International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has just elected for the first time, a Hispanic woman as president: Angela Gomez de Mogollon. Angela is also the president of PROFAMILIA, Colombia's IPPF affiliate. The new president was introduced during a cocktail party IPPF held at the luxurious Intercontinental Hotel in Miami (February 11, 2000).

IPPF's affiliates in Latin America have been claiming for many years that they are promoting family planning in order to reduce the number of abortions. Yet IPPF's real intentions were apparent during this cocktail party. Its new president complained that abortion is still illegal in Colombia so IPPF's affiliate there cannot provide its full range of "services". She said there's plenty of work to be done in that respect (where it concerns legislation), not only in Colombia but also throughout Latin America. When I heard her use the word "services", I wondered how anyone can refer to killing unborn children and damaging women's health through harmful contraceptives, abortifacients and sterilization, as "services".

But then I remembered something I had read recently. Attorneys for Planned Parenthood of the U.S. and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) recently admitted in court papers that "the physician providing an abortion by definition sets out with the purpose of performing a procedure that he knows will kill the fetus, and that does kill the fetus"1. Commenting on this, Patrick Monaghan, General Counsel of the New Hope Life Center, said: "First Planned Parenthood and the ACLU denied that abortion had anything to do with killing. Now they coolly admit that an abortionist deliberately kills the ‘fetus'…"2. Of course, Planned Parenthood can make such admissions publicly in the U.S. because abortion is legal and has been for so many years whereas in Latin America abortion is still illegal for the most part. What a difference a law makes where it concerns IPPF's strategies!

An IPPF staff member commented during the IPPF cocktail party for its new president, that PROFAMILIA is the second largest IPPF affiliate in the world. It stands to reason that IPPF would elect a Colombian woman as president, because its Colombia affiliate is its "showcase", not only for Latin America but also for the rest of the Third World. IPPF's family planning program, run by PROFAMILIA, has been so successful that it no longer has to be funded by IPPF. The birth rate in that country has gone down 60% in the last 30 years, from 7.0 to 2.8 and "72% of the women surveyed use some form of contraception, sterilization being the most prevalent"3.

Yet, according to IPPF's new president, there are now over a thousand illegal abortions a day in that country, a fact that seems to be corroborated by another anti-life organization that is very active in Latin America: Advocates for Youth. In its Reflexión Juvenil newsletter said organization affirms that there are now in Colombia "4 induced abortions for each 10 live births", and that at least 30% of Colombian women have deliberately aborted4. The rate of abortions among women between the ages of 20 and 24 went up eightfold between 1988-1991, compared to what it was during the period 1967-19715. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, half of the pregnancies in that country are unwanted6. And this in a country where family planning programs are the most successful of all of Latin America. It is obvious that what those of us in the pro-life movement have been saying that contraception leads to more abortions is true. As the use of family planning has increased, so has the number of abortions, not only in Colombia but also in every other country. In the U.S. for example, the country where contraceptions abounds more than anywhere else in the world, "Unintended pregnancy remains a problem; 49% of pregnancies are unintended and 54 % of those end in abortion"7.

Colombia is a true example of IPPF's work. In addition to its very successful PROFAMILIA family planning program, IPPF achieved a triumph when the Colombian government approved a mandatory sex education program from kindergarten, which is the most immoral one I have seen in Latin America. An anti-life youth organization called HiTops (Health Interested Teen's Own Program on Sexuality) praised PROFAMILIA's sex-ed program: "The word abstinence is not found in sexual education in Colombia. As in Western Europe, sexual behavior is a public health issue, not a religious or political issue"8. Planned Parenthood of the U.S. created the curriculum for this northern New Jersey program called HiTops, where teen educators teach their peers about puberty, contraception, teenage pregnancy, homosexuality, etc. .9 The HiTops program is typical of IPPF's teen programs in most other countries.

IPPF's new president Angela Gomez de Mogollon explained at IPPF's cocktail party that since 1991 IPPF has changed its mission from just providing family planning for the poor, to offering "sexual and reproductive health services", as well and young people are perhaps the main recipients of those "services". "Nationwide, PROFAMILIA (IPPF's Colombian affiliate over which MS. Mogollon presides) has over 360 volunteer peer educators or ‘multiplicadores' between the ages of 14 and 25" who receive "rigorous training" for "various tasks and outreach activities"10. IPPF's priority for this new millennium is the youth.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (IPPF's U.S. affiliate), has been extremely successful at putting contraception, abortifacients and abortion within the reach of the youth in the U.S. This is precisely what IPPF hopes to achieve in all other countries. Yet what are the results of those same efforts by Planned Parenthood - IPPF's affiliate - in the U.S.? According to an Editorial Commentary in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, "sexual health among adolescents is on the decline" in the U.S.. That country "had 15.3 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in 1996, with teenagers and young adults being the most affected groups. By age 24, one in three sexually active people in America had an STI"11. And the report continues: "in the UK doctors treat about 740,000 new cases of STI every year with teens being the most at-risk group"12.

Another speaker at the IPPF celebration for its new president was Ambassador George Landau, advisory director of the IPPF/WHR board of directors. Landau, introduced as "a close friend of IPPF", began by saying that family planning was needed in order to help the poor in Latin America and to facilitate the development of those countries. Then he ended by warning: "If you don't help them there (I guess he meant providing them with contraceptive/abortifacients drugs and devices or sterilization), you are going to have to help them here" (in the U.S.) which, in my opinion, is a racist statement. It seems he believes that in order to keep Hispanics out of the U.S. (who are for the most part, pro-life/family and constitute a big challenge to the anti-life movement), it is necessary to keep them from reproducing themselves in their native countries.

At the above mentioned cocktail party, an IPPF official sang the praises of Dr. Fernando Tamayo, now retired founder and first president of PROFAMILIA, IPPF's Colombia affiliate. Dr. Tamayo was called by that person, "the Margaret Sanger of Latin America". Margaret Sanger was the founder of IPPF. It seems that's the highest praise IPPF can pay its faithful servers! It is precisely at these semi-private events where one can realize what are the real intentions of those who promote contraception and abortion. Like her modern counterparts, Sanger also claimed that she wanted to help the poor, when in reality what she wanted was to keep them from having children. "More children from the fit, less from the unfit", she used to say. Her philosophy is alive and well today through the most powerful anti-life organization in the world: IPPF.

Please pray for the conversion of IPPF's officials and servants, as well as for those who are unfortunate enough to be led and/or affected by them.

This article was published in HLI Reports, April, 2000.