews.com) - http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100510.html ]

NATIONAL VITAL STATISTICS, 2005 -- according to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for 2005, 6.408 million pregnancies ended in 4.14 million live births, 1.21 million induced abortions, and 1.06 million fetal losses.

This latest pregnancy rate is 11% below the 1990 peak.

Teenage pregnancies are down 40%, with rates falling further among younger as compared to older teenagers. [January 2010, Cincinnati RT Life News Brief]

QuickStats: Life Expectancy at Birth, by Race* and Sex --- United States, 1970--2007
During 1970--2007, life expectancy at birth in the United States demonstrated a long-term increasing trend for the total population, for both males and females, and for the black and white populations. In 2007, the disparities in life expectancy for males compared with females and for blacks compared with whites were the smallest ever recorded. Life expectancy at birth was highest for white females (80.8 years), followed by black females (76.8), white males (75.9), and black males (70.0).

Alternate Text: The figure above shows life expectancy at birth, by race and sex in the United States during 1970-2007. In 2007, life expectancy at birth in the United States demonstrated a long-term increasing trend for the total population, for both males and females, and for the black and white populations. In 2007, the disparities in life expectancy for males compared with females and for blacks compared with whites were the smallest ever recorded. Life expectancy at birth was highest for white females (80.8 years); followed by black females (76.8), white males (75.9), and black males (70.0).
CDC, MMWR Weekly,September 17, 2010 / 59(36);1185
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5936a9.htm?s_cid=mm5936a9_e
Source: Xu J, Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: final data for 2007. Natl Vital Stat Rep 2010;58(19). Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_19.pdf Adobe PDF file.



Islamic Terrorism and Fertility
by Steven W. Mosher

Islamic terrorists have used roadside bombs, car bombs and plane bombs in their attacks on us. Might the Islamic “population bomb” be their next weapon of choice?

The demographic sophisticates who read this column know that the population bomb has fizzled, that the world's population will never double again, and that birthrates are falling faster and farther than anyone imagined a half century ago. But they also know that there are still pockets of moderately high fertility in the world, including a number of Muslim countries, and some wonder if such places could be breeding grounds (forgive the expression) for Islamic terrorism. I know they wonder, because every time I give a population talk someone in the audience raises the question of whether Islamic fertility contributes to Islamic fanaticism.

They are not alone.

Many security experts, like Clinton's Deputy National Security Advisor Samuel Huntington, have long believed that “excessive” population growth in Muslim countries is a national security threat to the West. They argue that large cohorts of young people radicalize their societies, contribute to civil unrest and cross-border conflicts and, most importantly for us, provide an endless supply of new recruits for terrorist training camps.

But is it true that we will face continual terrorist attacks if Muslim countries do not reduce their numbers of young people? Do we need to be aggressively pursuing population control programs in the Muslim world in order to combat international terrorism?

The answer to both questions is no. The first problem with such proposals is that the numbers don't add up. It is true that majority Muslim countries cut a huge swath across northern Africa and Asia, stretching from Morocco to the southern Philippines, and from Chechnya down to Nigeria.

But the average number of children born to the world's estimated 1 billion Muslims has been cut in half over the past 30 years, and is still falling, especially in the largest Muslim countries of Indonesia (243 million, 2.3 children), Pakistan (184 million, 3.3 children), and Bangladesh (156 million, 2.7 children), Egypt (80 million, 3.0 children), and Turkey (77 million, 2.2 children). In Iran (76 million), the fierce preaching of the Mullahs against large families (and in favor of sterilization) has resulted in families averaging fewer than two children.

Some might object that, as most anti-Western terror groups come from Arab-speaking Muslim countries, we ought to more narrowly focus on birthrates in North Africa and the Middle East. The problem with this thesis is that several of these countries too, including Tunisia, Libya and Lebanon, have already fallen to sub-replacement fertility.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that others, such as Algeria, will follow in the next few years.

If demography were truly destiny, then why is Lebanon, with its anemic birthrate, home to so many terrorist organizations and operatives?

And how is it that dying countries are even capable of aggression? I think here of Serbia in the nineties which, despite an anemic birthrate and an aging population, launched a violent war of aggression against neighboring ethnic groups, the Kosovars in particular. The Serbs were all supposed to be sitting in their rocking chairs, not engaging in savage ethnic cleansing.

Demographics simply do not have much predictive ability when it comes to predicting social instability, wars, terrorism, and the like. The late Julian Simon, who surveyed the literature on population and war, concluded, “the data do not show a connection between population growth and political instability due to the struggle for economic resources. The purported connection is another of those notions that everyone … knows is true, and that seems quite logical, but has no basis in factual evidence.”

Osama bin Laden does not mastermind terrorist attacks against the U.S. because he's one of over 50 children, but because he grew up in a poisonous atmosphere of anti-Israel and anti-American propaganda and, unlike most of his siblings, decided to act on it. Neither does the terrorizing of civilian populations through random attacks have anything to do with demography. It is a weapon of our modern political age, adopted by Islamic fanatics for their own purposes.

Middle Eastern dictators, for whom the maintenance of civil order—and hence their own position—is the top priority, are happy to blame their countries' poverty and backwardness on outside forces.

That why they allow vicious and one-sided attacks on Israel, the U.S., and the West to dominate the state-run media, the schools, and the religious institutions.

Terrorism is not bred by too many babies, but by dictators who encourage hatred of the wider world, lest their own people turn on them and rend them.

[13 October 2010, PRI Weekly Briefing, Vol. 12 / No. 28, Steven W. Mosher is the President of the Population Research Institute.]