FRONT ROYAL, Va.—Steven Mosher, President of Population Research Institute (PRI), today criticized the Hague Forum's single-minded focus on population control and abortion.

“The most pressing demographic problem is not overpopulation, but underpopulation,” Mosher said. “Fertility rates have fallen below replacement level in much of the Third World. In the First World, the population of many countries is actually falling.”

Hillary Clinton, as well as UNFPA representatives, took advantage of the Hague Forum to call for more U.S. funds for global population control efforts. Clinton also described as “coercive” efforts to restrict federal funds from providing universal access to abortion, which she described as a “basic human right.”

“The radical population control agenda of the Hague Forum ignores the most pressing demographic issues of our age,” Mosher said. “The forum ignored the “greying” of the world's population, the threatened collapse of pension funds in the U.S. and elsewhere, and the depopulation of the developed world.”

“To promote abortion as a means of population control in countries where it is illegal is a violation of national sovereignty,” Mosher continued. “Coercive family planning is a real problem in many parts of the world like China, where the government forcibly aborts and sterilizes women who get pregnant without permission.”

To correct the record, PRI will hold a Congressional Briefing on March 9, 1999 at 2-4 p.m. in Room 121 of the Cannon House Office Building on the topic of “The Economic and Social Consequences of Depopulation.” Economic and demographic experts will discuss the present demographic realities and their impact on foreign and domestic affairs, such as aid to the Third World and the looming social security crisis within the United States.

(Population Research Institute)