Metairie legislator proposes sterilization for poor women

WWLTV



State Representative John LaBruzzo of Metairie said many of his constituents are tired of paying for children from poor families and that is why he is considering proposing legislation that would pay women on government assistance $1,000 if they choose to be sterilized.

“You have these people who are just fed up with working their buns off to try to provide for their own family and being forced by the government o provide for others’ families who just want to have unlimited kids,” he said.

LaBruzzo said he is studying voluntary sterilization for women whose sole financial support comes from the government in the form of welfare or other public assistance. His idea would be to give the women $1,000 if they had their tubes tied.

His proposal has come under harsh criticism by some civil rights groups.

The ACLU called it a misguided and mean-spirited attempt to eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor.

LaBruzzo said his office has been flooded by emails, many supporting his position.

“We have more in favor, saying, ‘good job, keep it going.’” he said. “Of course we have a lot saying you’re going in the wrong direction.”

LaBruzzo said that in addition to the sterilization of women, he would consider vasectomies for welfare dads and tax incentives for higher income families with children in private schools.

Call for more searches of pupils

BBC News

Teachers should be able to search pupils for alcohol and drugs, inside or outside of school, says a review on tackling bad behavior among pupils.

Sir Alan Steer has delivered the proposals in a government-commissioned review of ways to improve discipline.

Alcohol is identified as a growing problem and Sir Alan wants teachers in England to have the legal power to search pupils and confiscate drink.

At present, teachers only have the right to search for weapons.

The Schools Secretary Ed Balls has welcomed the report - and its conclusion that "behaviour is generally good and is improving in our schools".

Stolen property

The call for wider powers to search pupils is a response to the concerns of head teachers about the influence of alcohol and, to a lesser extent, illegal drugs.

This power "should apply when pupils are on the school site, or off site on school trips and activities," says Sir Alan.

But he rejects as "unviable" suggestions that schools should introduce drug testing on pupils.

Teachers should also have the power to search for suspected stolen property in pupils' pockets or bags, in situations such as disputes over stolen mobile phones or music players.

Last year, schools were given legal powers to search pupils they suspected of carrying weapons - and they were allowed to refuse entry to any pupil who refused to be searched.

Sir Alan is also expected to call for more ways to involve parents in improving school discipline.

This could include using text messages and e-mails to make immediate contact with parents where there are concerns about pupils' behaviour or if they are absent from school.

The review also calls for more parent advisers and parent councils and a local authority panel to hear parents' complaints about schools.

The review on behaviour in school comes against a background of growing concern over teenage knife crime - and Sir Alan highlights the responsibility of adults in creating the cultures of good and bad behaviour.

Sir Alan, head teacher of Seven Kings High School, Ilford, has warned that adults can too often set a bad example for young people, showing them behaviour that is greedy and aggressive.

Safe havens

This latest interim report from Sir Alan, published on Monday, will be the latest instalment of his work on improving behaviour, which was initially commissioned by the education secretary in 2005.

Sir Alan reported in March that good progress was being made in tackling bad behaviour - and he highlighted a range of important influences on behaviour.

These included the quality of teaching, clear and consistent rules, mutual respect and the support of parents. But he cautioned against assuming there were "simple solutions".

Sir Alan has also emphasised that schools are not the places of danger in young people's lives - and that often they can be the safest havens in disrupted lives.

This latest report emphasises that young people's behaviour is not deteriorating within school.

"I remain extremely optimistic about the current situation in schools," says Sir Alan.

"There will always be problems in bringing up the young but these should not be exaggerated. I believe that the vast majority of young people are as idealistic, committed and enthusiastic as they ever were and that standards of behaviour in schools are generally good."

I was a government guinea pig, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Gargantuan US child health study - all take?

By Mark Baard → More by this author

Published Friday 5th September 2008 12:08 GMT

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What will the US government owe the hundreds of thousands of Americans it will swab, prick, track and trace over the next 21 years, in the largest children's health study ever? So far, the answer from the National Children's Study is "not much".

The study, a joint effort led by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Institute of Health, also raises questions about a patient's right to privacy and to his own health records, according to a bioethicist who reviewed the NCS plan.

To understand the causes of asthma, obesity and other troubling childhood disease trends, the NCS will sample DNA and monitor the health and environmental exposures of 100,000 kids, throughout their youth, from the womb to the dorm room.

Such a huge sample will ensure that less common diseases, such as autism, are captured in the study.

To aid their hunt for lead and countless other toxins, NCS organizers in 2004 explored the use of RFID and GPS transponders, wireless motes and sensors implanted under the skin.

But the government balked at having to corral an overload of data from the devices, said Sarah Keim, NCS associate study director for operations and logistics. A 2004 report for the NCS, commissioned by the EPA, also envisions fashion-conscious teens rebelling against the sensor-laden clothes mom gave them.

The report concludes that implantable sensors, while promising, "are still too invasive and prompt numerous ethical concerns". There are similarly "no plans" to chip babies' diapers and men's underwear - another idea mentioned in the EPA report - according to Keim.

The NCS will still get its pound of flesh from volunteers, quite literally, through extensive biological sampling. At the top of the NCS doctors' wish list for samples: hair and nail clippings, baby teeth, saliva, urine, blood for genetic testing, breast milk, umbilical cord blood, placenta and meconium (a newborn's first poop).

All data collected for the NCS will be scrubbed of any personally identifiable information before researchers can see it, said Keim. The NCS is one of several colossal epidemiological studies coming online globally, made possible by ubiquitous sensors, faster computer processors and advances in genetic testing. Like the UK Biobank, which will examine the health of a half-million middle-aged Britons, the NCS is expected to generate a mountain of genetic test results.

And many study participants will want to see their results, the NCS has discovered in its surveys. The problem is that doctors will not know what most of the DNA test results mean. "Science has not advanced to the point where we know the clinical significance of many genetic markers," Keim said.

Test results can also be wrong, said Vanderbilt University bioethicist Ellen Wright Clayton, who reviewed the NCS research plan as part of a National Academy of Sciences panel. "Research labs do not have the same quality control measures as diagnostic labs," said Clayton.

Clayton declined to speak on behalf of the NAS panel, or specifically about the NCS. In a world already full of hypochondriacs self-diagnosing themselves via Google, doctors now fear raw research data and early findings might prompt patients to make bad choices. "Returning incidental findings (to patients) is one of the most vexed topics in research ethics," Clayton said. "We are in the middle of a huge debate."

In other words, scientists aren't sure whether or not they should return DNA test results to volunteer subjects, even those fearing they might have a genetic disposition to a particular form of cancer, for example.

The budget for the NCS - about $100 million per year - might not be enough to cover genetic counselling for individuals. Even as it searches for a full-time bioethicist, the NCS is moving forward. NCS workers in January 2009 will begin fanning out in a door-to-door search for test subjects. Recruiters in several US cities will be seeking a "vanguard" sample of pregnant women, and those not yet pregnant - asking them to commit themselves and their kids to 21 years of interviews, physical exams and lab tests. Getting poor Americans on board will not be easy, however.

Many Native Americans, for example, will not want to part with their hair, the NCS has found. Hair and the placenta are considered sacred by many tribes. Pregnant and parenting teens in one NCS focus group placed a high price on their umbilical cord blood and placentas, and their baby's blood. Volunteers can opt out of any part of the study that makes them feel uncomfortable, said Keim.

To ensure proper consent, women with cognitive impairments and some with mental illnesses will be excluded. NCS recruits, many living in dire poverty in housing projects and on Indian Reservations, might feel they are giving more than they are getting.

A promotional video for the NCS says participation is all about family and country. "People will look back on this and say, 'My kid was in the National Children's Study,' and that will be a point of pride for that family,'" said Dr Donald Dudley, an advisor to the NCS from the University of Texas, in the video.

NCS subjects, then, can expect little more than gestures of thanks for their prolonged assistance. "Volunteers," said Keim, can expect a "t-shirt, small toy, or gift certificate, and also modest monetary incentives for completing each visit." ®

How perfumes and scented creams could make your unborn baby infertile

Daily Mail

Pregnant women are being urged to stop using perfumes or scented creams after research suggested the products could cause unborn boys to suffer infertility or cancer in later life.

It found the reproductive systems of male foetuses were damaged at as early as eight weeks' gestation by chemicals found in cosmetics.

Professor Richard Sharpe, who led the research at the Medical Research Council's Human Sciences Unit, said that he had discovered a 'time window' of eight to 12 weeks' gestation, when certain hormones in the foetus are activated and the male reproductive system comes into being.

At that time, future problems of male fertility, including undescended testicles, low sperm count and the risk of testicular cancer could be determined if these hormones, such as testosterone, do not work properly, he added.

The experiments on rats confirmed that if the hormones were blocked, the animals suffered fertility problems.

Professor Sharpe said he had discovered the male programming window occurred far earlier in foetal development than was previously thought, before the reproductive organs fully develop, and when androgens in the foetus are most active.

'If the male foetus does not receive enough androgens it may not realise its full reproductive potential,' he added.

'Women could stop using body creams and perfumes.

'Although we do not have conclusive evidence they do harm, there are components about which there are question marks; for example, it could be certain combinations of chemicals.'

Professor Sharpe is due to unveil his findings this week at the Simpson Symposium in Edinburgh, a gathering of fertility experts organized by Edinburgh University.

How Big Brother watches your every move

In many cases information is kept by companies such as banks and shops, but in certain circumstances they can be asked to hand it over to a range of legal authorities Photo: ANTHONY UPTON

With every telephone call, swipe of a card and click of a mouse, information is being recorded, compiled and stored about Britain's citizens.

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has now uncovered just how much personal data is being collected about individuals by the Government, law enforcement agencies and private companies each day.

In one week, the average person living in Britain has 3,254 pieces of personal information stored about him or her, most of which is kept in databases for years and in some cases indefinitely.

The data include details about shopping habits, mobile phone use, emails, locations during the day, journeys and internet searches.

In many cases this information is kept by companies such as banks and shops, but in certain circumstances they can be asked to hand it over to a range of legal authorities.

Britain's information watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office, has called for tighter regulation of the amount of data held about citizens and urged the public to restrict the information they allow organisations to hold on them.

This newspaper's findings come days after the Government published plans to grant local authorities and other public bodies access to the email and internet records of millions. Phone companies already retain data about their customers and give it to 650 public bodies on request.

The loss of data by Government departments, including an incident where HM Revenue and Customs mislaid computer disks containing the personal details of 25 million people, has heightened concerns about the amount of information being stored.

David Smith, deputy information commissioner, said: "As more and more information is collected and kept on all of us, we are very concerned that appropriate safeguards go along with that.

"People should know what is happening with their information and have a choice.

"Our concern is that what is kept with the justification of preventing and detecting terrorism, can then be used for minor purposes such as pursuing people for parking fines."

Earlier this year the Commons home affairs select committee recommended new controls and regulations on the accumulation of information by the state.

Mobile phones

Every day the average person makes three mobile phone calls and sends at least two text messages.

Each time the network provider logs information about who was called as well as the caller's location and direction of travel, worked out by triangulation from phone masts.

Customers can also have their locations tracked even when they are not using their phones, as the devices send out unique identifying signals at regular intervals.

All of this information can be accessed by police and other public authorities investigating crimes.

The internet

Internet service providers (ISPs) compile information about their customers when they go online, including name, address, the unique identification number for the connection, known as an IP address, any browser used and location.

They also keep details of emails, such as whom they were sent to, together with the date and time they were sent. An average of 50 websites are visited and 32 emails sent per person in Britain every day.

Privacy campaigners have expressed concern that the country's three biggest ISPs – BT, Virgin Media and TalkTalk – now provide this data to a digital advertising company called Phorm so that it can analyse web surfing habits.

ISPs are already voluntarily providing information they hold about their customers if requested by law enforcement agencies and public authorities. A consultation published last week by the Government would make it a legal requirement for ISPs to provide a customer's personal information when requested. A total of 520,000 requests were made by public officials for telephone and internet details last year, an increase from around 350,000 the previous year.

Internet search engines also compile data about their users, including the IP address and what was searched for. Google receives around 68 searches from the average person each day and stores this data for 18 months.

Dr Ian Brown, a research fellow on privacy at Oxford University, said: "Companies such as Google and internet service providers are building up huge databases of data about internet users.

"These companies may be compelled, through a legal action, to hand over this information to third parties or the Government, or the companies may lose the data and it can then be misused."

Loyalty cards

Store "loyalty" cards also retain large amounts of information about individuals who have signed up to use them. They link a person's personal details to the outlets used, the transaction times and how much is spent.

In the case of Nectar cards, which are used by more than 10 million people in Britain once a week, information from dozens of shops is compiled, giving a detailed picture of a cardholder's shopping habits.

A spokesman for Loyalty Management UK, which runs the Nectar programme, insisted that information about the items bought was not compiled, but some partners in the scheme, such as Sainsbury's, use their till records to compile that information.

She admitted that the personal information that is compiled under the Nectar scheme is kept indefinitely until individuals close their account and ask for their information to be destroyed. In criminal inquiries, police can request the details held by Nectar.

Banks

Banks can also be required to hand over personal account information to the authorities if requested as part of an investigation.

They also provide personal data to credit reference agencies, debt collectors and fraud prevention organisations.

Debit and credit card transactions can give information about where and on what people are spending their money.

CCTV

The biggest source of surveillance in Britain is through the network of CCTV (closed-circuit television) cameras. On average, an individual will appear on 300 CCTV cameras during a day and those tapes are kept by many organisations for indefinite lengths of time.

On the London Underground network, Transport for London (TfL) keeps footage for a minimum of 14 days. TfL operates more than 8,500 CCTV cameras in its underground stations, 1,550 cameras on tube trains and up to 60,000 cameras on buses.

Network Rail refused to say how many CCTV cameras it operates or for how long the footage is kept.

Britain now has more CCTV cameras in public spaces than any other country in the world. A study in 2002 estimated that there were around 4.2 million cameras, but that number is likely to now be far higher.

Number plate recognition

The latest development in CCTV is the increased use of automatic number plate recognition systems, which read number-plates and search databases for signs that a vehicle has been used in crime.

A national automatic number plate recognition system is maintained by the Association of Chief Police Officers along motorways and main roads. Every number plate picked up by the system is stored in a database with date, time and location for two years.

Public transport

Travel passes such as the Oyster Card used in London and the Key card, in Oxford, can also reveal remarkable amounts of information about an individual. When they are registered to a person's name, they record journey history, dates, times and fares.

A spokesman for TfL, which runs the Oyster Card system, insisted that access to this information was restricted to its customer services agents.

Police, however, can also obtain this information and have used Oyster Card journey records as evidence in criminal cases.

The workplace

Employers are increasingly using radio-tagged security passes for employees, providing them with information about when staff enter and leave the office

Agenda 21 – The UN Blueprint for the 21st Century

The Green Agenda

“Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources. This shift will demand that a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”
- excerpt, UN Agenda 21

Agenda 21 – The UN Blueprint for the 21st Century

As described in my previous article on Sustainable Development, Agenda 21 was the main outcome of the United Nation’s Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Agenda 21 outlines, in detail, the UN’s vision for a centrally managed global society. This contract binds governments around the world to the United Nation’s plan for controlling the way we live, eat, learn, move and communicate - all under the noble banner of saving the earth. If fully implemented, Agenda 21 would have the government involved in every aspect of life of every human on earth.

Agenda 21 spreads it tentacles from Governments, to federal and local authorities, and right down to community groups. Chapter 28 of Agenda 21 specifically calls for each community to formulate its own Local Agenda 21: ”Each local authority should enter into a dialogue with its citizens, local organizations, and private enterprises and formulate ‘a Local Agenda 21.’ Through consultation and consensus-building, local authorities would learn from citizens and from local, civic, community, business and industrial organizations and acquire the information needed for formulating the best strategies.” - Agenda 21, Chapter 28, sec 1.3

Interestingly, in April 1991, fourteen months before Earth Summit, Prince Charles held a private two day international conference aboard the royal yacht Britannia, moored off the coast of Brazil. His goal was to bring together key international figures in an attempt to achieve a degree of harmony between the various countries that would gather at the Summit. Al Gore was present, along with senior officials from the United Nations and the World Bank.

At the summit 179 nations officially signed Agenda 21 and many more have followed since. Nearly 12,000 local and federal authorities have legally committed themselves to the Agenda. In practice this means that all their plans and policies must begin with an assessment of how the plan or policy meets the requirements of Agenda 21, and no plans or policies are allowed to contradict any part of the Agenda. Local authorities are audited by UN inspectors and the results of the audits are placed on the UN website. You can see how many local authorities in your country were bound by Agenda 21 in 2001 here. The number has increased significantly since then.

The official opening ceremony was conducted by the Dalai Lama and centered around a Viking long-ship that was constructed to celebrate the summit and sailed to Rio from Norway. The ship was appropriately named Gaia. A huge mural of a beauiful woman holding the earth within her hands adorned the entrance to the summit. Al Gore lead the US delegation where he was joined by 110 Heads of State, and representatives of more than 800 NGO’s.

Maurice Strong, Club of Rome member, devout Bahai, founder and first Secretary General of UNEP, has been the driving force behind the birth and imposition of Agenda 21. While he chaired the Earth Summit, outside his wife Hanne and 300 followers called the Wisdom-Keepers, continuously beat drums, chanted prayers to Gaia, and trended scared flames in order to “establish and hold the energy field” for the duration of the summit. You can view actual footage of these ceremonies on YouTube. During the opening speech Maurice Strong made the following statements:

“The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.” - Link

“It is the responsibility of each human being today to choose between the force of darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior laws of Divine Nature.” - Link

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class - involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing - are not sustainable. A shift is necessary which will require a vast strengthening of the multilateral system, including the United Nations.” - Link

Among other things, the agenda called for a Global Biodiversity Assessment of the State of the Earth. Prepared by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), this 1140 page document armed UN leaders with the “ecological basis, and moral authority” they needed to validate their global management system. The GBA concludes on page 863 that “the root causes of the loss of biodiversity are embedded in the way societies use resources. This world view is characteristic of large scale societies, heavily dependent on resources brought from considerable distances. It is a world view that is characterized by the denial of sacred attributes in nature, a characteristic that became firmly established about 2000 years ago with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious traditions. Eastern cultures with religious traditions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism did not depart as drastically from the perspective of humans as members of a community of beings including other living and non-living elements.” In other words Christians and Moslems are to blame for the sorry state of the world because their religions do not involve worshipping “sacred nature.”

Following the Earth Summit Maurice Strong was named Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, and was appointed to the position of Chief Policy Advisor by Kofi Annan. He was also a member of the UN’s Commission on Global Governance, and the key architect of the Kyoto Protocol. Strong and his wife have also established the Manitou Foundation, providing land in the Colorado to an eclectic mix of religious groups, including the Crestone Mountain Zen Center, the Spiritual Life Institute (a Catholic Carmelite monastery), the Haidakhandi Universal Ashram, the Sri Aurobindo Learning Center, Mangala Shri Bhuti (Tibetan Buddhists), and Karma Thegsum Tashi Gomang (Indian mystics). The Strongs have located their spiritual centre in the Colorado mountains because:”The Strongs learned that since antiquity indigenous peoples had revered this pristine wilderness as a place for conducting their vision quests and receiving shamanic trainings. It is prophesied that the world’s religious traditions would gather here and help move theworld toward globally conscious co-existence and co-creation.”

So what exactly does Agenda 21 contain? It consists of 115 different and very specific programs designed to facilitate, or to force, the transition to Sustainable Development. The objective, clearly enunciated by the leaders of the Earth Summit, is to bring about a change in the present system of independent nations. The agenda is broken up into 8 ‘programme areas for action’:

>> Agriculture
>> Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management
>> Education
>> Energy and Housing
>> Population
>> Public Health
>> Resources and recycling
>> Transportation, Sustainable Economic Development

As you can see Agenda 21 addresses nearly every aspect of modern life. If you have a spare few days the entire document can be read here. I encourage the reader to at least read the Table of Contents in order to understand the true scope of this ‘blueprint for the 21st century.’ I won’t torture the reader by going into the document in too much depth but I will provide the first six paragraphs so that you can understand the true intent of Agenda 21:

1.1. Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can - in a global partnership for sustainable development.

1.2. This global partnership must build on the premises of General Assembly resolution 44/228 of 22 December 1989, which was adopted when the nations of the world called for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and on the acceptance of the need to take a balanced and integrated approach to environment and development questions.

1.3. Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation. Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments. National strategies, plans, policies and processes are crucial in achieving this. International cooperation should support and supplement such national efforts. In this context, the United Nations system has a key role to play. Other international, regional and subregional organizations are also called upon to contribute to this effort. The broadest public participation and the active involvement of the non-governmental organizations and other groups should also be encouraged.

1.4. The developmental and environmental objectives of Agenda 21 will require a substantial flow of new and additional financial resources to developing countries, in order to cover the incremental costs for the actions they have to undertake to deal with global environmental problems and to accelerate sustainable development. Financial resources are also required for strengthening the capacity of international institutions for the implementation of Agenda 21.

1.5. In the implementation of the relevant programme areas identified in Agenda 21, special attention should be given to the particular circumstances facing the economies in transition. It must also be recognized that these countries are facing unprecedented challenges in transforming their economies, in some cases in the midst of considerable social and political tension.

1.6. The programme areas that constitute Agenda 21 are described in terms of the basis for action, objectives, activities and means of implementation. Agenda 21 is a dynamic programme. It will be carried out by the various actors according to the different situations, capacities and priorities of countries and regions in full respect of all the principles contained in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. It could evolve over time in the light of changing needs and circumstances. This process marks the beginning of a new global partnership for sustainable development.

Like many ‘green movement initiatives’ Agenda 21 is a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’. As explained in my brief biography I have been actively involved in preparing Agenda 21 action plans and monitoring compliance with environmental permits. All the policies and plans we developed were required to begin with a description of how they met the objectives of Agenda 21 and various other UN agreements, and were audited too determine how they complied with UN requirements. It was these experiences that lead to my research into what was ‘behind it all’ and the subsequent publication of this website.

Agenda 21 is not an environmental management policy, but an attempt to impose a global centrally planned quasi-government administered by the United Nations. Under Agenda 21 all central government and local authority signatories are required to conform strictly to a common prescribed standard and hence this is just communism resurrected in a new guise. Now that Agenda 21 has gained a stranglehold on global regulatory and planning processes Maurice Strong and his Club of Rome colleagues have moved on to the next phase of the Global Green Agenda.

In association with fellow CoR member Mikhail Gorbachev, Strong co-chaired the committee responsible for drafting the Earth Charter. Compared to the 2500 pages that make up Agenda 21 and the BGA it is a tiny document – only 4 pages long. But it is of far more significance to the Global Green Agenda. The Earth Charter is a “declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century”. It is the constitution for a New Green Order. You can read about it here.

Electric shock torture in Tibet by China !!

flickr

Copyright © of Yangchen Kikhang (Independent Tibet Network - UK).
The original article first appeared in 'Gender & Catastrophe'.
Edited by Ronit Lentin. Published by Zed Books (1997).

Women Targeted by China's Population Programme. Cultural Genocide

Tibet has a unique culture stretching back several thousand years and has for most of its history enjoyed the rights and privileges of a sovereign state, having developed its own political, economic and religious system. With a distinct language and written script, Tibet has produced a rich catalogue of musical and artistic treasures. In addition to this legacy an immense body of philosophical teachings has been maintained through Tibet's native religious tradition of Bon and, later, Buddhism. Throughout most of its history Tibet has been a peaceful nation, providing a stabilising influence on neighbouring India and Nepal. That tranquil lifestyle now lies in tatters following China's invasion and brutal military occupation in 1950, which cost the lives of over one million Tibetans, nearly one sixth of the population.

The Flag of Tibet

Since then Tibetan women have been prime targets of human rights abuse. As documented by Asia Watch and Amnesty International, political prisoners suffer systematic torture and sexual violations. Detailed reports of forcible extraction of blood from female prisoners continue to emerge. Due to the courage and sacrifice of the Chinese human rights activist Dr Harry Wu, the West now knows about China's system of forced labour camps. Some of the most notorious of these are in Eastern Tibet and house countless numbers of women who are exploited as slave labour.

For women not involved in political activity, daily life offers little better. Unless they are able to speak the language of the occupying regime the chance of finding even the most menial employment is almost impossible. In order to receive grain women must carry a ration card bearing their name, date of birth and 'class'. The amount awarded is determined by a system of 'work points'. It is not therefore uncommon for women to be seen working in the fields from 6 am to 8 pm. Half of their yield is often demanded by China through various taxes such as the 'Love of the Nation Tax' or the 'Surplus Grain Tax'.

Healthcare facilities mostly benefit the forces of occupation and the ever-increasing numbers of Chinese 'settlers'. Tibetans must pay for services offered, and since this is beyond their means, the majority rely on 'barefoot doctors'. This poverty, which has blighted most families, is such that a once self-sufficient land is now one of the poorest regions on earth, with an annual per capita income of approximately £60. Not surprisingly, China always seeks to cover up the degree of social deprivation of women and children in Tibet. In an interview featured in a 1991 US television documentary, Mr Cheng Muhai, senior counsellor at the Chinese embassy in Washington, dumbfounded at the evidence before him, cut short the proceedings when shown footage highlighting the poverty in Tibet with the words: 'It's no good. I think we had better shut up.'

Tibetan Women Targeted by China's Population Programme

Tibetan women struggle against China's male-dominated state, characterise by deeply held racist convictions that operate a system of apartheid, reducing them to second-class citizenship in their own land. A commonly used Chinese term describing occupied people is shung-nu - 'barbarian slave'. It is within China's notorious population programme that women in Tibet face the most widespread human rights violations. Reports of this programme began emerging from Tibet in the early 1960s. It has resulted in unimaginable suffering for women across Tibet and China. Denied freedom of choice or control over their own bodies, women are forced, through a series of financial penalties, intimidation and other oppressive measures, to submit to population control.

The Flag of China

One account documented a former health worker from Eastern Tibet. In 1988 she became pregnant for the second time. Resisting initial pressures from family planning officials to have an abortion, she was fined 1500 Yuan (an enormous amount of money for most Tibetans). On hearing of her pregnancy, a Chinese doctor at the hospital in which she worked, pressurised her by saying: "If you insist on having the child, the financial punishment is a small matter compared with the political crime you are committing. From now on, you will only get 30 per cent of your salary. Your salary will never increase. Your child will not have the right to claim his ration card and will not be admitted to school."

Some four months into the pregnancy she collapsed under incessant pressure and submitted to 'menstrual termination of pregnancy (MTP)'. She says about her operation: "The complications and pain I suffered in the course of this operation were so terrible that I can't talk about it. However, it was nothing compared to what women suffer when they are operated on during their sixth and seventh months of pregnancy, which happens quite often at this hospital. In such cases, 0.2 ml of a solution called le xun nur is injected into the foetal bag by using a 12-inch syringe. The foetus loses its blood and stops breathing. About 72 hours later the dead foetus is delivered. I know at least twelve women who underwent such operations."

As she recalled, the operation left serious emotional and physical damage. "My menstrual flow is erratic. I have constant pain in my back and intestines. My health is such that I am ignorant if I shall ever be a mother again."

There are also numerous detailed accounts of physical force being used against women who are dragged from their homes and beaten in preparation for 'birth control operations'. A disturbing account, 'China's wanted children' (Yin, 1991) was compiled by Liu Yin, a Chinese who was allowed to accompany a birth control 'task force'. Liu Yin's report documents a raid on a village in which houses are stormed and women carried out in blankets to be taken for sterilisations and abortions. Liu Yin comments on conditions at the temporary clinic: "I could not believe what I saw. Hundreds of women, some more than six months pregnant, were packed into dark corridors and makeshift tents, waiting to be operated on." She describes toilets filled with blood-soaked toilet paper and waste bins full of aborted babies.

In a report presented to the United States Congressional Delegation, two Buddhist monks from Amdo (Eastern Tibet) gave a harrowing account of a mobile birth control team who arrived in their village during the autumn of 1987. They reported that all women in the area were ordered to have sterilisations and abortions and those who resisted were taken by force. According to the monks, all women of childbearing age were sterilised, and 30 to 40 women a day were operated on. When they finished, team members moved on to the next village. The monks described women crying as they awaited their turn for the operation, heard their screams and watched a growing pile of foetuses outside the tent (Testimony, 20 October 1988, cited in Moss, 1992).

It is such atrocities that have gained the attention of human rights groups such as Independent Tibet Network (formerly Campaign Free Tibet) and Optimus. More recently, Amnesty International has condemned the human rights abuse within China's population policies and has recommended that China "ensure that women are not detained, restricted or otherwise physically coerced in order to force them to have abortions or to be sterilised" (Al Index, 1995).

It is not only Tibetans who have seen women taken by force. Valda Harding, an English nurse, describes how, during a visit to Tibet in 1987, she witnessed Tibetan women caged like animals in wicker baskets in the back of a truck. When she enquired what their crime was, she was informed they were "being taken away because they were having too many children". She recalls having the impression that "it sounds strange, but in Tibet you get used to seeing people kicked, beaten and abused" (Tibetan Bulletin, September-October 1991).

Recent television documentaries have highlighted the human rights violations caused by China's population policies. Terrified at the brutal fate ahead of her, Bai was escorted to the local family planning clinic. Strapped onto a medical table, she was yet another 'volunteer' in China's birth control programme. In pain and crying for an anaesthetic, Bai was ordered by the surgeon to "put up with it". Immediately after the operation, traumatised, and in obvious agony, she was left unattended in a grimy dormitory. These harrowing scenes were documented in the film Women of the Yellow Earth (Bulmer, 1994) which revealed the coercive nature of China's population programme. But these images were eclipsed by those of the documentaries The Dying Rooms (Woods and Blewitt, 1995) and Return to the Dying Rooms (Woods and Blewitt, 1996). Both films recorded the inhuman treatment of baby girls left to die in China's state orphanages as a result of China's one-child policy and Chinese traditional preference for boys. The misery and suffering recorded in the films resulted in public outrage in Europe and the US and an intense public debate in the British national media.

In the drive to implement China's population programme, such gross violations have the approval and support of the Chinese government who urge regional and local family planning officers to meet birth control quotas. In 1981 Deng Xiaoping advised family planning officers: "In order to control the population use whatever means you must, but do it" (China's Spring Digest, 1987). In 1992 Cheng Bangzhu, Deputy Governor of Hunan province, ordered birth control teams: "In the autumn family planning drive, urban and rural areas must closely co-operate with one another, and must comb every household for unscheduled pregnancies, for which remedial measures should be taken" (Human Peoples Broadcasting Station, 14 September 1992).



Eugenics Revisited

The scale of human rights violations and the suffering of Tibetan and Chinese women is staggering; Dr Jonathan Aird, former senior China specialist at the US Bureau of the Census, estimated that between 1971 and 1985 alone there have been some 100 million coercive 'birth control operations', involving forced sterilisations and abortions (Aird, 1992). For Tibetans these population policies not only violate human rights principles, but form a dangerous and potentially disastrous assault upon an already severely diminished Tibetan population. Chinese population control abuses are now widely recognised, yet some demographers, presumably keen to maintain career links and/or research opportunities with China, choose to ignore the evidence of such violations. In Tibet and China, however, this is exactly what is happening, as the United Nations, governments, Britain's Department for International Development and multilateral population agencies ignore the wealth of evidence of these abuses, muttering absurd arguments about China having a potential for change. This reasoning could equally have been applied to Nazi SS units which forcibly sterilised countless numbers of 'racially inferior' women across Europe. Those who defend China's population control programmes are asking the world to accept something just as controversial and distasteful, to say nothing about the atrocities, the traumas, the terror and devastation inflicted upon women simply because 'there is potential for improvement'.

There are several important considerations which must be taken into account when examining Chinese population control programmes in Tibet. It must be remembered that these programmes are part of a system of oppression forced upon a subject people of an independent nation under illegal occupation. It is a policy imposed by a colonial power through the act of military occupation. The resulting birth control programme has had a devastating impact on the Tibetan population, which, it is widely agreed, was around six million before China's invasion in 1950. Since then, some 1.2 million Tibetans are thought to have perished through famine, disease, and in the 'Twenty Year War' of resistance (1954-74). A serious population low must thus have occurred in the 1960s, which meant that China forced its population programme upon an already dangerously reduced population level.
A woman campaigning for women's freedom to bear children

It is significant that the population of Tibet makes up less than 1 per cent of China's population. According to Chinese figures, Tibetans from the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region (a truncated region forming a third of Tibet proper) are just 0.2 per cent of China's total population. It has been calculated that if the Tibetan population experiences an annual increase of 2.1 per cent (equivalent to the replacement rate), it would add just 0.3 per cent of China's yearly population growth. Tibet has a land surface comparable in size to that of Western Europe, yet its population is less than that of Greater London. The Tibetan population has coexisted in balance with a resource-rich environment for several millennia. Taken together these facts make it impossible to accept arguments for any form of population control in Tibet.

Apart from employing dubious economic arguments to justify its population control programme, such as linking apparent rises in living standards for Tibetans with birth control policies, China also stresses the importance of 'increasing the quality of the nation'. Since the Nazi obsession with eugenics, no state has attached so much importance to what has been comprehensively described as 'the management and breeding for the purpose of improving stock' (Issues in Reproductive and Genetic Engineering, 1991).

Socially and biologically based eugenics has played a major role in China's justification of its population programme, particularly since the official introduction of the one child policy in 1979. In 1989, China's Gansu province (which contains large parts of annexed Tibetan territory) issued a mandatory sterilisation regulation 'prohibiting reproduction by the mentally retarded'. China's definition of what constitutes retardation includes having an IQ of less than 49, or 'handicaps' in 'language, memory, orientation and thinking'. One is reminded of those certified as insane by the Nazi Criminal Biology Institute and sterilised on the basis that they held thoughts not in accord with Nazi ideology. In 1991, similar eugenics laws were adopted by at least five other provinces and Madame Peng Peyin, State Family Planning Minister, defended the forced sterilisation of all mentally handicapped people, whether or not their problem was hereditary (Kristof, 1991).

For Tibetans these laws are a chilling addition to the systematic assault upon their population. According to Xinhua (China's News Agency), there are some 100,000 'handicapped' people in Tibet who, under China's eugenics laws, are considered 'undesirable'. As with most Chinese euphemisms, the term 'handicapped' could mean many things and the interpretation is often left to family planning officials at regional and local levels. As a result, Tibetan women find themselves at the mercy of politically motivated decisions that result in mass sterilisation campaigns. Gansu Radio reported on 7 May 1990 that some 65,000 women and men have been sterilised in just two months (Moss, 1992). Deng Bihai, in an article for China's Population News (1989), trumpeted in overtly racist tones the superiority of Han Chinese over 'minority nationalities'. The article claimed that people such as the Tibetans are commonly "mentally retarded, short of stature, dwarves or insane" and on this basis, Deng urged no relaxation in the birth control programme.




Conclusion: Cultural Genocide

The recognition of the abuse involved in China's population programme, and its racist and eugenic rationale, together with the fact that it has been forced upon a population already blighted by the loss of a million people, make it difficult to escape the conclusion that China is engaged in cultural genocide in Tibet. This genocidal programme is waged on Tibetan women's bodies. It is impossible to see any other reason for population control other than the aim of reducing the Tibetan population to a dangerously low level. With the added pressure of China's population transfer strategy, which means that Tibetans are becoming a minority in many areas of Tibet, Tibet faces the gravest crisis of survival in its history. In order to achieve this 'Final Solution', the rights of Tibetan women have been abolished by central mandate and they have no choice but to accept a position which renders them servile to the Chinese state. As one Buddhist nun has commented: "In Tibet we have no rights, not even over our bodies."

Gods of the New Age

Church to flock: "Save the planet - kill yourself"

The Carolinian Online

Reverend Chris Korda of the Church of Euthanasia. The church preaches population control through suicide, abortion, sodomy, and cannibalism.

File this under "weird things thriving in the dark corners of the Internet."

The Church of Euthanasia (www.churchofeuthanasia.org) is a non-profit "educational foundation" whose only commandment is "thou shalt not procreate." The group reminds humans of their responsibility for balancing the planet's natural resources and encourages them to pitch in through the four pillars - suicide, abortion, cannibalism and sodomy - all in the name of saving the planet.

The whole thing would seem like some sort of sick, deadpan joke on anyone who comes across the site - if it wasn't done so well and so thoroughly. Along with a ticker keeping track of the Earth's overpopulation, the site offers helpful hints on how to kill yourself, having fun with of all types of sodomy and getting emergency contraception.

The group's quarterly webzine (cleverly titled "Snuff It") is a treasure-trove of suggestions on how you too can contribute to the slow but certain decimation of the human species.

The site's most offensive feature (or most hilarious, depending on your viewpoint) would have to be the video for "I Like to Watch," a pop song by the church's Rev. Chris Korda about masturbating to footage of the twin towers coming down. A sample line? "That plane-shaped hole/Really gets me hot/But the big ball of fire/Is the money shot/I like to watch."

It somehow makes sense that people bent on doing away with all humanity would be into techno music.

For $8 you can become one of the church's hundreds of card-carrying members. Or, if you're feeling cheap, you can just go to the "family album" section and get a vicarious thrill browsing photos of the group's many festivals, protests and demonstrations. My favorite? The Fetus Barbecue featuring baby dolls on the grill and signs like "Thank You For Not Breeding" and "Eat a Queer Fetus For Jesus."

You just don't see really funny shock-art like that anymore.

Taken with a grain of salt and a little detached bemusement, the site is hilarious. But, as the "press" section illustrates in dozens of articles from newspapers and magazines all over the country, some are blaming the site for the deaths of their loved ones and the corruption of youth. Which seems like a light insult to hurl at a group that's encouraging people to stop breeding and off themselves so that we can do away with civilisation as we know it.

Doctors' advice to Britons: have fewer children and help save the planet

guardian.co.uk

British couples should consider having no more than two children to help reduce the environmental impact of the rising global population, doctors have said.

An editorial in the British Medical Journal today calls on GPs to encourage the view that bigger families are as environmentally dubious as owning a patio heater or driving a gas-guzzler.

Link to this audio
'Better to have children in Ethiopia than UK'

Writing in the journal, John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at University College, London and Pip Hayes, a GP based in Exeter, urge doctors to "break a deafening silence" over the use of family planning to curb the rise in population, which has been viewed by many in the community as a taboo subject.

Managing the impact of a soaring human population will be one of the most politically fraught issues governments will have to grapple with in coming decades. Although the rate of population growth has slowed since the 80s, the UN estimates the world's population has increased by about 76 million a year this century, which drives up greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbates the destruction of wildlife habitats.

Previous efforts to limit population growth in India in the 70s and in China, with its one child policy, have made any attempt to raise the issue in Britain highly controversial.

The authors call on schools and GPs to develop education programmes to explain how a rising population is environmentally unsustainable, and how families who have no more than two children will help ensure the population remains steady or even falls.

Government figures for 2007 show that average fertility rates in England and Wales were 1.91, meaning there were 191 children born for every 100 women, but that rate has been rising since 2001.

Guillebaud argues that bringing the fertility rate down to 1.7 would lead to a halving of the population within six generations.

"Should we now explain to UK couples who plan a family that stopping at two children, or at least having one less than first intended, is the simplest and biggest contribution anyone can make to leaving a habitable planet for our grandchildren?" the editorial asks. "We must not put pressure on people, but by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone ... doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high-carbon cars."

The authors emphasise that couples should never be coerced into having fewer children than they wish, but the environment should become part of a couple's decision making. The doctors, both of whom are linked to the Optimum Population Trust, a thinktank that researches the impacts of a rising population, claim that every new birth in the UK produces 160 times more greenhouse gas emissions than one in Ethiopia.

"We are not criticising those people in Britain who had large families in the past, because a lot of people had no inkling about the sustainability implications," Guillebaud told the Guardian. "The decision that needs to be made is one that balances rights. It's people's right to have the size of family they choose, but surely that should be balanced against the rights of future generations."

But the debate is complex, as a sharply falling population would have considerable economic, fiscal and social impact.

The editorial calls for improved availability of contraceptives in the developing world, where the biggest rises in population are anticipated. The authors cite the impact of widely available contraception in countries such as Costa Rica and Iran, which have cut their fertility rates.

Chris West, director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, said that while there were good environmental reasons for halting the rise in human population, it would not deliver sufficient cuts in greenhouse emissions quickly enough. "If we had a way to reduce the population ... it would be one way to address climate change, but in the current circumstances, it's not a very effective way," he said. "For all sorts of other reasons ... we probably need to be aiming at zero population growth, but it's not going to deliver emission reductions on anything like the timescale we need."

Backstory

Humans have struggled with overpopulation since antiquity, when the Greeks were forced to set up colonies across the Mediterranean to reduce pressure on resources back home. According to some accounts, they also encouraged sexual abstinence, delayed fatherhood and introduced basic forms of abortion. In modern times, India began to control its population growth in the 50s in an attempt to alleviate poverty, but stepped up efforts in the 70s, with education programmes and state-sponsored birth control. In China it is estimated that the one-child policy brought in during the late 70s has prevented nearly half a billion births. In many countries, simply providing contraception has been enough to bring fertility rates below the figure needed to maintain a stable population, as people choose to have fewer children. In his 1729 satirical pamphlet, A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift suggested that Irish families might alleviate their poverty by choosing to sell their children to the rich for food. But nothing has been as effective in reducing the human population as the flu virus. The 1918 strain is believed to have killed more than 20 million people.