Time Magazine launched an anti-Catholic attack today by focusing its ire on the Philippines today because as the conservative government refuses to distribute free condoms and birth control. Oh! The horror!
This is agenda-drive journalism at its worst. In the opening paragraph, Time paints the worst possible scenario:
It’s lunchtime in Vitas, the sprawling slum built on the City of Manila’s garbage dump. Flies swarm as Bing, a 34-year-old mother of five, prepares a meal of salted rice for her children. While she feeds them, her husband sifts through the mounds of grease-stained cardboard boxes, plastic bags, and broken glass that crowd their home. He’ll sell his rotten harvest for about $3.50. For their family of seven, that’s 50 cents per person, per day. The arithmetic is simple, Bing says. “With every child I have, there is less rice each. I can’t give them all a good life.”
The story goes on to explain that Bing planned on having one child, but birth control was never an option because the mean old government didn’t give him any birth control. And he’s also completely powerless not to…uhm…well you know.
And Time then attacks the City of Manila for engaging in what they call “a campaign against modern contraception.” What does this campaign consist of? They don’t give hand out birth control in city-funded clinics. Time Magazine says, of course, this hurts the poor the most because rich people can afford condoms and all sorts of birth control but the poor go without.
And then you have to see this to believe it. Time Magazine goes on to speak about this ancient like voodoo like process that nobody’s ever heard of that some say helps poor people not have babies.
In lieu of condoms or pills, government and church authorities promote what they call “natural” family planning. Women are advised to purchase a thermometer, monitor their cycle, and abstain from sex on all but their least-fertile days. But abstinence is a tough sell and people, it seems, aren’t buying it.
And how does Time Magazine know that people aren’t buying it. Obviously because the birth rate is crazy high, right? I mean to warrant a story in Time Magazine about an out-of-control birthrate that warrants lawsuits and international aid organizations to fly in and drop pills and condoms over villages, it’s got to be babymania in Manila.
But.
The country’s population is growing at a rate of about 2.3% per year. Shhh. But that happens to be just about the same as the United States and you know how awful it is over here. 2.2 is demographic stasis. That’s your bare bones replacement rate.
Hmmm. Something tells me this story actually has nothing to do with the poor but has everything to do with forcing birth control down people’s throats.
It’s also ridiculous that Time looks at things this way. When a country can’t support families, what does Time think to do? Get rid of families, not fix the economy. A former Mayor of a Philippine city takes issue with Time Magazine’s assessment saying, “I reject the notion that we are poor because we are plenty…Poverty is caused by mismanagement, not by the number of people.” He said family planning advocates have been “brainwashed” by the West. Or by Time Magazine.
June 6, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Come, come! You are treating “Time” as if if was an objective periodical of worth…when it’s been peddling crap disguised as serious journalism for decades. “Newsweek” attempts to appear a bit more erudite but it, too, is fine for toilet training puppies with overactive sphincters.
June 6, 2008 at 6:34 pm
The Economist had the same story with the same solution, i.e. corruption causes poverty so let’s prevent/abort the next generation. Not a great moment in logic.
June 6, 2008 at 6:49 pm
It’s always the babies fault. They’re nothing but a bother. I hear they actually come out not potty trained. They drool. And they don’t even speak.
More condoms needed before more of these “babies” come out.
June 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Oh John! point made. I read Time devotedly each week for a long time, then in the 60’s, I had had enough. I wrote them, and have not subscribed or read one since. In a doctor’s office I pick one up occasionally but quickly put it down-garbage in–garbage out…ruins my whole day.
The best thing to do in this case is to do what they do with the same subjects: establish a magazine(I love the size.) called:
Eternity. Not necessarily Christian but under the heading: Going or Goings(Alluding to Heaven)(Something like that.). A picture is worth a thousand words, and mind images are worth investigating. Used appropriately, they can send a message to the world. People are intrinsically looking for God, and with the pictures in the magazine this will make their day. Bad pictures are repressed-still they search, but good images are saved. Good images and material are not available any more. So, this will succeed-no doubt. Study this someone or a team. Money-God will get it. A value system in reporting of truth and honor and integrity. Reporters and Journalists will compete to work in an environment of healthy normalcy. Later, branch out like they have.
Take something bad and make it good. Always works too. What do you have to lose. Put them out of business-the American way-compete!
June 6, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I love how they place the word “natural” in natural family planning in quotes. As if there was something “unnatural” about it… like say a pill or something.
June 6, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Something like “So-called partian birth abortion”, or “family values.”
They use quotation marks as a way to question or even mock. It’s so clear. It’s a subtle form of editorializing.
June 6, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Obviously, the problem with the philipinos is that they’re BROWN people who are reproducing!
PJ O’Rourke has a great chapter in “All the Trouble in the World” where he investigates overpopulation and finds that…the most “overpopulated” areas in the world have the same population density and birthrate as some town in California….. and the difference all comes down to how open the economy is and how easy it is to find work and start new businesses…..
He also comes to the realization that all the population control freaks are just racists in disguise…..
Well worth the read, since he makes it FUNNY, too……
June 6, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I read it, Dierdre. I totally agree with you on the racism of it all. I actually thought about including that aspect of it in the post but I thought it would’ve muddied the waters too much. But thank goodness for perceptive commenters like yourself.
BTW, that book you referenced blew me away when I read it.
June 7, 2008 at 12:46 am
Seriously revolting article, but I think you have a slight error in your post. A population growth rate of 2.3% is not the same as a birth rate of 2.3 children/woman.
If the Philippines have an economic growth rate below 2.3%, it is clearly a problem with the government. I think that worldwide economic growth rates are above 3%, with much of Asia at double that rate or more.
June 7, 2008 at 1:16 am
Actually, their economic growth is very good. 7 percent according to the statistics I could find. Now they’re starting at a very low position but they’re definitely improving.
June 7, 2008 at 1:23 am
According to the United Nations, their pop. growth rate is 1.7. So if the economic figures are right then this whole thing is blown out of proportion by the liberal media.
June 7, 2008 at 2:02 am
I am from the Philippines. Contraceptives are not actually “banned” in Manila, they are not just given free at public health centers as a policy. In Quezon City where I live (about 10 Kms from Manila) there is a different local policy, contraceptives are actually promoted by the local government. Anyway, condoms get be freely bought anywhere, even in Manila, where it costs about 5 Pesos each (1 US dollar = 42 pesos). Manila just doesn’t subsidize them. But the national government has many programs for the poor, like subsidizing rice which can be bought at half the commercial price by the poor. The government has meager resources and tries as much to look at basic services. Now, between subsidizing rice and condoms…
June 7, 2008 at 2:37 am
It’s no contest, right? Condoms! (How much you wanna bet that’s how the U.N. would answer?)
June 7, 2008 at 4:56 am
For clarity’s sake.
Fertility Rate (Births per woman) 2.2 – 2.3 is considered stasis.
Population Growth is, well simply, population growth.
Current figures show the Phillipines with a fertility rate of 3.0 which is slightly above stasis, but not dramatically.
The Philippines has an actual population growth of 1.7%.
Either way, it doesn’t change the picture much.
June 7, 2008 at 5:51 pm
If economic growth is 7%, then things should be improving for all the people. A population growth rate of 1.7% would allow for economic improvement of the general population. If there is not a significant improvement in the lives of the common persons, as opposed to the elite, then this is clearly an issue of corruption in the government–a lack of desire for the common good. Time Mag is obviously full of, well, crap. (nicest word I can use-sorry)
And, yes, Patrick that was my point. Birth rate does not equal population growth, not that it matters in this case.
June 9, 2008 at 4:20 am
Margaret Sanger would be proud of the editors at TIME. But as G.K. Chesterton said, “Fortunately, those of us who don’t believe in contraception will soon outnumber those who do.”
June 9, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Tertium Quid wrote,
But as G.K. Chesterton said, “Fortunately, those of us who don’t believe in contraception will soon outnumber those who do.”
Yes, that would be a great blessing if Catholics didn’t believe in contraception, but as a practical matter we do. The Muslims, however, do not. In other words, in this area, the Muslims are more Catholic than most Catholics.
The reason for this is that we are plugged into the same propaganda outlets as everyone else. In other words, we have to contracept and abort the main stream mass media if we wish to populate the world with more Catholics. Throwing Time magazine and especially television in the trash is emphatically a pro-life step.
November 16, 2008 at 4:08 am
You Catholics are so brainwashed and stupid, and that is the reason why people are starving, dying and killing each other. When you say:The country’s population is growing at a rate of about 2.3% per year. Shhh. But that happens to be just about the same as the United States and you know how awful it is over here. 2.2 is demographic stasis. That’s your bare bones replacement rate.
You are confusing GROWTH rate with birth rate !! At 2.3% growth number of people DOUBLES in less than30 Years !!! and that is NOT a ‘demographic statis”, but an idiotic and unsustainable GROWTH !
November 16, 2008 at 4:24 am
Do you “birth promoters” know what the number of 6,700 million people means ? And that this number is increasing by over 60 million each YEAR !! The first number is greater
than TWENTY populations of North America – and second number is TWICE larger than the population of
Canada !!! And you STILL promote further increase in human numbers ?? WHY ??? – So that they can STARVE like in Haiti ?? Or slaughter each others like in Rwanda and other overcrowded regions of the Earth ?? Muslims and Catholics are RUINING the life
on Earth for the sake of some kind
of IDIOTIC idea about “life after
you die” – and go to some kind of a fictitious place “…in heaven.”
Only a brainwashed child could hold such irrational thoughts.