Aborting Poverty

Catholic Social Justice and Population Control. Next on the American Life League Report. [intro] Throughout the world are people suffering the ravages of extreme poverty. We’ve all seen their hollow faces and bloated bellies on PSAs and billboard signs, and led with sympathy and charity, we’re urged to provide them with what they most desperately need: increased access to artificial birth control. Right? Ok, maybe not, but this is one central thesis of Columbia professor of economics, Jeffrey Sachs. In addition to his position at Columbia University, Sachs is the head of the Earth Institute and the United Nation’s Millennium Project. But more importantly, Sachs claims that one of the best way to fight poverty throughout the world is to reduce population growth and fertility rates with voluntary birth control, sterilizations, and abortion. That is, if there are fewer mouths to feed, then there is less of a drain on local resources. In 2002, Sachs spoke at a United Nations event, and said: “Reproductive health services are not just desirable in and of themselves – which they certainly are – but are absolutely critical tools for alleviating poverty.” As the head of the Millennium Project, Sachs requested and authorized the publication of a report titled, “Access to Safe Abortion: An Essential Strategy for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals to Improve Maternal Health, Promote Gender Equality, and Reduce Poverty.” The table of contents is sufficient enough to illustrate exactly what he’s advocating. More recently, in 2008, Sachs spoke at the University of Sydney, Australia. Listen to his plan for fighting poverty: [Sachs] These fragile parts of the world, already water-stressed, already impoverished, can’t begin to deal with this kind of population increase. And the idea that we don’t even talk about family planning, contraception, helping to keep girls in school to get the fertility rates down dramatically is really one of the greatest failings of our time. In 2005, Jeffrey Sachs, quite literally, wrote the book on reducing fertility to fight poverty. The End of Poverty, repeats this theme over and over. One example is this quote on page 65: High fertility rates in one generation, therefore, tend to lead to impoverishment of the children and to high fertility rates in the following generation as well. Rapid population growth also puts enormous stresses on farm sizes and environmental resources, thereby exacerbating the poverty. The rest of the book is much of the same. Not only is population control in direct conflict with Catholic teaching, but as Pope Benedict XVI said in his latest encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate”: To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view. In light of this he goes on to point out that nations with large populations have been able to emerge from poverty precisely because of the large size of the population and the talents of their people. So, one would think that given Sachs’ radical position on population control, he would never find his way into conferences, forums, or events sponsored by a religion that thoroughly denounce abortion and birth control. But this isn’t so for the Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors. You may not have heard of the Roundtable, but you certainly know its members. This Roundtable organizes diocesan directors of Catholic Charities, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Relief Services and social justice offices for about 100 dioceses across the country. It’s a network for these directors to share experiences and ideas, coordinate events to discuss issues related to poverty, homelessness, health care, and the like. In 2006, for instance, the Roundtable signed on as a partner for a conference attended by over 1,100 Catholic social justice activists. According to its 2007 newsletter: By far, the most popular speaker was economist and global health expert Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University Really? One would HOPE that no Catholic familiar with his population control theories would hold him in high esteem: [Priest] … my appreciation to Fr. McElroy, George Weselock, and the Archdiocese of San Francisco for inviting me to be a part of this program with a very, very esteemed and dear friend, professor Jeffrey Sachs. And Sachs’ speech at the conference was so popular that nine months later, the Roundtable held its fifth annual book discussion, on Sachs’ The End of Poverty. The only criticism is that Sachs failed to acknowledge the Church’s role in poverty reduction. There is no mention anywhere in this article of Sachs’ population control theories. So, the big question is, has there been ANY Catholic criticism of The End of Poverty? Well, we discovered that the president of Catholic Relief Services wrote a review of it in 2005. Although he does “quibble with Dr. Sachs' simple and clear-cut strategy to a complex problem for ending poverty,” he sets that aside and completely ignores Sachs’ population control theories. In fact, he called the book “a POSITIVE FORCE for the cause of development.” It would be nice to think that those who gave Jeffrey Sachs a platform to speak, called him a dear friend, or called his book a “positive force for the cause of development” were simply ignorant of his population control agenda, but Sachs has been so open and free with his ideas on it, this simply isn’t possible. It’s all right here in his book! Until these “professional Catholics” stop collaborating with and promoting ideologues who undermine the Church’s work for the Gospel of Life, we will continue to flounder, more babies will die, and more souls will be lost. It’s time the Catholic Church thoroughly investigated the activities of these “Catholic Social justice” organizations. For American Life League I'm Michael Hichborn.