One of the methods through which IPPF/WHR operates is getting government bodies to implement its programs. Much of the funding for its efforts comes from government sources. IPPF developed a strategy to get legislators to push its programs. It established the Interamerican Parliamentary Group on Population and Development with the primary objective of formulating public policies for population control. Membership is open to legislators in all countries targeted in Latin America and The Caribbean. Each legislator is then encouraged to take initiatives formulated by the group and introduce them as laws in their country. According to the book Deadly Deception,as of 1991, the Interamerican Group on Population and Development had local groups established in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

There are four organizations whose activities throughout the world, especially in the field of politics, give us a reason for concern.  Using different names, they are united in one common cause: population control.  In order to attain this objective, they have been able to recruit not only public officials in the highest tiers of government, but also even leaders from different religions.

The first of these organizations is of course International Planned Parenthood Federation-IPPF, the main sponsor of contraceptive abortifacients and abortions throughout the world. IPPF considers abortion an option for family planning, [1] and offers suggestions and help in violating different national laws that prohibit it.[2] Pro-life leaders in Mexico claim that IPPF pressured the governor of Chiapas in favor of a legislative project for the legalization of abortion as a means of family planning in that state. IPPF supports forced abortions [3] as part of the national program in China.[4]

The second of these organizations, which works closely with IPPF and shares the same executive director (Dr. Hernan Sanhueza) and until recently the same offices (in New York), is the Interamerican Parliamentary Group on Population and Development. IPGPD is an organization that includes legislators of all the countries of the Americas in which there is a legislative body.  Its members are in the halls of power where national decisions are taken", explains its brochure.  Its objective is the formulation of public policies for population control, backed up by laws promoted by national legislators in each country of this hemisphere.[5]

Two of the officials of the American Parliamentarians are legislator Haroldo Sanford of Brazil (President) and legislator Celso Sotomarino of Peru, Secretary General of the Parliamentarians and a member of the board of directors of IPPF, Western Hemisphere. Sotomarino is also president of INPPARES, IPPF branch in that country. (Sotomarino and Sanford are also members of the board of directors of the Global Committee of Parliamentarians for Population and Development.) (Please note:  The above is true as of the date this article was published, Feb., 1991; we don't know whether or not Sanford and Sotomarino are still members of Parliamentarians.)

The Parliamentarians' own leaders stated in their "plan of action" issued during the second conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development in Quito in March of 1990, (the first one was in Brazil in 1982), that they will review the laws of all different countries "which are an obstacle to the attainment of the objectives of population and development policies... for example those which prohibit sex education in the school systems or restrict the promotion of contraceptives", even for minors.  The Parliamentarians IGPD has been able to establish groups, which are working for these objectives, in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. There are already more than 50 of these groups throughout the world.

Their influence reaches to the highest levels of governments.  The President of the Andean Parliament and of the National Congress in Ecuador, Wilfredo Lucero, participated in their congress in this country, in representation of the President of the Republic.  Ecuatorian public officials even agreed that after the congress they would carry out the recommendations of this organization, as enunciated in their "plan of action".  The National Congress of Ecuador was the host and organizer of this congress, together with United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA).   The executive director of APROFE (IPPF branch in Ecuador), Dr. Pablo Marangoni, participated, and Dr. Haldfan Mahler, who until recently was Secretary General of IPPF, London, was their special guest. Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of UNFPA attended representing UN Secretary General, Dr. Javier Perez de Cuellar.  Other participants included Mr. Carlyle Guerra de Macedo, Executive Director of the Panamerican Health Organization and Senator Manuel Ulloa of Peru, President of the Global Forum on Population and Development.  Other collaborators were the World Bank, the Panamerican Health Association, IPPF and the Global Committee of Parliamentarians for Population and Development, which is the third organization I want to refer to in this article.

The Global Committee works mainly within the Eastern Hemisphere and it is a "sister"[6] organization to the World Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival, the fourth organization whose activities cause us concern.  Both organizations share the same office (at the UN Development Center).  They also share the telephone and the secretary; Cecile Reyes.  The World Forum organized a conference in Oxford, England April 11-15, 1988, which was televised and was titled "World Forum for Religious and Parliamentary Leaders for Human Survival".  Among the participants were the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Koenig of Austria and Mother Teresa of Calcutta,[7] who seemed to be unaware of the real objectives, spoke in opposition to family planning.  The Cardinal is on the board of directors of the World Forum.  The conference was translated to Spanish and French so that it could be sent to other countries throughout the world.  From the 16th to the 18th of January, 1990 the Second International Conference of the World Forum took place in Moscow.  It was transmitted by satellite by other countries with the help of the Foundation for World Transmission.[8]  Gorbachev and 700 other Russians (legislators, religious leaders, scientists, journalists, artists, etc.) were also invited along with 300 people from other nations.  The Soviet Academy of Sciences was one of the main sponsors.[9]

The main objectives of the world forum according to its officials are to "eliminate the danger of nuclear weapons" and "reach an appropriate balance between resources and population".[10]  Of course in order to achieve this second objective population control is presented.  

The influence of these four organizations has become so extensive since they started their activities, that one out of every ten countries throughout the world has given support in its constitution to family planning programs.[11]  The new constitution of Brazil for example, "recognizes the right to family planning", an objective that was achieved thanks to BENFAM, a branch of IPPF in that country.[12]  According to these groups of Parliamentarians, "declarations in the constitutions are the most explicit way of giving special and lasting legitimacy", to the objectives of these organizations, "and they are the strongest legal or political actions that a country can adopt on the issue of population".[13]

Without a doubt an explicit support in the constitution of a country "for the right" to "family planning for all", could lead to the implementation of harmful sex education programs, mass sterilizations, contraceptives and abortions even for minors.

NOTE: This article is a translation of the one titled “La IPPF y los grupos parlamentarios”,  published in "Escoge la Vida" newsletter, Jan./Feb., 1991. The first paragraph was added later.

Endnotes:

1. "Regulación de la Menstruación" (Menstrual Regulation), IPPF, London, 1977.

2.Donald P. Warwick; "Pildoras Amargas: Políticas Demográficas y su Implementación en Ocho Países en Vías de Desarrollo" (Bitter Pills: Demographic Policies and Its Implementation in Eight Developing Countries), Cambridge University Press, London, 1982.

3. "Informe del Grupo de Tabajo sobre el Fomento de la Planificación Familiar como un Derecho Humano Básico" (Report of the Labor Group on Fostering Family Planning as a Basic Human Right), IPPF, London, 1984.

4.  "Informe a Donantes" (Report to Donors), IPPF, October 1983.

5. "Annual Report", Regents Park London: International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), 1989-90.

6. "UPDATE", No. 10, Fall of 1988.

7. "Shared Vision", No. 1, 1989.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. "Shared Vision, No. 6, 1989.

11. "Actualidad",No. 1, 1989.

12."Update", Fall of 1988.