_WORLD WATCH______________________________
________________El
Salvador_______________
Abortion kits, not disaster aid
Contraceptives pushed for quake victims
The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has replied to the tragedy of homelessness and destruction caused by earthquakes in El Salvador by sending abortion kits to the mainly Catholic country, according to Steven Mosher of the Population Research Institute (PRI).
El Salvador was hit by two devastating earthquakes a month apart in January and February, leaving about a third of the country homeless and 1,159 people dead. About 70,000 are without drinking water. But, Mosher said, the UNFPA’s response has been to send their standard “reproductive health” kits to the country. “Leave it to UNFPA to offer a traumatized woman an IUD rather than water, food, and clothing for herself and her displaced family,” he said. “It seems that the UNFPA never misses an opportunity to try to reduce the population of the Third World.” Mosher quoted Julia de Cardenal, president of the pro-family group Si a la Vida, as calling the action “demographic imperialism.”
Responding to the pressure of the developed world to accept an aggressive family-planning program, El Salvador amended its constitution in 1999 to include a formal recognition that human life begins at the moment of conception, thus effectively instituting a permanent ban on abortion. While the UNFPA kits do not include equipment for surgical abortions, they do contain a variety of abortifacient pills and contraceptives, Mosher reported.