Advocates Want Contraceptives Pushed Even at Expense of Vital Care

The 2012 London Summit on Family Planning, to be held on July 11, is intended to “mobilize global policy” to assure that 120 million women and girls are afforded family planning, contraceptives and other information. 

Sponsors of the event want more money put to these services for poor women around the world. But it seems likely funding this new program will take money away from actual healthcare services already offered, especially in a day when economies are failing worldwide.

Claiming “It has been proven that family planning saves lives, improves health, strengthens communities, and stimulates economic growth,” the London Summit intends to get its funding from the international community in any way it can.

One thing seems certain; these people think of pregnancy as an affliction, something that needs to be stamped out. Also interesting is the focus on the poor in a eugenics-like push to eliminate the lower classes of peoples by encouraging fewer pregnancies.

The event is largely sponsored by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is co-sponsored by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) along with dozens of other international groups.

So, what about funding these new, massive and expensive programs? Timothy Herman of Lifenews thinks the cash will come from already established healthcare programs, which in and of itself will harm the very people this conference thinks it is helping.

For one, Herman notes that, “USAID is budgeted to cut maternal and child health funding by $28 million from 2012 to 2013, including reductions to nutrition programs while budget requests for family planning have increased.”

He goes on, saying:

The London Family Planning Summit creates preferential treatment for contraception groups, above programs providing basic health care, education, infrastructure, economic programs – measures that lift women and communities out of poverty.

Poor families are already having programs that used to serve them cut, but with this new program in the offing those cuts will likely get deeper. The money will have to come from somewhere, after all, and most countries are already strapped for cash.

Additionally, even as it plays up the contraceptives angle, one of the conference sponsor’s goals is also to “remove and reduce barriers to family planning,” and by this we all understand them to mean they want abortion services to be more widely available and that government should pay for it.

Who will monitor these programs? Groups that already have a reputation for pushing abortion, violating peoples rights, and attacking religion.

Monitoring of these contraception programs will be assigned to groups like the Summit’s partners, with a history of population control, promoting abortion and abuses. For example, Planned Parenthood faces charges of fraud, sex-selection abortions, assisting suspected child sex traffickers, and violating statutory rape laws.

Before the conference even starts it’s in bad company.