Only the United Nations could have such perverse logic. Upon seeing poor people and illiterate people, the UN doesn’t think to try to wipe out poverty or illiteracy. They think that if they just get rid of people, there won’t be people to be illiterate or poor.

I’m actually not kidding. That’s what they think.

Rebecca Marchinda writes atThe Corner:

Monday was World Population Day, and in order to mark the occasion, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has launched a new campaign, 7 Billion Actions. (Come this October, world population is slated to reach the 7 billion mark.) A recently released UNFPA video highlights that 1.2 billion people are living in poverty, 1 billion adults are illiterate, and most of these are women and children.

The video ends with a new slogan: “New Numbers. Old Patterns. Change Them.” While this is certainly a noble motto for a campaign, the corrective solutions that the UNFPA proposes are a mixed bag of old habits that not only violate the dignity of the human person but will once again prove ineffective.

What are the “old patterns” the slogan refers to? We have to assume, when it’s the UNFPA running a campaign, that they’re referring to the apparent large number of adults reproducing without restraint, thus expending what little resources communities and governments have and worsening the problem of poverty. In order to change these old patterns, the UNFPA has only one solution to offer. In his 2011 World Population Day statement, UNFPA’s newly minted executive director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, said:

[Protecting reproductive health and rights is fundamental to our collective future and sustainable development. Together we can meet the needs of some 215 million women in developing countries who want to plan and space their births but do not have access to modern contraception. Together we can prevent the deaths of 1,000 women every day from complications of pregnancy and childbirth.”

Once again, the UNFPA is turning to contraceptives as the primary solution to poverty, and indeed to achieving all the Millennium Development Goals…

By showering the bottom billion with contraceptives as the solution to education and poverty, Dr. Osotimehim and UNFA reduce women to their mere biological functions while ignoring their cultural needs and environments. In an essay entitled “Desired Fertility and the Impact of Population Policies,” Harvard professor Lant Pritchett concludes that “there is statistically no significant effect of contraceptive prevalence on fertility rates.” Despite decades of research, and the fact that the evidence does not demonstrate any economic-development gains related to the provision of modern contraceptives, billions of dollars continue to be poured into their provision by organizations such as the UNFPA, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and individuals such as Ted Turner, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Warren Buffett. These organizations and individuals, including Dr. Osotimehim, remain committed to outdated models of development that are rooted in the worst Western assumptions. Recent books such as Fatal Misconception and Unnatural Selection have outlined the reason why contraceptive-based development policies have consistently failed; such policy proposals deliver population control or management, not development…

Population-management programs categorize human beings, especially vulnerable populations, as burdens instead of essential participants in long-term economic development. The premise that fixed resources and equitable distribution require fewer individuals is not only flawed but inconsistent with human dignity. The fact remains that fewer people does not equal economic development, and population management programs look for the easiest way to get there, ignoring the real causes of economic growth: anti-corruption policies, protection of basic human rights, access to education (especially for women), and investment in infrastructure. These are indeed new numbers and old patterns, but these old patterns won’t be solved by relying on old, outdated habits.

According to the United Nations, any problem can be solved with condoms.

Poverty? Less people.
Illiteracy? Less people.
Women? Less women.
Children? Oh yes. Much less children.

Condoms are like superheroes to the United Nations. They should come with little capes. “Now caped for our pleasure.”

Note to UN: When we say we’re worried about poor people and illiterate people, maybe we should focus on wiping out the “poverty” part and the “illiterate” part as opposed to wiping out the “people” part.