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World Population Conference [Revised Draft Statement 07/10/1984]
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World Population Conference [Revised Draft Statement 07/10/1984]
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Records of the Office of the Chief of Staff (Reagan Administration)
James Cicconi's Subject Files
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The Pathfinder Fund pathways in population planning
CLARENCE GAMBLE, M.D.
Founder (1894-1966)
MRS CLARENCE GAMBLE
Honorary Chairwoman
Dear Friend,
RICHARD B. GAMBLE
Chairman of the Board
Do you remember 1957? Ike was President. Times were good.
HOWARD K. GRAY, Jr.
Executive Director
-
Very few people at that time were thinking about global
LIOT T PUTNAM. Ir.
famine or the population explosion. But a few people clearly
Associate Executive Director
saw it coming. One of them was my late husband, Dr. Clarence
NORMAND F. SMITH
James Gamble. He had helped to establish the first family
Secretary
planning clinics in 40 American cities.
PATRICK GRANT
Treasurer
And, in 1957, he founded The Pathfinder Fund.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
His vision of pioneering new and better ways of family
planning has grown into a worldwide, non-profit organization,
GORDON B. AVERY. M.D.
RICHARD M BURNES. Jr.
now working in over 49 developing nations. The Pathfinder
NAZLI CHOUCRI. Ph.D.
REBECCA COOK
Fund is helping to prevent a horrifying scenario of massive
LAWRENCE COOLIDGE
famine, economic collapse and social turmoil.
JAMES R EPSTEIN
SARAH C EPSTEIN
EMILY FLINT
To bring the point home to you, in the short time you've
RICHARD B. GAMBLE
SARAH GAMBLE
spent reading these few paragraphs over 500 people have been
WALTER 1. GAMBLE. MD.
born. This amazingly rapid growth in sheer numbers of human
PATRICK GRANT
HAROLDC GUSTAFSON. Dr. PH.
beings born minute after minute, hour after hour, day after
MEACHAM HITCHCOCK
day is threatening our survival.
JULIA G KAHRL
STANLEY KAHRL. Ph.D
IL KINGSLEY
But the situation is far from hopeless. In the United
DONALD MINKLER. MD
GEORGE H PEAU. Ir
States and most western countries population growth has
EVERETT M ROGERS. Ph D.
stabilized at the replacement level. Major victories in
NORMAND F. SMITH
FREDRICK 1. STARE. M.D.
reducing birth rates are taking place more frequently.
The World Fertility Survey indicates a sharp drop in the
birth rate in many Third World countries. In Costa Rica, women
today bear half the number of babies their mothers did.
In South Korea, Sri Lanka and other Asian countries,
women now marry later. Delayed marriage may enable them to
stay in school longer, perhaps to gain some experience in the
job market. These factors give parents a better chance to
weigh options about when they will have children and how many.
You and I are deeply affected by this vital struggle to
restore a workable balance between the world's population and
its resources. We can take heart from evidence that the birth
rate in some countries is slowing down.
1330 BOYLSTON STREET.
CHESTNUT HILL (BOSTON).
MASSACHUSETTS 02167
TELEPHONE: (617) 731-1700
CABLE: PATHFIND. BOSTON
Contributions Are Deductible for
Federal Income Tax Purposes
-2-
But persistent effort must be expended if birth rates are to be
reduced throughout the world. Even now many women in developing countries
want to limit their childbearing, but they don't know how.
This is where The Pathfinder Fund is helping.
In Kenya, Pathfinder reaches rural areas through Maendeleo Ya
Wanawake, a national women's organization that has chapters in more than
5,000 local communities. Financial and technical assistance from The
Pathfinder Fund is making it possible for them to add family planning
information and maternal and child health instruction to their regular
self-help programs.
The success of this project has led Pathfinder to develop and support
similar ventures in Peru, Ecuador, Egypt and Indonesia.
Pathfinder is also breaking new ground in Haiti -- one of the world's
poorest countries -- where the birth rate is still very high. With
Pathfinder support, a national women's center is developing a capability to
train urban and rural community leaders.
Encouraging as these beginnings are, countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh,
Rwanda and Nepal are still being strangled by excessive and ever-growing
populations.
For hundreds of millions of people in these countries, the short step
from life's beginning to its end may be one of unrelieved misery.
In many parts of Asia, Africa, Central and South America, the cycle of
poverty, ignorance and disease grinds on. Without population control there
is little hope.
On the Caribbean island of Jamaica, teenage pregnancy may not be
accidental. It can be a matter of survival. Here a young girl may become
pregnant because the only way she can get a man to support her is to bear
his children.
And, maybe he does for a while. But in the end, she might be
deserted -- left to make her own way along -- no education
no skills
and a young baby to feed and care for.
The Pathfinder Project for Adolescent Mothers has helped break that
pattern. Pregnant students are encouraged to return to school after child-
birth. Older adolescents may be taught a skill.
Through education, vocational training and family planning services,
young women are helped to find alternatives to having babies when they
are not yet ready to care for them.
Fund
-3-
letter
Someone once told me the best way to demonstrate success is to succeed
in the most difficult of circumstances. In population control, Bangladesh
is one of the most difficult countries in the world. Some have described the
country as the "population basket case of the world."
Imagine a country in which 90% of the people -- 80 million -- live
on the edge of disaster with famine just days away. The population seems
literally to be exploding -- growing at a terrifying rate of 3% -- faster
than food, jobs, schools, and homes.
Bangladesh is collapsing under the weight of too many people. Unless
the birth rate is dramatically reduced, the country may sink into complete
chaos.
One aspect of Bangladesh's tragic condition is that each year an
estimated 300,000 women, desperate to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, resort
to clandestine, back-alley abortions. Over 10,000 die and many more experience
serious illness as a result of improperly performed procedures. The tragedy
is that these deaths, this suffering, could be avoided if contraceptive
services and safe abortions were adequately available to these unfortunate
women.
Five years ago Pathfinder agreed to help the Bangladesh government
develop a pilot, comprehensive reproductive health clinic in Dacca All
methods of family planning -- contraception, sterilization, and abortion
were offered.
The clinic was very successful. Especially notable was the fact that
the vast majority of women who came for a pregnancy termination left with
a modern method of family planning. Many had not used contraception before.
Many had not even known how to prevent pregnancy.
Because the clinic was so successful and because the offering of
pregnancy termination services seemed an excellent way to introduce family
planning, the Population Control and Family Planning Division of the Ministry
of Health asked Pathfinder's assistance is designing, funding and implementing
a plan to make medically safe abortion available throughout Bangladesh.
Over the past three years, after careful development of a teaching
curriculum, abortion service and training facilities have been established
at seven of Bangladesh's eight medical school teaching hospitals and at
two district hospitals. Additional facilities will gradually be brought
into the program.
Practicing physicians, interns, residents, medical students and
auxiliaries (called Family Welfare Visitors in Bangladesh) are being trained.
The Government of Bangladesh is providing the physical facilities and assuming
the salaries of senior administrative personnel.
-4-
Pathfinder has undertaken the responsibility of securing the funding
for the balance of the costs, more than $250,000 this year. Because the
project includes abortion, we cannot use U.S. Government funds.
Contributions from friends like you are essential if the effective
program now underway is to achieve optimal results.
The Bangladesh Government wants sufficient personnel trained so that
comprehensive family. planning, including pregnancy termination, can be
offered at health facilities in each of the 413 thanas (counties). It is
anticipated that the Pathfinder-supported training facilities will eventually
be absorbed into the Government's regular teaching and health programs and
then help from abroad will no longer be needed.
While not desirable as a primary method of birth control, experience
in Bangladesh and elsewhere has shown that the availability of abortions leads
to increased utilization of contraceptive methods, if proper counseling is
provided at the time of the abortion. Thus, we hope that this newest Path-
finder program will not only reduce unwanted births today, but will promote
far wider use of contraceptives and diminish the need for abortion tomorrow.
The Pathfinder Fund must continue to help. Bangladesh can become a
symbol of victory for population control in the Third World.
Will you help us to make it happen?
Your support today will not only provide direct assistance to family
planning projects in Bangladesh and other countries, but will help leaders
understand population policies and launch the programs needed to attain
these goals.
No single government, and certainly no single agency, can do the job
alone. By acting together, we may succeed in stemming the population tide.
Your gift of $25, $50, $100 or even more will enable us to open new
pathways where there was only despair and suffering before. Making a better
life possible for hundreds of millions of people is a goal worth striving for.
Sincerely yours,
Sarah Famble
Mrs. Clarence J. Gamble
Honorary Chairwoman
P.S. Please take a few moments to look over the enclosed brochure on the
work of The Pathfinder Fund. A generous, tax-deductible gift, which
can be sent in the enclosed envelope, will be greatly appreciated.
JWC 7/3/84
REVISED DRAFT STATEMENT
Introduction
For many years, the United States has supported, and helped to
finance, programs of family planning, particularly in the less
developed countries. This Administration has continued that
support but has placed it within a policy context different from
that of the past. It is sufficiently evident that the current
exponential growth in global population cannot continue
indefinitely. There is no question of the ultimate need to
achieve a condition of population equilibrium. The differences
that do exist concern the choice of strategies and methods for
the achievement of that goal. The experience of the last two
decades not only makes possible but requires a sharper focus for
our population policy. It requires a more refined approach to
problems which appear today in quite a different light than they
did twenty years ago.
First and most important, population growth is, of itself, a
neutral phenomenon. It is not necessarily good or ill. It
becomes an asset or a problem only in conjunction with other
factors, such as economic policy, social constraints, need for
manpower, and SO forth. The relationship between population
necessarilya
growth and economic development is not
negative one. More
people do not necessarily mean less growth. Indeed, in the
economic history of many nations, population growth has been an
essential element in economic progress.
2
Before the advent of governmental population programs, several.
factors had combined to create an unprecedented surge in
population over most of the world. Although population levels in
many industrialized nations had reached or were approaching
equilibrium in the period before the Second World War, the baby
boom that followed in its wake resulted in a dramatic, but
temporary, population "tilt" toward youth. The disproportionate
number of infants, children, teenagers, and eventually young
adults did strain the social infrastructure of schools, health
facilities, law enforcement and SO forth. However, it also helped
sustain strong economic growth, despite occasionally
counterproductive government policies.
Among the developing nations, a coincidental population increase
was caused by entirely different factors. A tremendous expansion
of health services -- from simple inoculations to sophisticated
surgery -- saved millions of lives every year. Emergency relief,
facilitated by modern transport, helped millions to survive flood,
famine, and drought. The sharing of technology, the teaching of
agriculture and engineering, and improvements in educational
standards generally, all helped to reduce mortality rates,
especially infant mortality, and to lengthen life spans.
This demonstrated not poor planning or bad policy but human
progress in a new era of international assistance, technological
advance, and human compassion. The population boom was a
challenge; it need not have been a crisis. Seen in its broader
context, it required a measured, modulated response. It provoked
an overraction by some, largely because it coincided with two
3
negative factors which, together, hindered families and nations
in adapting to their changing circumstances.
The first of these factors was governmental control of economies,
a development which effectively constrained economic growth. The
post-war experience consistently demonstrated that, as
economic decision-making was concentrated in the hands of planners
and public officials, the ability of average men and women to work
towards a better future was impaired, and sometimes crippled. In
many cases, agriculture was devastated by government price fixing
that wiped out rewards for labor. Job creation in infant
industries was hampered by confiscatory taxes. Personal industry
and thrift were penalized, while dependence upon the state was
encouraged. Political considerations made it difficult for the
economy to adjust to changes in supply and demand or to disruptions
in world trade and finance. Under such circumstances, population
growth changed from an asset in the development of economic
potential to a peril.
One of the consequences of this "economic statism" was that it disrupted
the natural mechanism for slowing population growth in problem
areas. The world's more affluent nations have reached a population
equilibrium without compulsion and, in most cases, even before it
was government policy to achieve it. The controlling factor in
these cases has been the adjustment, by individual families, of
reproductive behavior to economic opportunity and aspiration.
Historically, as opportunities and the standard of living rise, the
birth rate falls.
/Economic freedom has led to economically
rational behavior
In many countries
4
That historic pattern might be well under way in many nations
where population growth is today a problem, if counter-productive
government policies had not disrupted economic incentives, rewards,
and advancement. In this regard, localized crises of population
growth are, in part, evidence of too much government control and
planning, rather than too little.
The second factor that turned the population boom into a crisis was
confined to the western world. It was an outbreak of an
anti-intellectualism, which attacked science, technology, and the
very concept of material progress. Joined to a commendable and
long overdue concern for the environment, it was more a reflection
of anxiety about unsettled times and an uncertain future. In its
disregard of human experience and scientific sophistication, it
was not unlike other waves of cultural anxiety that have swept
through western civilization during times of social stress and
scientific exploration.
The combination of these two factors -- counterproductive economic
policies in poor and struggling nations, and a
pseudo scientific
pessimism among the more advanced -- led to a demographic
overreaction in the 1960's and 1970's. Scientific forecasts were
required to compete with unsound, extremist scenarios, and too
many governments pursued population control measures,
rather
Chan
without
sound economic policies that create the rise in living standards
historically associated with decline in fertility rates. This
approach has not worked, primarily because it has focused on a
symptom and neglected the underlying ailments. For the last three
years, this Administration has sought to reverse that approach. We
5
eecognize that immediate population pressures may require
short-term efforts to meliorate them. But population control
programs alone cannot substitute for the economic reforms that put
a society on the road toward growth and, as an aftereffect, toward
slower population increase as well.
Nor can population control substitute for the rapid and responsible
development of natural resources. In commenting on the Global 2000
disagreed with
report, this Administration in 1981 repudiated its call for more
governmental supervision and control, stating that:
"Historically, that has tended to restrict the
availability of resources and to hamper the
development of technology, rather than to assist
it. Recognizing the seriousness of environmental:
and economic problems, and their relationship to
social and political pressures, especially in the
developing nations, the Administration places a
priority upon technological advance and economic
expansion, which hold out the hope of prosperity
and stability of a rapidly changing world. That
hope can be realized, of course, only to the
extent that government's response to problems,
whether economic or ecological, respects and
enchances individual freedom, which makes true
progress possible and worthwhile."
Those principles underlie this country's approach to the Inter-
national Conference on Population to be held in Mexico City in August.
6
Policy Objectives
The world's rapid population growth is a recent phenomenon. Only
several decades ago, the population of developing countries was
relatively stable, the result of a balance between high fertility
and high mortality. There are now 4.5 billion people in the world,
and six billion are projected by the year 2000. Such rapid growth
places tremendous pressures on governments without concomitant
economic growth.
The International Conference on Population offers the U.S. an
opportunity to strengthen the international consensus on the
interrelationships between economic development and population which
has emerged since the last such conference in Bucharest in 1974.
Our primary objective will be to encourage developing countries to
adopt sound economic policies and, where appropriate, population
policies consistent with respect for human dignity and family
values. As President Reagan stated, in his message to the Mexico
City Conference:
We believe population programs can and must be truly
voluntary, cognizant of the rights and responsibilities
of individuals and families, and respectful of religious
and cultural values. When they are, such programs can
make an important contribution to economic and social
development, to the health of mothers and children, and
to the stability of the family and of society.
U.S. support for family planning programs is based on respect for
human life, enhancement of human dignity, and strengthening of the
7
family. Attempts to use abortion, involuntary sterilization,
or other coercive measures in family planning must be shunned,
whether exercised against families within a society or against
nations within the family of man.
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959)
calls for legal protection for children before birth as well as
after birth. In keeping with this obligation, the United States
does not consider abortion an acceptable element of family
planning programs and will no longer contribute to those of
which it is a part. Accordingly, when dealing with nations which
support abortion with funds not provided by the United States
Government, the United States will contribute to such nations
through segregated accounts which cannot be used for abortion.
Moreover, the United States will no longer contribute to separate
non-governmental organizations which perform or actively promote
abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. With
regard to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA),
the U.S. will insist that no part of its contribution be used for
abortion. The U.S. will also call for concrete assurances that
the UNFPA is not engaged in abortion or coercive family planning
programs; if such assurances are not forthcoming, the U.S. will
redirect the amount of its contribution to other, non-UNFPA
family planning programs.
In addition, when efforts to lower population growth are deemed
advisable, U.S. policy considers it imperative that such efforts
respect the religious beliefs and culture of each society.
8
U.S. Government authorities will immediately begin negotiations
to implement the above policies with the appropriate governments
and organizations.
It is time to put additional emphasis upon those root problems
which frequently exacerbate population pressures, but which have
too often been given scant attention. By focusing upon real
remedies for underdeveloped economies, the International
Conference on Population can reduce demographic issues to their
proper place. It is an important place, but not the controlling
one. It requires our continuing attention within the broader
context of economic growth Insert and of the economic freedom that is
its prerequisite.
A
The U.S. at Mexico City
In conjunction with the above statements of policy, the following
principles should be drawn upon to guide the U.S. delegation at
the International Conference on Population:
1. Respect for human life is basic, and any attempt to
use abortion, involuntary sterilization, or other coercive
measures in family planning must be rejected.
2. Population policies and programs should be fully
integrated into, and reinforce, appropriate, market-
oriented development policies; their objective should be
clearly seen as an improvement in the human condition,
and not merely an exercise in limiting births.
3. Access to family education and services is
neederbe
Circently expanded
of maternal/child health
broadened
9
programs, in order to enable couples to exercise
responsible parenthood. Consistent with values and
customs, the U.S. favors offering couples a variety of
medically approved methods.
4. Though population factors merit serious consideration
in development strategy, they are not a substitute for
sound economic policies which liberate individual initiative
through the market mechanism.
5. There should be higher international priority for
biomedical research into safer and better methods of
fertility regulation, especially natural family planning,
and for operations research into more effective service
delivery and program management.
6. Issues of migration should be handled in ways
consistent with both human rights and national sovereignty.
7. The U.S., in cooperation with other concerned
countries, should resist intrusion of polemical or non-
germane issues into Conference deliberations.
Insert
The Ramifications of Rapid Population Growth
to top
Conservative projections indicate that, in the sixty years
of next
from 1950 to 2010, many Third World countries will experience
section
four, five or even sixfold increases in the size of their
populations. Even under the assumption of gradual declines in
birth rates, the unusually high proportion of youth in the Third
World means that the annual population growth in many of these
countries will continue to increase for the next several decades.
Population growth- of such dimensions and over such a
relatively short timeframe- - is contributing to economic social
8
and resource pressures which threaten to undermine initiatives for
peace economic progress, and human dignity and freedom in many
areas throughout the world. Rapid population growth unmatched by
economic growth in many cases limits governmental options in
meeting societal needs by diverting resources from capital
investment to consumption, retards economic growth, heightens
youth and minority dissatisfaction, and can create internal
disorder. Thus, the destabilizing aspects of population change
and demographic pressures, if unchecked, can lead to the
conditions in which democracy is thwarted and repressive regimes
are imposed on people.
Population, Development and Economic Policies
Sound economic policies and a market Limert economy are of
fundamental importance to the process of economic development.
Rising standards of living contributed in a major way to the
demographic transition from high to low rates of population growth
which occurred in the United States and other industrialized
countries over the last century.
The current situation of many developing countries, however,
differs in certain ways from conditions in 19th century Europe and
the United States. The rates and dimensions of population growth
are much higher now; the pressures on land, water, and resources
are greater; the safety-valve of migration is more restricted;
and, perhaps most important, time is not on their side because of
the momentum of demographic change.
Rapid population growth compounds already serious problems
faced by both public and private sectors in accommodating changing
9
social and economic demands. It diverts resources from needed
investment, and increases the costs and difficulties of economic
development. Slowing population growth is not a panacea for the
problems of social and economic development. It is not offered as
a substitute for sound and comprehensive development policies.
Without other development efforts and sound economic policies
which encourage a vital private sector, it cannot solve problems
of hunger, unemployment, crowding or social disorder.
an
Population assistance is but one essential ingredient of a
comprehensive program that focuses on the root causes of
development failures. The U.S. program as a whole, including
population assistance, lays the basis for well grounded,
step-by-step initiatives to improve the well-being of people in
developing countries and to make their own efforts, particularly
through expanded private sector initiatives, a key building block
of development programs.
Fortunately, a broad international consensus has emerged
since the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference that economic
development and population policies are mutually reinforcing.
Even LDCs with relatively sound, market oriented économies have
found it important to pursue voluntary programs to moderate
population drowth as part of their overall development strategy.
By helping developing countries slow their population growth
through support for effective voluntary family planning programs,
in conjunction with sound economic policies, U.S. population
assistance contributes to stronger saving and investment rates,
speeds the development of effective markets and related employment
opportunities, reduces the potential resource requirements of
10
programs to improve the health and education of the people, and
hastens the achievement of each country's graduation from the need
for external assistance.
The United States will continue its longstanding commitment
to development assistance, of which population programs are am
integral part. We recognize the importance of providing our
assistance within the cultural, economic and political context of
the countries we are assisting and in keeping with our own values.
Health and Humanitarian Concerns
Perhaps the most poignant consequence of rapid population
growth is its effect on the health of mothers and children.
Especially in poor countries, the health and nutrition status of
women and children is linked to family size. Maternal and infant
mortality rises with the number of births and with births too
closely spaced. In countries as different as Turkey, Peru and
Nepal, a child born less than two years after its sibling is twice
as likely to die before it reaches the age of five, than if there
were an interval of at least four years between the births.
Complications of pregnancy are more frequent among women who are
very young or near the end of their reproductive years. In
societies with widespread malnutrition and inadequate health
conditions, these problems are reinforced; numerous and closely
spaced births lead to even greater malnutrition of mothers and
infants.
Lack of voluntary private family-planning programs may result
in population measures which infringe upon human rights and
dignity.
11
It is an unfortunate reality that in many countries, abortion
is used as a means of terminating unwanted pregnancies. This is
unnecessary and repugnant; voluntary family assistance programs
can provide a humane alternative to abortion for couples who wish
to regulate the size of their family, and evidence from some
developing countries indicates a decline in abortion as such
services are expanded.
The basic objective of all U.S. assistance, including
population programs, is the betterment of the human condition--
improving the quality of life of mothers and children, of families
and of communities for generations to come. For we recognize that
people are the ultimate resource--but this means happy and healthy
children, growing up with an education, finding productive work as
young adults and able to develop their full mental and physical
potential.
U.S. aid is designed to promote economic progress in
developing countries through encouraging sound economic policies
and freeing of individual initiative. Thus, the United States
supports a broad range of activities in various sectors, including
agriculture, private enterprise, science and technology, health,
population and education. Population assistance amounts to about
ten percent of total development assistance.
The Private Sector's Role
A distinctive feature of U.S. family planning assistance is
its success in engaging private sector U.S. institutions to work
with private sector organizations in developing countries to meet
family-planning needs. U.S. assistance demonstrates the
effectiveness of non-profit and market-oriented private
institutions to make family planning services available to people
who are beyond the reach of public sector délivery systems,
providing services that respect their preferences, and gaining
their financial support for the services. The ultimate
achievement of self-reliant national service delivery networks is
in large part dependent on the extensive growth of these private
sector family planning activities. At the same time, the United
States will also continue well-designed bilateral assistance
programs with governments that request family-planning assistance
and are ready to make effective use of our assistance.
Technology as a Key to Development
The transfer, adaptation and improvement of modern know-how
is central to U.S. development assistance. People with greater
know-how are people better able to improve their lives.
Population assistance ensures that a wide range of modern
technology related to demographic issues is made available to
developing countries and that technological improvements critical
for successful development receive support.
The efficient collection, processing and analysis of data
derived from census, survey and vital statistics programs
contribute to better planning in both the public and private
sectors.
SECRET
SYSTEM II
MEMORANDUM
90758
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
DECLASSIFIED
July 3, 1984
White House Guidelines,
By
CB
NARA, Date 6/7/01
SECRET
MEMORANDUM FOR JAMES A. BAKER, III
FROM:
JOHN POINDEXTER
SUBJECT:
Population Paper
Attached please find what we hope will be the final redraft
of the population issue paper. Its first six pages, under
the heading Introduction, are taken from the original Svahn
draft. Its subsequent pages, from the subtitle Conference
Objectives (page 6), are from the joint NSC/AID/State draft.
It is a good mix. The paper accomplishes three things: (1)
the abortion language is strong and something we can live
with, (2) the paper reads as if it was an outgrowth--with
amplifying language--of the original Svahn draft, and (3) the
policy mix is correct from the NSC/State/AID point of view.
We look forward to your comments and a final agreement on
this matter.
Attachment
TAB A
Population paper
SECRET
Declassify on:
CADR
SECRET
A
Levine Draft
July 1/4:30p
Issue Paper
for International Conference on Population
Introduction
For many years, the United States has supported, and helped
to finance, programs of family planning, particularly in the
developing countries. This Administration has continued that
support, but has placed it within a policy context different from
that of the past. It is sufficiently evident that the current
exponential growth in global population cannot continue
indefinitely. There is no question of the ultimate need to
achieve a condition of population equilibrium. The differences
that do exist concern the choice of strategies and methods for the
achievement of that goal. The experience of the last two decades
not only makes possible but requires a sharper focus for our
population policy. It requires a more refined approach to
problems which appear today in quite a different light than they
did twenty years ago.
First and most important, population growth is, of itself, a
neutral phenomenon. It is not necessarily good or ill. It
becomes an asset or a problem only in conjunction with other
factors, such as economic policy, social constraints, need for
manpower and so forth. The relationship between population growth
and economic development is not necessarily a negative one.
Several factors have combined to create an unprecedented
surge in population over most of the world. Although population
2
levels in many industrialized nations had reached or were
approaching equilibrium in the period before the Second World War,
the baby boom that followed in its wake resulted in a dramatic,
but temporary, population "tilt" toward youth. The
disproportionate number of infants, children, teenagers and
young adults did strain the social infrastructure of schools,
health facilities and law enforcement. It also, though, helped
sustain strong economic growth, despite occasionally
counterproductive government policies.
Among the developing nations, a coincidental population
increase was caused by entirely different factors. A tremendous
expansion of health services--from simple inoculations to
sophisticated surgery--saved millions of lives every year.
Emergency relief, facilitated by modern transport, helped millions
to survive flood, famine and drought. The sharing of technology,
the teaching of agriculture and engineering, and improvements in
educational standards drastically reduced the mortality rates--
especially infant mortality--and lengthened life spans.
This demonstrated not poor planning or bad policy, but human
progress in a new era of international assistance, technological
advance and human compassion. Seen in its broader context, it
required a measured, modulated response. It provoked an
overreaction by some, largely because it coincided with two
negative factors which, together, hindered families and nations in
adapting to their changing circumstances.
The first of these factors was governmental control of
economies- development which effectively constrains economic
growth. The post-World War II experience has demonstrated that
3
when economic decisionmaking was concentrated in the hands of
planners and public officials, the ability of average men and
women to work toward a better future was impaired and sometimes
crippled. In many cases, agriculture was devastated by government
price fixing that wiped out rewards for labor. Job creation in
infant industries was hampered by confiscatory taxes. Personal
industry and thrift were penalized, while dependence upon the
state was encouraged. Political considerations made it difficult
for an economy to adjust to changes in supply and demand or to
disruptions in world trade and finance. Under such circumstances,
population growth changed from a potential asset in the
development of economic potential to a peril. Historically, as
opportunities and the standard of living rise, the birth rate
falls.
The second factor that turned the population boom into a
crisis was confined to the western world. It was an outbreak of
an anti-intellectualism, which attacked science, technology and
the very concept of material progress. Joined to a commendable
and long overdue concern for the environment, it was a reflection
of anxiety about the unsettled times and the uncertain future.
This view demonstrated a disregard of human experience and
scientific sophistication. It was not unlike other waves of
cultural anxiety that have, over the centuries, swept through
western civilization during times of social stress and scientific
exploration.
The combination of these two factors--counterproductive
economic policies in poor and struggling nations and a pessimism
among the more advanced--led to doomsday scenarios that took the
4
place of realistic forecasts. Too many governments pursued
population control measures that have had little impact on
population growth, rather than sound economic policies that create
the rise in living standards historically associated with decline
in fertility rates. This approach has not worked primarily
because it has focused on a symptom and neglected the underlying
ailments. For the last three years, this Administration has
sought to reverse that approach. We recognize that, in some
cases, immediate population pressures may make advisable
short-term efforts to ameliorate them. But population control
programs alone cannot be a substitute for the economic reforms
that put a society on the road toward growth and, as an
after-effect, toward slower population increase as well.
Nor can population control substitute for the rapid and
responsible development of natural resources. In commenting on
the Global 2000 report, this Administration in 1981 disagreed with
its call "for more governmental supervision and control" and
stated that:
Historically, that has tended to restrict
the availability of resources and to hamper
the development of technology, rather than
to assist it. Recognizing the seriousness
of environmental and economic problems, and
their relationship to social and political
pressures, especially in the developing
nations, the Administration places a priority
upon technological advance and economic
expansion, which hold out the hope of
5
prosperity and stability of a rapidly
changing world. That hope can be realized,
of course, only to the extent that government's
response to problems, whether economic or
ecological, respects and enhances individual
freedom, which makes true progress possible
and worthwhile.
Those principles underlie this country's approach to the
United Nations Conference on Population to be held in Mexico City
in August. In accord with those principles, we reject compulsion
or coercion in family planning programs, whether it is exercised
against families within a society or against nations within the
family of man.
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child
(1959) calls for legal protection for children before birth as
well as after birth. In keeping with this principle, the United
States does not consider abortion an acceptable element of family
planning programs and will no longer contribute to those of which
it is a part. Accordingly, when dealing with nations which
support abortion with funds not provided by the United States
Government, the United States will contribute to such nations
through separate accounts which cannot be used for abortion.
Moreover, the United States will no longer contribute to
non-governmental organizations which perform or actively promote
abortion as a method of family planning overseas. With regard to
the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), the
United States will insist that no part of its contribution to the
UNFPA be used for abortion, and will negotiate an arrangement to
6
immediately implement this policy. The United States will also
call for concrete assurances that the UNFPA is not engaged in
abortion or coercive family planning programs. If such assurances
are not forthcoming, the United States will consider further steps
as appropriate under U.S. policy.
Efforts to lower population growth in cases in which it is
deemed advisable to do so must, moreover, respect the religious
beliefs and culture of each society. Population control is not a
panacea. It will not solve problems of massive unemployment.
It is time to put additional emphasis upon those root
problems which frequently exacerbate population pressures. By
focusing upon real remedies for underdeveloped economies, the
United Nations Conference on Population can reduce demographic
issues to their proper place. It is an important place, but not
the controlling one. It requires our continuing attention within
the broader context of economic growth and of the economic freedom
that is its prerequisite.
Conference Objectives
The International Conference on Population (ICP) offers the
United States an opportunity to strengthen the international
consensus on the interrelationships between economic development
and population which has emerged since the last such conference in
Bucharest in 1974. Our primary objective will be to encourage
developing countries to adopt sound economic policies and, where
appropriate, population policies consistent with respect for human
dignity and family values. As President Reagan stated, in his
message to the Mexico City Conference:
7
We believe population programs can and must be
truly voluntary, cognizant of the rights and
responsibilities of individuals and families,
and respectful of religious and cultural values.
When they are, such programs can make an important
contribution to economic and social development,
to the health of mothers and children, and to the
stability of the family and of society.
The world's rapid population growth is a recent phenomenon.
Only several decades ago, the population of developing countries
was relatively stable, the result of a balance between high
fertility and high mortality.
U.S. support for family planning programs is based on two
fundamental principles: enhancing human dignity and strengthening
family life. The respect for human life is a basic moral value,
and attempts to use abortion, involuntary sterilization or
other coercive measures in family planning must be shunned.
The Ramifications of Rapid Population Growth
Conservative projections indicate that, in the sixty years
from 1950 to 2010, many Third World countries will experience
four, five or even sixfold increases in the size of their
populations. Even under the assumption of gradual declines in
birth rates, the unusually high proportion of youth in the Third
World means that the annual population growth in many of these
countries will continue to increase for the next several decades.
Population growth--of such dimensions and over such a
relatively short timeframe--is contributing to economic, social
8
and resource pressures which threaten to undermine initiatives for
peace, economic progress, and human dignity and freedom in many
areas throughout the world. Rapid population growth unmatched by
economic growth in many cases limits governmental options in
meeting societal needs by diverting resources from capital
investment to consumption, retards economic growth, heightens
youth and minority dissatisfaction, and can create internal
disorder. Thus, the destabilizing aspects of population change
and demographic pressures, if unchecked, can lead to the
conditions in which democracy is thwarted and repressive regimes
are imposed on people.
Population, Development and Economic Policies
Sound economic policies and a market economy are of
fundamental importance to the process of economic development.
Rising standards of living contributed in a major way to the
demographic transition from high to low rates of population growth
which occurred in the United States and other industrialized
countries over the last century.
The current situation of many developing countries, however,
differs in certain ways from conditions in 19th century Europe and
the United States. The rates and dimensions of population growth
are much higher now; the pressures on land, water, and resources
are greater; the safety-valve of migration is more restricted;
and, perhaps most important, time is not on their side because of
the momentum of demographic change.
Rapid population growth compounds already serious problems
faced by both public and private sectors in accommodating changing
9
social and economic demands. It diverts resources from needed
investment, and increases the costs and difficulties of economic
development. Slowing population growth is not a panacea for the
problems of social and economic development. It is not offered as
a substitute for sound and comprehensive development policies.
Without other development efforts and sound economic policies
which encourage a vital private sector, it cannot solve problems
of hunger, unemployment, crowding or social disorder.
Population assistance is but one essential ingredient of a
comprehensive program that focuses on the root causes of
development failures. The U.S. program as a whole, including
population assistance, lays the basis for well grounded,
step-by-step initiatives to improve the well-being of people in
developing countries and to make their own efforts, particularly
through expanded private sector initiatives, a key building block
of development programs.
Fortunately, a broad international consensus has emerged
since the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference that economic
development and population policies are mutually reinforcing.
Even LDCs with relatively sound, market-oriented economies have
found it important to pursue voluntary programs to moderate
population growth as part of their overall development strategy.
By helping developing countries slow their population growth
through support for effective voluntary family planning programs,
in conjunction with sound economic policies, U.S. population
assistance contributes to stronger saving and investment rates,
speeds the development of effective markets and related employment
opportunities, reduces the potential resource requirements of
10
programs to improve the health and education of the people, and
hastens the achievement of each country's graduation from the need
for external assistance.
The United States will continue its longstanding commitment
to development assistance, of which population programs are an
integral part. We recognize the importance of providing our
assistance within the cultural, economic and political context of
the countries we are assisting and in keeping with our own values.
Health and Humanitarian Concerns
Perhaps the most poignant consequence of rapid population
growth is its effect on the health of mothers and children.
Especially in poor countries, the health and nutrition status of
women and children is linked to family size. Maternal and infant
mortality rises with the number of births and with births too
closely spaced. In countries as different as Turkey, Peru and
Nepal, a child born less than two years after its sibling is twice
as likely to die before it reaches the age of five, than if there
were an interval of at least four years between the births.
Complications of pregnancy are more frequent among women who are
very young or near the end of their reproductive years. In
societies with widespread malnutrition and inadequate health
conditions, these problems are reinforced; numerous and closely
spaced births lead to even greater malnutrition of mothers and
infants.
Lack of voluntary private family-planning programs may result
in population measures which infringe upon human rights and
dignity.
11
It is an unfortunate reality that in many countries, abortion
is used as a means of terminating unwanted pregnancies. This is
unnecessary and repugnant; voluntary family assistance programs
can provide a humane alternative to abortion for couples who wish
to regulate the size of their family, and evidence from some
developing countries indicates a decline in abortion as such
services are expanded.
The basic objective of all U.S. assistance, including
population programs, is the betterment of the human condition--
improving the quality of life of mothers and children, of families
and of communities for generations to come. For we recognize that
people are the ultimate resource--but this means happy and healthy
children, growing up with an education, finding productive work as
young adults and able to develop their full mental and physical
potential.
U.S. aid is designed to promote economic progress in
developing countries through encouraging sound economic policies
and freeing of individual initiative. Thus, the United States
supports a broad range of activities in various sectors, including
agriculture, private enterprise, science and technology, health,
population and education. Population assistance amounts to about
ten percent of total development assistance.
The Private Sector's Role
A distinctive feature of U.S. family planning assistance is
its success in engaging private sector U.S. institutions to work
with private sector organizations in developing countries to meet
family-planning needs. U.S. assistance demonstrates the
12
effectiveness of non-profit and market-oriented private
institutions to make family planning services available to people
who are beyond the reach of public sector delivery systems,
providing services that respect their preferences, and gaining
their financial support for the services. The ultimate
achievement of self-reliant national service delivery networks is
in large part dependent on the extensive growth of these private
sector family planning activities. At the same time, the United
States will also continue well-designed bilateral assistance
programs with governments that request family-planning assistance
and are ready to make effective use of our assistance.
Technology as a Key to Development
The transfer, adaptation and improvement of modern know-how
is central to U.S. development assistance. People with greater
know-how are people better able to improve their lives.
Population assistance ensures that a wide range of modern
technology related to demographic issues is made available to
developing countries and that technological improvements critical
for successful development receive support.
The efficient collection, processing and analysis of data
derived from census, survey and vital statistics programs
contribute to better planning in both the public and private
sectors.
Policy Objectives
Under this Administration, U.S. support for population
programs abroad aims at strengthening family life and enhancing
the freedom of couples in the exercise of responsible parenthood
13
by expanding access to a range of safe, effective and acceptable
family planning methods. The emphasis is on voluntarism,
education and informed choice, and individual responsibility.
U.S. policy in this area is guided by certain basic ethical
precepts:
--
Aid will be provided in ways which are respectful of
human dignity and religious and cultural values;
--
U.S. funds will not be used for abortion activities, for
involuntary sterilization or for population activities
involving coercion; and
--
U.S. population assistance will be provided in the
context of an overall development program.
The United States at Mexico City
Other countries will look for U.S. support in strengthening
the broad consensus on population and development that has emerged
over the past several years.
The following principles should be drawn upon to guide the
U.S. delegation at the ICP:
1. Respect for human life is basic, and any attempt to use
abortion, involuntary sterilization or other coercive
measures in family planning must be rejected.
2. Population policies and programs should be fully
integrated into, and reinforce, appropriate,
market-oriented development policies; their objective
should be clearly seen as an improvement in the human
14
condition, and not merely an exercise in limiting
births.
3. Access to family education and services needs to be
significantly expanded, especially in the context of
maternal/child health programs, in order to enable
couples to exercise responsible parenthood. Consistent
with values and customs, the United States favors
offering couples a variety of medically approved
methods.
4. Population factors merit serious consideration in
development strategy, although they are not a substitute
for sound economic policies which liberate individual
initiative through the market mechanism.
5. There should be higher international priority for
biomedical research into safer and better methods of
fertility regulation, especially natural family
planning, and for operations research into more
effective service delivery and program management.
6. Issues of migration should be handled in ways consistent
with both human rights and national sovereignty.
7. The United States, in cooperation with other concerned
countries, should resist intrusion of polemical or
non-germane issues into Conference deliberations.
3775
NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL
Add On
WASHINGTON. D.C. 20506
May 30, 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR CHARLES HILL
Executive Secretary
Department of State
SUBJECT:
International Conference on Population
Attached is a draft position paper for the International
Conference on Population in Mexico City, August 6 - 13, 1984.
The paper was prepared by the White House Office of Policy
Development, in coordination with our staff.
Please provide your comments or concurrence by Wednesday,
June 13. Please respond jointly to Robert C. McFarlane and
John A. Svahn, Assistant to the President for Policy Development.
Robert M. Kmunt
Robert M. Kimmitt
Executive Secretary
Attachment
Tab A
Position paper
CC: John A. Svahn
bcc
Carl Anderson, OPD
,
Anne Higgins
Becky Norton Punlop
DRAFT Statement
For many years, the United States has supported, and helped
to finance, programs of family planning, particularly in the less
developed countries. This Administration has continued that
support but has placed it within a policy context different from
that of the past. It is sufficiently evident that the current
exponential growth in global population cannot continue
indefin tely. There is no question of the ultimate need to
achieve a condition of population equilibrium. The differences
that do exist concern the choice of strategies and methods for
the achievement of that goal. The experience of the last two
decades not only makes possible but requires a sharper focus for
our population policy.
It requires a more refined approach to
problems which appear today in quite a different light than they
did twenty years ago.
First and most important, in any particular society today,
population growth is, of itself, a neutral phenomenon. It is not
- 2 -
necessarily good or ill. It becomes an asset or a problem only
in conjunction with other factors, such as economic policy,
social constraints, need for manpower, and so forth. The
relationship between population growth and economic development
is not a negative one. More people do not mean less growth;
that
is absurd on its face.
Indeed, both in the American experience
and in the economic history of most advanced nations, population
growth has been an essential element in economic progress.
Before the advent of governmental population programs,
several factors had combined to create an unprecedented surge in
population over most of the world. Although population levels in
many industrialized nations had reached or were approaching
equilibrium in the period before the Second World War, the baby
boom that followed in its wake resulted in a dramatic, but
temporary, population "tilt" toward youth. The disproportionate
number of infants, children, teenagers, and eventually young
adults did strain the social infrastructure of schools, health
facilities, law enforcement and so forth. It also sustained
strong economic growth and was probably critical in boosting the
American standard of living to new heights, despite occasionally
counterproductive government policies.
Among the less developed nations, a coincidental population
increase was caused by entirely different factors, directly
related to the humanitarian efforts of the United States and
other western countries. A tremendous expansion of health
services -- from simple inoculations to sophisticated surgery --
saved millions of lives every year. Emergency relief,
- 3 -
facilitated by modern transport, helped millions to survive
flood, famine, and drought. The sharing of technology, the
teaching of agriculture and engineering, the spread of western
ideals in the treatment of women and children all helped to
drastically reduce the mortality rates, especially infant
mortality, and to lengthen the life span.
The result, to no one's surprise, was more people,
everywhere.
This was not a failure but a success.
It This
demonstrated not poor planning or bad policy but human progress
in a new era of international assistance, technological advance,
and human compassion. The population boom was a challenge; it
need not have been a crisis. Seen in its broader context, it
required a measured, modulated response. It provoked an a quite over different
reaction
reaction by some, largely because it coincided with two negative
factors which, together, hindered families and nations in
adapting to their changing circumstances.
The first of these factors was governmental control of
a development which has effectively constrained economic growth
economies,
a pathology which spread throughout the developing
in the Third World.
world with sufficient virulence to keep much of it from
developing further.
As economic decision-making was concentrated
in the hands of planners and public officials, the ability of
average men and women to work towards a better future was
impaired, and sometimes crippled. Agriculture was devastated by
government price fixing that wiped out rewards for labor. Job
creation in infant industries was hampered by confiscatory taxes.
Personal industry and thrift were penalized, while dependency
upon the state was encouraged. Political considerations made it
- 4 -
difficult for the economy to adjust to changes in supply and
demand or to disruptions in world trade and finance. Under such
circumstances, population growth changed from an asset in the
development of economic potential to a peril.
One of The Morst consequence of economic statism was that it
disrupted the natural mechanism for developed slowing population growth in
problem areas. The world's more affluent nations have reached a
population equilibrium without compulsion and, in most cases,
even before it was government policy to achieve it. The
controlling factor in these cases has been the adjustment, by
individual families, of reproductive behavior to economic
opportunity and aspiration.
Economic freedom has led to
economically rational behavior.
As opportunities and the
standard of living rise, the birth rate falls.
That historic pattern would might already be well under way in
many nations where population growth is today a problem if
short-sighted policies had not disrupted economic incentives,
had not been disrupted by deliberate government policies.
rewards, and advancement. In this regard, localized crises of
population growth are evidence of too much government control and
planning, rather than too little
The second factor that turned the population boom into a
crisis was confined to the western world. It was an outbreak of
an anti-intellectualism, which attacked science, technology, and
the very concept of material progress. Joined to a commendable
and long overdue concern for the environment, it was more a
reflection of anxiety about the unsettled times and the uncertain
future and disregard of human experience and scientific
- 5 -
sophistication. It was not unlike other waves of cultural
anxiety that have, over the centuries, swept through weste
civilization during times of social stress and scientific
exploration.
The combination of these two factors -- counterproducti
economic policies in poor and struggling nations and a
pseudo-scientific pessimism among the more advanced -- provoked
the demographic overreaction of the 1960's and 1970's.
Doomsday
Extreme
scenarios took the place of realistic forecasts, and too many
in lien of, rather than
governments pursued population control measures
that have had
in tandem with
little impact on population growth, rather than
sound economic
policies that create the rise in living standards historically
associated with decline in fertility rates.
It was the easy way
At aspect of the overall problem
out, and it did not work
It focused on a symptom and neglected
the underlying ailments. For the last three years, this
Administration has sought to reverse change that approach. We recognize
that, in some cases, immediate population pressures may make
advisable short-term efforts to meliorate them. But this cannot
be a substitute for the economic reforms that put a society or.
the road toward growth and, as an aftereffect, toward slower
population increase as well.
Nor can population control substitute for the rapid and
responsible development of natural resources. In responding to
certain Members of Congress concerning the previous
Administration's Global 2000 report, this Administration in 1981
repudiated its call "for more governmental supervision and
control. Historically, that has tended to restrict the
- 6 -
availability of resources and to hamper the development of
technology, rather than to assist it. Recognizing the
seriousness of environmental and economic problems, and their
relationship to social and political pressures, especially in the
developing nations, the Administration places a priority upon
technological advance and economic expansion, which hold out the
hope of prosperity and stability of a rapidly changing world.
That hope can be realized, of course, only to the extent that
government's response to problems, whether economic or
ecological, respects and enhances individual freedom, which makes
true progress possible and worthwhile."
Those principles underlie this country's approach to the
United Nations Conference on Population to be held in Mexico City
in August. In accord with those principles, we reject compulsion
or coercion in family planning programs, whether it is exercised
against families within a society or against nations within the
family of man.
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of
the Child (1959) calls for legal protection for children before
birth as well as after birth; and the United States accordingly
does not consider abortion an acceptable element of family
planning programstand will not contribute to those of which it is
McPherson Mart
a part Nor will it any longer contribute directly or indirectly
to family planning programs funded by governments or private
organizations that advocate bestion instrument of
population control Efforts to lower population growth in cases
in which it is deemed advisable to do so must, moreover, respect
the religious beliefs and culture of each society. Population
- 7 -
control is not a panacea. It will not solve problems of massive
unemployment. Jobs are not lost because there are too many
people in a given area. Jobs are created by the conjunction of
human wants and investment capital. Population growth fuels the
former; sound economic policies and properly directed
international assistance can provide the latter. Indeed,
population density may make the latter more feasible by
concentrating the need for both human services and technology.
But as long as Lill-advised oppressive economic policies penalize those who
work, save, and invest, joblessness will persist.
Population control cannot solve problems of unauthorized
migration across national boundries. People do not leave their
homes, and often their families, to seek more space. They do so
in search of opportunity and freedom. Reducing their numbers
gives them neither. Population control cannot avert natural
disasters, including famines provoked by cyclical drought.
Fortunately, world food supplies have been adequate to relieve
those circumstances in recent years. Problems of transportation
remain; but there are far deeper problems as well, in those
governmental policies which restrict the rewards of agricultural
pursuits, encourage the abandonment of farmland, and concentrate
people in urban areas.
put additional emphasis
It is time to concentrate upon those root problems which
frequently exacerbate population pressures. By focusing upon
real remedies for underdeveloped economies, the United Nations
Conference on Population can reduce place demographic issues their
in
proper place. It is an important place, but not the centrolling
- 8 -
and
It requires our continuing attention within the broader
context of economic growth and of the economic freedom that is
its prerequisite. Most of all, questions of population growth
require the approach outlined by President Reagan in 1981, in
remarks before the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia: "Trust
the people, trust their intelligence and trust their faith,
because putting people first is the secret of economic success
everywhere in the world." That is the agenda of the United
States for the United Nations Conference on Population this year,
just as it remains the continuing goal of our family planning
assistance to other nations.
JWC 7/3/84
REVISED DRAFT STATEMENT
Introduction
For many years, the United States has supported, and helped to
finance, programs of family planning, particularly in the less
developed countries. This Administration has continued that
support but has placed it within a policy context different from
that of the past. It is sufficiently evident that the current
exponential growth in global population cannot continue
indefinitely. There is no question of the ultimate need to
achieve a condition of population equilibrium. The differences
that do exist concern the choice of strategies and methods for
the achievement of that goal. The experience of the last two
decades not only makes possible but requires a sharper focus for
our population policy. It requires a more refined approach to
problems which appear today in quite a different light than they
did twenty years ago.
First and most important, population growth is, of itself, a
neutral phenomenon. It is not necessarily good or ill. It
becomes an asset or a problem only in conjunction with other
factors, such as economic policy, social constraints, need for
manpower, and so forth. The relationship between population
growth and economic development is not a negative one. More
people do not necessarily mean less growth. Indeed, in the
economic history of many nations, population growth has been an
essential element in economic progress.
2
Before the advent of governmental population programs, several
factors had combined to create an unprecedented surge in
population over most of the world. Although population levels in
many industrialized nations had reached or were approaching
equilibrium in the period before the Second World War, the baby
boom that followed in its wake resulted in a dramatic, but
temporary, population "tilt" toward youth. The disproportionate
number of infants, children, teenagers, and eventually young
adults did strain the social infrastructure of schools, health
facilities, law enforcement and so forth. However, it also helped
sustain strong economic growth, despite occasionally
counterproductive government policies.
Among the developing nations, a coincidental population increase
was caused by entirely different factors. A tremendous expansion
of health services -- from simple inoculations to sophisticated
surgery -- saved millions of lives every year. Emergency relief,
facilitated by modern transport, helped millions to survive flood,
famine, and drought. The sharing of technology, the teaching of
agriculture and engineering, and improvements in educational
standards generally, all helped to reduce mortality rates,
especially infant mortality, and to lengthen life spans.
This demonstrated not poor planning or bad policy but human
progress in a new era of international assistance, technological
advance, and human compassion. The population boom was a
challenge; it need not have been a crisis. Seen in its broader
context, it required a measured, modulated response. It provoked
an overraction by some, largely because it coincided with two
3
negative factors which, together, hindered families and nations
in adapting to their changing circumstances.
The first of these factors was governmental control of economies,
a development which effectively constrained economic growth. The
post-war experience consistently demonstrated that, as
economic decision-making was concentrated in the hands of planners
and public officials, the ability of average men and women to work
towards a better future was impaired, and sometimes crippled. In
many cases, agriculture was devastated by government price fixing
that wiped out rewards for labor. Job creation in infant
industries was hampered by confiscatory taxes. Personal industry
13
and thrift were penalized, while dependence upon the state was
encouraged. Political considerations made it difficult for the
economy to adjust to changes in supply and demand or to disruptions
in world trade and finance. Under such circumstances, population
growth changed from an asset in the development of economic
potential to a peril.
One of the consequences of this "economic statism" was that it disrupted
the natural mechanism for slowing population growth in problem
areas. The world's more affluent nations have reached a population
equilibrium without compulsion and, in most cases, even before it
was government policy to achieve it. The controlling factor in
these cases has been the adjustment, by individual families, of
reproductive behavior to economic opportunity and aspiration.
Historically, as opportunities and the standard of living rise, the
birth rate falls. Economic freedom has led to economically
rational behavior.
4
That historic pattern might be well under way in many nations
where population growth is today a problem, if counter-productive
government policies had not disrupted economic incentives, rewards,
and advancement. In this regard, localized crises of population
growth are, in part, evidence of too much government control and
planning, rather than too little.
The second factor that turned the population boom into a crisis was
confined to the western world. It was an outbreak of an
anti-intellectualism, which attacked science, technology, and the
very concept of material progress. Joined to a commendable and
long overdue concern for the environment, it was more a reflection
of anxiety about unsettled times and an uncertain future. In its
disregard of human experience and scientific sophistication, it
was not unlike other waves of cultural anxiety that have swept
through western civilization during times of social stress and
scientific exploration.
The combination of these two factors -- counterproductive economic
policies in poor and struggling nations, and a pseudo-scientific
pessimism among the more advanced -- led to a demographic
overreaction in the 1960's and 1970's. Scientific forecasts were
required to compete with unsound, extremist scenarios, and too
many governments pursued population control measures, rather than
sound economic policies that create the rise in living standards
historically associated with decline in fertility rates. This
approach has not worked, primarily because it has focused on a
symptom and neglected the underlying ailments. For the last three
years, this Administration has sought to reverse that approach. We
5
eecognize that immediate population pressures may require
short-term efforts to meliorate them. But population control
programs alone cannot substitute for the economic reforms that put
a society on the road toward growth and, as an aftereffect, toward
slower population increase as well.
Nor can population control substitute for the rapid and responsible
development of natural resources. In commenting on the Global 2000
report, this Administration in 1981 repudiated its call for more
governmental supervision and control, stating that:
"Historically, that has tended to restrict the
availability of resources and to hamper the
development of technology, rather than to assist
it. Recognizing the seriousness of environmental
and economic problems, and their relationship to
social and political pressures, especially in the
developing nations, the Administration places a
priority upon technological advance and economic
expansion, which hold out the hope of prosperity
and stability of a rapidly changing world. That
hope can be realized, of course, only to the
extent that government's response to problems,
whether economic or ecological, respects and
enchances individual freedom, which makes true
progress possible and worthwhile.'
Those principles underlie this country's approach to the Inter-
national Conference on Population to be held in Mexico City in August.
6
Policy Objectives
The world's rapid population growth is a recent phenomenon. Only
several decades ago, the population of developing countries was
relatively stable, the result of a balance between high fertility
and high mortality. There are now 4.5 billion people in the world,
and six billion are projected by the year 2000. Such rapid growth
places tremendous pressures on governments without concomitant
economic growth.
The International Conference on Population offers the U.S. an
opportunity to strengthen the international consensus on the
interrelationships between economic development and population which
has emerged since the last such conference in Bucharest in 1974.
Our primary objective will be to encourage developing countries to
adopt sound economic policies and, where appropriate, population
policies consistent with respect for human dignity and family
values. As President Reagan stated, in his message to the Mexico
City Conference:
We believe population programs can and must be truly
voluntary, cognizant of the rights and responsibilities
of individuals and families, and respectful of religious
and cultural values. When they are, such programs can
make an important contribution to economic and social
development, to the health of mothers and children, and
to the stability of the family and of society.
U.S. support for family planning programs is based on respect for
human life, enhancement of human dignity, and strengthening of the
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family. Attempts to use abortion, involuntary sterilization,
or other coercive measures in family planning must be shunned,
whether exercised against families within a society or against
nations within the family of man.
The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959)
calls for legal protection for children before birth as well as
after birth. In keeping with this obligation, the United States
does not consider abortion an acceptable element of family
planning programs and will no longer contribute to those of
which it is a part. Accordingly, when dealing with nations which
support abortion with funds not provided by the United States
Government, the United States will contribute to such nations
through segregated accounts which cannot be used for abortion.
Moreover, the United States will no longer contribute to separate
non-governmental organizations which perform or actively promote
abortion as a method of family planning in other nations. With
regard to the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA),
the U.S. will insist that no part of its contribution be used for
abortion. The U.S. will also call for concrete assurances that
the UNFPA is not engaged in abortion or coercive family planning
programs; if such assurances are not forthcoming, the U.S. will
redirect the amount of its contribution to other, non-UNFPA
family planning programs.
In addition, when efforts to lower population growth are deemed
advisable, U.S. policy considers it imperative that such efforts
respect the religious beliefs and culture of each society.
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U.S. Government authorities will immediately begin negotiations
to implement the above policies with the appropriate governments
and organizations.
It is time to put additional emphasis upon those root problems
which frequently exacerbate population pressures, but which have
too often been given scant attention. By focusing upon real
remedies for underdeveloped economies, the International
Conference on Population can reduce demographic issues to their
proper place. It is an important place, but not the controlling
one. It requires our continuing attention within the broader
context of economic growth and of the economic freedom that is
its prerequisite.
The U.S. at Mexico City
In conjunction with the above statements of policy, the following
principles should be drawn upon to guide the U.S. delegation at
the International Conference on Population:
1. Respect for human life is basic, and any attempt to
use abortion, involuntary sterilization, or other coercive
measures in family planning must be rejected.
2. Population policies and programs should be fully
integrated into, and reinforce, appropriate, market-
oriented development policies; their objective should be
clearly seen as an improvement in the human condition,
and not merely an exercise in limiting births.
3. Access to family education and services is needed,
especially in the context of maternal/child health
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programs, in order to enable couples to exercise
responsible parenthood. Consistent with values and
customs, the U.S. favors offering couples a variety of
medically approved methods.
4. Though population factors merit serious consideration
in development strategy, they are not a substitute for
sound economic policies which liberate individual initiative
through the market mechanism.
5. There should be higher international priority for
biomedical research into safer and better methods of
fertility regulation, especially natural family planning,
and for operations research into more effective service
delivery and program management.
6. Issues of migration should be handled in ways
consistent with both human rights and national sovereignty.
7. The U.S., in cooperation with other concerned
countries, should resist intrusion of polemical or non-
germane issues into Conference deliberations.