Chapter 8, Part III: Every Child a Planned and Wanted Child by Whom?
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n average person may define an “unintended pregnancy†as one which the parents, married or unmarried, did not intend or plan.? However, the government has its own definition.? The Missouri Department of Health’s goals for the ‘90s, titled Healthy Missourians 2000? is taken from the federal government’s Healthy People 2000? which defines the national health objectives and measurable outcomes? to be achieved by the end of the decade.?
One such objective includes “reduc[ing] to no more than 30 percent the proportion of all pregnancies that are unintended.� Healthy Missourians 2000? defines an “unintended pregnancy†in this way:
“Note:? unintended pregnancies? are defined as all abortions plus live births and fetal deaths to females younger than 18 plus live births and fetal deaths with spacing less than 12 months for females ages 18-34, plus out-of-wedlock births to females with less than a college education.? Special target: interconceptional period less than 18 months - reduce to 10%.â€[1]
Family planning (population control) is one component of comprehensive universal health care.? States are offered federal dollars to implement federal programs.? These programs are implemented at the local level through school districts, universities, churches, parish nurse? programs, community agencies, organizations and businesses.? Those receiving federal dollars are obligated to comply with federal mandates? (strings) which these funds? are intended to implement.? Some degree of freedom and/or autonomy is sacrificed for every grant accepted.
1. Medicaid? (Title XIX).? Medicaid pays for family planning? services and supplies as well as the Early Periodic Screening Diagnostic Tests (EPSDT).? This is the hearing, vision and scoliosis screenings provided in schools.? Did you know the Missouri Medicaid? Manual states that EPSDT also includes screening (testing) for pregnancy?!
2. Title X? which is federal family planning? funds.? Recipients such as the St. Louis County Health Department (whose Teen Clinic? distributes contraceptives? to minors? without parental consent,) are obligated to follow Title X Guidelines which mandate the provision of “non-directive counseling,†and may not discriminate against age.? This means they are to refer for ALL options to an unintended pregnancy, including abortion? when asked, to all including minors.[3]?
3. Title V[4]? “In 1942 the Surgeon General issued a policy statement permitting states to include family planning? as part of their maternal-child health services and to pay for them from funds available from Title V of the Social Security Act[Maternal and Child Health and Crippled Children’s Services].? This was the sole venture of the U.S. Government in the field of family planning until the mid-1960s.
“In 1967 Congress amended the Economic Opportunity Act? to designate family planning? as a ‘special emphasis’ program, amended Title V? of the Social Security Act? to require that states earmark six percent of their Title V funds for family planning, and amended Title IV-A? of the same Act to require that states provide family planning to welfare recipients on a voluntary? basis.? Also in 1967, the Secretary of HEW designated family planning as an eligible service under Medicaid.?
“Currently, four separate federal sources provide funding for family planning? services and information domestically.? These are:? The Family Planning Services and Population Research Act? (Title X? of the Public Health Services Act,) Medicaid (Title XIX? of the Social Security Act,) the Maternal and Child Health and Crippled Children’s Service’s Act (Title V? of the Social Security Act,) and Social Services (Title XX? of the Social Security Act).[5]
“Title IV-A? of the Social Security Act? (Aid to Families with Dependent Children-AFDC) required states to ‘provide promptly’ family planning? services to AFDC? recipients, including sexually active? minors.
“Under Medicaid [Title XIX? of the Social Security Act], the federal government provides funds? to states for the reimbursement to certified providers for medical services rendered to indigent recipients.? Those states that choose to participate in the Medicaid program must provide certain generic classes of medical services to the categorically needy [generally, those people eligible under state requirements to receive welfare] and may provide these same services to the medically needy [generally, needy people (aged, blind, disabled, and families with dependent children) whose income, according to the levels established by the state, makes them ineligible to receive welfare but who cannot pay for medical care].? Under the 1972 amendments to the Social Security Act, family planning? was named a mandatory service that states must make available to all individuals of childbearing age, including sexually active? minors.â€[6]
A key element of
In 1985, the National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting, (NOAPP) wrote Inventing the Future: Alternatives to Adolescent Pregnancy.? Members of this organization include: National March of Dimes, National Urban League, Children’s Defense Fund, National School Boards Association and many others.? Inventing the Future’s? Summary Report included:
- “Contraception? immunization? for preteens (now possible with Norplant? and Depo-Provera).
- Parenthood as an avocation rather than a vocation
- Schools become community centers
- Schools operate year-round
- Male right of passage by sterilization at age 13 after depositing sperm.
- Parenting seen as a privilege and not a right.
- Teach children from the beginning that they are sexual beings.
- Teach parenting in schools K-12.
- Accepted variety of (sexual) expression and individual differences.
- A universal belief that babies should be planned and wanted.â€[9]
All children are planned, known and wanted by God. Teaching others to be responsible through examples of modesty, abstinence, commitment, fidelity and Natural Family Planning? is more dignified than mass sterilization and sexual manipulation.
Justification for family planning? (population control) programs is disguised as an attempt to prevent “babies from having babies.� Inconsistently, these same “babies†are considered mature enough to be provided contraceptive drugs without parental consent.?
Government funded universal health care will allow each of our reproductive lives to be scrutinized.? Since each child is assigned a social security number? at birth, which is also more commonly being used by schools as the student I.D. number, the government can easily track? who is having how many children and how far apart they are spaced.
Taxpayers who work hard for every dollar they earn, sacrificing in order to save for the future, have a tendency to support government sterilization of those less financially fortunate and/or sexually responsible.? Those same responsible and hard working individuals may someday be victims of their own mentality, not realizing the government’s definition of “unintended†may be imposed on them as well.
[1] Healthy Missourians 2000 Vol. II, Missouri Department of Health, pp. 5, 139.
[2] Healthy St. Louis 2000? Model Standards, Section 5-1,
[3] “Title X Guidelines,â€
[4] Healthy Missourians 2000 Vol. II, Missouri Department of Health, p.138.
[5] Stephen V. Isaacs, Population Law and Policy, New York, New York, Human Sciences Press, 1981, pp. 220, 221 (located in the St. Louis University Law Library).
[6] Ibid., p. 224.
[7] “Key Elements of
[8] Reproductive Health Education Program 1993-94 Training Manual used in a
[9] “Inventing the Future: Alternatives to Adolescent Pregnancy a Summary Report,” Mar. 1985, National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenting (NOAPP), pp. 7, 8, 23, 31, 33, 52.