Volume 7, Number 18

April 23, 2004

Magazine Mocks President Bush as Pawn of C-FAM

By Douglas A. Sylva, Ph.D.

     (NEW YORK - C-FAM)  On the cover of the current issue of Worldwatch magazine, a caricature shows C-FAM President Austin Ruse, along with other international pro-life and pro-family leaders, flanking US President George W. Bush, all in military flight gear, all apparently about to engage in another battle in what the magazine labels "The Bush War on Women."

     Such is the artwork accompanying an article entitled "Ladies, You Have No Choices, How Extremists Took Over US Family Planning Policy," which charges that "Behind their innocuous-sounding names. C-FAM and its network of like-minded groups," including Concerned Women for America, National Right to Life Committee, and the Population Research Institute, "have lobbied heavily against women's rights to make their own decisions about having or not having children . . . What C-FAM really does is orchestrate misinformation campaigns against the UN system, disrupt meetings, and brand all specialized agencies and NGOs engaged in reproductive health and family planning initiatives in developing countries as 'anti-family.'"

     The article, written by Don Hinrichsen, begins with a description of the job of Stirling Scruggs, spokesman for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), who every week must monitor and respond to what he calls the "Friday Fax of Misinformation." According to Hinrichsen, "What he sees coming in today is a doozie. The newly arrived fax alleges that the UN Population Fund was complicit in the forced sterilization of poor, indigenous women in Peru." "This assertion, says Scruggs, is 'total fiction,'" and there is "no substantiation for these charges."

     Hinrichsen does not mention that the Friday Fax in question was reporting on a Peruvian congressional study that concluded that UNFPA actually "took charge" of a program that resulted in close to 200,000 coerced sterilizations, or that a Peruvian government report sponsored by UNFPA, itself, found massive human rights violations in the UNFPA-funded program. Hinrichsen also does not mention that, in an apparent effort to hide its findings, Scruggs has denied the very existence of the government report.

     According to Hinrichsen, "It's not clear whether Ruse is one of those Montana-style militants who believe the UN storm troopers will arrive by night in black helicopters," but he implies that Ruse and his allies will stop at nothing. Hinrichsen writes that these "fundamentalist groups are now going directly into developing countries to spread their misinformation, employing techniques used by the CIA to discredit governments."

     Most troubling to Hinrichsen is the immense power this network seems to have with the Bush administration, which he believes has done its bidding since "the moment the Supreme Court decided Bush was president."

     Worldwatch magazine is published by the Worldwatch Institute, which, according to its website, is working to speed "the transition to an environmentally sustainable and socially just" world.

Home  |  About  |  Programs  |  Research  |  Friday Fax
Inside the UN  |  Center for UN Documents  |  Donate  |  Contact