What's wrong with HB 3773? A LOT!!! (New Online Petitions added!)

[mannyamador]

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UN commission drops abortion language in report on status of women
by Samantha Singson for the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
http://cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=43041

Mar. 17 (C-fam.org/CWNews.com) -- A UN commission has dropped language from a report on the status of women,
the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-Fam) reports.

As the 50th session of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) met for its closing ceremony last Friday,
delegates were uncertain whether a set of "Agreed Conclusions" would be adopted. Negotiations went down to the
wire as delegates struggled to come to consensus on the contentious health section of the draft text.

The original draft of the "Agreed Conclusions'" section on women's health focused almost solely on "sexual and
reproductive health services and rights." As the Friday Fax has reported in the past, pro-abortion advocates have tried
to establish a so-called international human right to abortion on demand using this terminology.

The European Union, joined by Turkey, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway, fought to keep the focus on sexual and
reproductive health by referencing the reported 500,000 maternal deaths every year.

As negotiations wore on, many states expressed mounting frustration at the narrow focus on the sexual and
reproductive health of women. Costa Rica, Egypt, the United States, Pakistan, El Salvador, Nigeria, Syria, and Sudan
were among those countries calling for the Commission to address women's health in a more comprehensive way,
bearing in mind the myriad of health concerns faced by women throughout the course of their lives. Much to the
consternation of delegates, the draft "Agreed Conclusions" contained no references to the top causes of death of
women in the developing world, namely malaria and tuberculosis.

The NGO Pro-Life and Pro-Family Coalition presented statistics on the major causes of death of women and girls that
were released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2002's World Health Report. The Report attributed only
1.9% of women's deaths on maternal conditions. As stated in a fact sheet distributed to UN delegates by members of
the pro-life and pro-family coalition, fully 89% of deaths of women and girls are attributable to causes unrelated to
sexual and reproductive health.

The fact sheet caused an immediate stir among negotiators, forcing states to begin discussion on the other health
care needs of women. At the end of the conference, consensus was finally reached on the "Agreed Conclusions" and
the resulting health paragraph looked nothing like the original draft. In the end, reproductive health language was
largely muted in the document, while a broader understanding of the health needs of women was included.

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Australia's Future
By Joseph A. D'Agostino

Australia recently took two important steps that may greatly influence her long-term future. One was the vote of her parliament last month to
legalize RU-486, the human pesticide. The other is the stepped-up campaign by Prime Minister John Howard's government against
multiculturalism.

During an event meant to highlight opposition to RU-486, pro-life Danna Vale, a Member of Parliament and of Howard's Liberal Party, spoke of the
growing threat to Australia posed by abortion and Muslims. "I've actually read in the Daily Telegraph, where a certain imam from the Lakemba mosque
actually said that Australia's going to be a Muslim nation in 50 years' time," she said. "I didn't believe him at the time, but you know, when
you actually look at the birthrates and you look at the fact that we are aborting ourselves almost out of existence by 100,000 abortions every
year, and that's on a guesstimate, you multiply that by 50 years. That's five million potential Australians we won't have here."

Vale's comment generated the usual politically correct denunciations, and she herself later admitted that she had been "clumsy." "I was not
speaking racially, despite the criticisms I have received from those sections of the media that act more like a fifth column rather than our
fourth estate," she wrote in an op-ed for The Age, February 25. "I was speaking demographically, even if, as I have already acknowledged, in a
regrettably clumsy way. The focus of my concern was the disturbing fact that there are an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 abortions in Australia each
year, a fact that does worry a majority of thinking Australians. A survey conducted by the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute found that 64% of
Australians think the abortion rate is too high and 87% think it should be reduced."

Vale said that she was not criticizing Muslims' relatively high fertility rates. "Muslim Australians value their children," she wrote. "It is
non-Muslim Australians who are not having enough children, a point well made by the Herald last week, which cited figures that exposed a fertility
fault-line in Sydney from Cronulla to Castle Hill. The area west of that fault-line, south-western Sydney, has fertility rates more than double
those in other areas. Last year around budget time, Treasurer Peter Costello encouraged Australian mothers to 'have one for yourself, one for
your husband and one for Australia.' Sound advice."

Vale practices what she preaches. "Danna's first two babies were born after very difficult pregnancies and when she became pregnant with her
fourth child in the early 1970s, her third baby was only four months old," says Gail Instance, Director of Family Life International-Australia. "Her
obstetrician advised an abortion, which she refused. She told us that her decision then has been reaffirmed every day as she looks into the eyes of
her youngest son."

It seems that the imam's prediction is actually unlikely for Australia, whose immigrants-unlike those into many European nations-are mostly
non-Muslim. And though the Muslim birthrate in Australia is at least 2.7 children per woman, far higher than the country average of 1.7, Muslims
make up only 1.5% to 3% of the population. Most of Australia's immigrants currently come from China and other non-Muslim nations. Yet if
immigration patterns change, the imam could turn out to be right. And certainly, barring major policy changes, Australia's Muslim population is
going to become much larger and much more influential over the next few decades.

Why might immigration patterns change, making a Muslim Australia a real possibility? Because non-Muslim Third World populations, especially in
China and other such Asian nations, now have low birthrates. Muslim countries have relatively high ones. Replacement rate is 2.1. Take two
large, poor Muslim nations in Australia's region: Malaysia, 2.6; and Indonesia, 2.2. These aren't high birthrates, but at least they are above
replacement-and thus these countries could become major sources of immigrants for Australia, whose native-born people have so few kids that
immigration is necessary to keep the economy going.

Regardless of how Islamic Australia becomes, high rates of immigration, low birthrates among the the native population, and the anti-assimilation
multiculturalist ethos are changing the country's character. Those who value Australia's Western, English, ordered, and Christian-influenced
culture should be concerned. Unfortunately, Australians aren't concerned enough to produce their future generations. Howard and many other
members of the Australian government want to reduce abortion and rescue marriage, and yet couldn't prevent parliament from legalizing dangerous
RU-486, which is ten times more likely to kill the aborting mother than surgical abortion. That's a sign of hard-set pro-abortion feeling controlling the
people's representatives, and at a time when Australia needs many more children.

That's why Howard and pro-life Health Minister Tony Abbott announced March 6 a plan to provide $51 million over four years for abortion alternatives
counseling, including a 24-hour helpline. "The government does not support changing the abortion law nor does it support restricting Medicare
funding for abortion," they said in a joint press release. "Nevertheless, the government wants to give more support to women who are or have been
uncertain about continuing a pregnancy." Counseling will be given by those with no financial connection to abortion, and women can request to
get more information from organizations of their choice.

"Our birthrate is below replacement and common sense tells us that we are committing national suicide," says Instance. "Bob Santamaria said years
ago that we had better make up our minds who we want to give this country to since we don't seem to want it."

"While I respect Muslim support for pro-family and pro-marriage policies, especially at the UN, the negative side is that they also agree with
polygamy, even in relatively moderate countries such as Malaysia and the Gulf Emirates," says Babette Francis, head of the anti-feminist Endeavour
Forum. "There is no doubt that the disciplined orthodoxy of Islam, prayers five times a day, clear strictures in regard to behavior, etc.,
are appealing to those who feel adrift in mainline Protestant churches, and to those who are 'unchurched.'" Francis considers Islam to be a
potentially serious threat. "The crucial problem is that we cannot rely on the division of Muslims into moderate good ones and terrorists," she
says. "There are devastating flaws in the religion of Islam itself and it will always be prone to terrorism and similar evils in a way that
Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are not."

Howard and Costello have announced that multiculturalism has got to go. Howard said that immigrants who do not "fit in" should not come to
Australia, and Costello wants testing on cultural values before immigrants are allowed to stay in the country. In the meantime, radical Muslims in
Australia are calling for jihad against their adopted nation's own troops. Reported The Australian today, "'The Australian Government is part of a
coalition that is inflicting untold horrors upon the Muslim world whether in Iraq or Afghanistan,' the radical group's spokesman, Wassim Doureihi,
told The Australian yesterday. 'There are bombs being dropped and there are children being killed and there are entire cities being uprooted.'"
His group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, has praised suicide bombers and the like.

The simple fact is, any country with a sizeable Muslim population these days is likely to have problems with terrorists, murderers, and
insurrectionists, not to mention polygamists and anti-Semites. No amount of politically correct platitudination can change that.

An increasing proportion of children being born worldwide are Muslim. So what does that mean for the future? Australia has decided to legalize
the abortion pill while Muslims are against abortion. What does that indicate about the future character of the Australian nation?

Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the
Population Research Institute.

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March 25 is Day of the Unborn!
http://www.prolife.org.ph/article/articleview/623/1/91/

A baby in his mother’s womb is a picture of complete tranquility. And why wouldn’t he be perfectly calm?
Everything he needs is provided to him, right there inside his home for nine months -- food, sleep, a warm
place to live, and natural protective devices in the womb to allow for bouncing around when he gets
restless. The mother’s womb is indeed a haven, created with all the conditions that enable the woman to
nurture the growing life inside her.


24 Weeks

But what used to be the safest and most secure place around has been a site of violence in recent years,
putting in serious danger not only unborn children but pregnant women as well.


20 Weeks

“The more information given to women about the fetal state—when we are residents in the womb -- the
better. As the Chinese say, a picture is worth a thousand words—and if you’re a rational person, seeing what
happens in the womb could put a dent on your enthusiasm to destroy,” said Dr. Bernard Nathanson, an
outspoken pro-life advocate, during his 2002 Philippine visit. Nathanson presided over tens of thousands of
abortions before he realized that even unborn children deserved protection from violence. Read more about
him here


6 Weeks

The Day of the Unborn, instituted in 2004 through Presidential Proclamation 586, brings into focus they who
need protection, just like any other human being does. Unborn children can’t speak for themselves so it’s up to
us to speak for them. It’s up to us to promote caring for life from the moment of conception!

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Population Control: NSSM 200 -- Exposed!
Kissinger Report - 2004

OVERVIEW

On December 10, 1974, the United States National Security Council promulgated National Security Study Memorandum 200
(NSSM-200), also called The Kissinger Report. This document explicitly laid out a detailed strategy by which the United
States would aggressively promote population control in developing nations in order to regulate (or have better access to)
the natural resources of these countries.

In order to protect U.S. commercial interests, NSSM-200 cited a number of factors that could interrupt the smooth flow of
materials from lesser-developed countries, LDCs as it called them, to the United States, including a large population of
anti-imperialist youth, who must, according to NSSM-200, be limited by population control. The document identified 13
nations by name that would be primary targets of U.S.-funded population control efforts.

According to NSSM-200, elements of the implementation of population control programs could include: a) the legalization
of abortion; b) financial incentives for countries to increase their abortion, sterilization and contraception-use rates;
c) indoctrination of children; and d) mandatory population control, and coercion of other forms, such as withholding disaster
and food aid unless an LDC implements population control programs.

NSSM-200 also specifically declared that the United States was to cover up its population control activities and avoid
charges of imperialism by inducing the United Nations and various non-governmental organizations to do its dirty work.

While the CIA and Departments of State and Defense have issued hundreds of papers on population control and national
security, the U.S. government has never renounced NSSM-200, but has only amended certain portions of its policy.
NSSM-200, therefore, remains the foundational document on population control issued by the United States government.

NSSM-200’s strategies have resulted in regional population growth rates decelerating so fast that they are already causing
severe economic and social problems in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. Many
developing nations are now aging even more rapidly than the developed world, which foretells of even more severe
problems for their relatively underdeveloped economies.

Over the past 40 years there has been much disagreement over whether or not population control programs are necessary
for those nations with the most rapidly growing populations. There can be no disagreement now, however, except among
those organizations whose incomes depend upon such programs.

From the very beginning, the “population explosion” concept was an ideologically motivated false alarm. The resulting push
for population control in LDCs has borne absolutely no positive fruit in its decades of implementation. In fact, population
control ideologies and programs make it even more difficult to respond to the impending grave crisis looming in the form of
a disastrous worldwide “population implosion.”

Therefore, on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the promulgation of NSSM-200, Human Life International calls on the
Bush administration to repudiate this document, which advocates violating the most precious freedoms and autonomy of
the individual through coercive family planning programs, and to redirect its foreign policy and funding towards family-friendly
programs.

The citizens of the developed nations of the West treasure their right to privacy. It is hypocritical for these countries to
routinely violate the right to privacy of the citizens of LDCs by telling families how many children they should or should not
have. No nation has the right to invade the bedrooms of the citizens of another nation. NSSM-200 represents the epitome of
interference in a family’s most intimate decisions.

KISSINGER REPORT 2004

NSSM-200 does not emphasize the rights or welfare of individuals or of nations, just the “right” of the United States to have
unfettered access to the natural resources of developing nations. The United States and the other nations of the developed
world, as well as ideologically motivated population control NGOs, should be supporting and guiding authentic economic
development that allows the people of each nation to use their resources for their own benefit, thereby leading to an
enhancement of human rights worldwide and healthier economies for all.

Click below for complete version: Kissinger Report 2004: A Retrospective on NSSM (PDF)
http://www.hli.org/nssm_200-kissinger_report.pdf

Click below for official HLI Statements
http://www.hli.org/nssm_statements.html

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As Terri Schiavo Remembered, Pro-Life Group Urges Protective Measures
http://www.lifenews.com/bio1416.html


by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 28, 2006

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- As millions of Americans mourn Terri Schiavo's euthanasia death on its
one-year anniversary Friday, a pro-life is urging people to complete a pro-life version of an advanced directive
in order to prevent becoming the next person sentenced to death by the courts or family members.

"Terri's death was a gross injustice that marked a sad day in our history when our society allowed Terri, a
woman with a severe disability, to be discarded in such a cruel and inhumane manner," says Burke Balch,
the director of medical ethics for the National Right to Life Committee.

Balch said his group wants Americans to do two things to make a difference: complete a Will to Live form
from NRLC and contact your state legislators and urge laws to protect disabled people.

The Will to Live form allows patients to clearly express the kinds of treatment they want should they be
unable to make their own health care decisions down the road.

Balch says the form is vitally important because an NRLC study shows the laws of all but ten states may
allow doctors and hospitals to disregard advance directives when the directives call for treatment, food, or
fluids. The form is designed to make it clear that a patient wants food and fluids continued.

Following Terri Schiavo's death, many groups and the media have focused on urging Americans to complete
living will forms. However, NRLC reports that, increasingly, health care providers who consider a patient's
"quality of life" too low are defying these directives in order to deny treatment against patient and family
wishes.

"We believe most Americans will be frightened to learn that four-fifths of the states do not clearly protect
their right to choose food, fluids, or life-preserving medical treatment," explains Dorothy Timbs, legislative
counsel for NRLC's medical ethics center.

"Americans should fill out an advance directive like the Will to Live available on NRLC's website to make clear
your wish not to be denied food or treatment clear," Timbs added. "However, it is equally important to work
for legal reform so that your choice for life will be honored."

Related web sites:
NRLC Will to Live - http://www.nrlc.org/euthanasia/willtolive/index.html

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Facing the Facts of Europe’s Suicide
By Joseph A. D’Agostino

Will the Muslims inherit Western Europe? “If [Western people] don’t do something, probably,” replies Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse,
Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. “That’s a very probable outcome. The
West doesn’t believe in itself.”

After decades of overpopulation hysteria, the realization has firmly dawned on almost everyone paying attention that global
birthrates have fallen fast and far, and that Western European nations’ are suicidally lower than replacement level -- though their
increasingly radical Muslim immigrants’ fertility is high. It hasn’t dawned on quite everyone, or perhaps British diplomats don’t pay
attention to such matters, since the UK’s ambassador to the Holy See dismissed demographic concerns at a recent conference on
the family and Centesimus Annus sponsored in Rome by the Acton Institute. Possibly heralding a new emphasis on the issue,
Alfonso Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, President of the Pontifical Council on the Family and keynote speaker at the conference,
admonished Amb. Francis Campbell about collapsed European birthrates when the latter said that birthrates are cyclical, and that
therefore there is nothing to worry about.

Cardinal Trujillo has spoken about Europe’s fertility decline before, but it is rare for a Vatican cardinal to intervene so firmly at a
public event like Acton’s “The Family in the New Economy: Reflections on the Margins on Centesimus Annus,” held January 21 at
the North American College. Trujillo is thought to be especially close to Pope Benedict XVI, who intends to make the meta-problem
of modern Europe’s rootlessness and self-destruction a central theme of his papacy.

Morse gave a presentation on Europeans’ low fertility. The estimated total fertility rate, i.e. the average number of children born
per woman over the course of her lifetime, in 2005 of the European Union was 1.5, well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Morse suggested a link between Europe’s rapid trend toward fewer and illegitimate births to family-replacing social welfare states.
After she spoke, Morse said in an interview, “Amb. Campbell got up and addressed his remarks primarily to me.” Campbell argued
that neither the welfare state nor low birthrates were problems in the United Kingdom. “I didn’t want to fight,” said Morse, but
“Cardinal Trujillo hopped in. He said we’ve been tracking these demographic trends for a long time.” Trujillo said that Europeans’
low birthrates were a genuine and severe problem.

The reaction of leftists, ever intent on their bizarre fantasies instead of reality, was typical. The lefty “Catholic” British magazine
The Tablet called Trujillo “the way backwards” for agreeing with Morse on Europe’s “alleged population crisis.”

“There’s nothing progressive about ignoring population decline,” said Morse. “Western Europe’s birthrates are what demographers
call not just low, but very low. I don’t know how you can deny there’s a problem.” As Morse noted, there is no serious
disagreement on the fertility numbers among demographic experts. “One thing the ambassador said is that we have seen
population fluctuations before, and we’ve bounced back,” she said. “This is different. Previous population declines were caused by
increases in the death rate, such as during the Black Death. This is voluntary extinction.” And it shows no signs of reversing itself
for now.

Morse reported that Trujillo argued against the contemporary individualistic conception of society, instead saying that the family
needed social recognition as a unit. He noted that psychologists believe that a child first becomes aware of his own separate
existence only through a relationship, the one with his mother. Perhaps, he suggested, it would be more accurate to say, instead of
“I think, therefore I am,” that “I am loved, therefore I am.”

It’s a bit of a puzzle why the lowest birthrates in the world outside of Japan are to be found among the traditionally Catholic peoples
of Italy, Spain, and France (France’s relatively high birthrate of 1.7 is due to her very large Muslim population). Morse offered a
possible hypothesis. “Catholic women are much less willing to become unmarried mothers, to do the Swedish thing of having the state
as the father,” she said.

In a January 25 article “A Catholic Alternative to Europe’s Social Model,” Morse wrote, “Although some aspects of the Western
European model originally claimed Christian inspiration and objective, it is now clear that the modern Western European welfare-state
is collapsing. And while many modern countries share some of the problems loosely categorized under the ‘European social model,’ it
is Europe that most desperately needs a genuinely Catholic alternative.” One example of the statist European model problems: “The
European social model provides high wages and excellent benefits--for the few who have jobs. The system excludes those who are
not skilled enough to be economically productive. But everyone begins their lives being not very economically productive. In practice,
this means that the young are kept out of the labor market precisely at the time they are most biologically suited to begin forming
families.”

John Allen, the Rome reporter for the National Catholic Reporter, attended the Acton conference and took note of what Trujillo had
to say. “We are realizing the worst prophecies of aging and demographic implosion, and European politicians are seeing this with alarm,”
Trujillo said according to Allen. “The myth of over-population has collapsed.”

Asked why Muslims have such drive and energy while Westerners don’t, Morse said, “Secularism is a compromise, and no one wants to
die for a compromise.” Or have enough children to keep their compromised civilization going. Cardinal Trujillo, at least, seems to
understand this.

Joseph A. D'Agostino is Vice President for Communications at the Population Research Institute.

_________________________________________________
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Media Contact: Joseph A. D'Agostino
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[mannyamador]

The Truth About Oral Contraceptives

Despite documented cases of contraceptive drugs leading to serious medical complications, and even a WHO
warning issued last year that oral contraceptives -- especially when combined -- are carcinogenic, women
continue to risk their health and pop the pill.

The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) has distributed some 11 million cycles of birth control pills per
year nationwide for the past 30 years, until sometime in 2004 when the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) started its gradual pull-out as a donor of the drugs. According to the Procurement
and Logistics Services of the DOH, the supply of oral contraceptives (OCs) from USAID will keep coming
only until the end of 2006.

It’s probably safe to assume that majority of those who consume these 11 million cycles plus the ones
who get their supply from private hospitals, clinics and pharmacies are aware of the side effects. After all,
it has long been established that besides abnormal bleeding, serious side effects of OCs include high blood
pressure, blood clots, heart attacks, migraine headaches, bone loss, and menstrual problems after ending
use of the drug. It is also no coincidence that women who have been on the Pill for years are finding
they are infertile when they want children. This side effect is connected to the rapid aging of the cervix
caused by this drug, which can lead to infertility.

Many, however, don’t know that in July of last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) through its
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) issued a warning that stated the increased risk of
breast, cervix and liver cancer that results from the use of OC (www.iarc.fr).

Pills and chemical abortion

But what majority of Filipinos seem to be unaware of is the abortive property of birth control pills. In
other words, OCs not only alter the ovulation process; these are also designed to hinder implantation in
the event that fertilization takes place.

Based on the research findings of birth control pill manufacturers taken up in The Physician’s Desk Reference,
the Pill has three mechanisms:

• inhibits ovulation
• thickens cervical mucus, thereby hampering the movement of sperm towards the egg
• thins out the uterine wall (endometrium), thereby rendering it unable to facilitate implantation of the fertilized egg

The first two mechanisms are contraceptive. The third is abortive.

When a woman taking the Pill discovers she is pregnant, it means that all three mechanisms
have failed. The third mechanism sometimes fails in its role as backup, just as the first and
second mechanisms sometimes fail. Each time the third mechanism succeeds, however, it
causes an abortion. And this is entirely different from the case of a spontaneous abortion
(“miscarriage” in layman’s terms)

Hence, the damaging physical effects of birth control pills don’t stop at the women who use
them. These drugs also have an abortive component, bringing about the death of unborn babies
in the earliest stages. Sad to say, not even the mother would know it when it happens.

_________________________________________________
(** The Physician's Desk Reference is the most frequently used reference book by physicians in
America. It lists and explains the effects, benefits, and risks of every medical product that can
be legally prescribed. The Food and Drug Administration requires that each manufacturer provide
accurate information on its products, based on scientific research and laboratory tests.)

More information at:
Physicians for Life

[mannyamador]

The above information should be enough to get all such abortifacient contraceptives banned from the Philippines. The Philippine Constitution EXPLICITLY recognizes that human life begins at CONCEPTION, and recognizes that it must be protcted.

[mannyamador]

South Korea Government to Spend $20 Billion to Combat Underpopulation
by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor
April 4, 2006
http://www.lifenews.com/nat2187.html

Seoul, South Korea (LifeNews.com) -- Because of legalized abortion and the revocation of maternity benefits to women
who have a third child South Korea is facing a severe underpopulation problem and will soon spend $20 billion to combat it.

Fearing overpopulation problems similar to China's and not wanting to dampen economic prosperity, South Korea 40 years
ago began encouraging couples to limit their number of children to two.

The nation legalized abortion in 1973 and, in 1984, ended maternity benefits for women having a third child.

Now, South Korea has the lowest birth rate of any of the OECD members and is having problems sustaining its economic
growth. It also faces the prospect of an aging population and not having enough younger Koreans in the workforce to
support them.

National Statistical Office figures show the number of births dropped to 476,000 last year from 1 million in 1970. The nation
has the world's fastest aging population, the office said.

The Korea Economic Institute in Washington says the current problems are the result of the population policies South
Korea put into effect long ago.

The $20 billion will go towards paying for kindergarten costs for all children and additional financial help for families with
three or more children, according to a Bloomberg report.

Some $6 billion will be used to pay for more day care centers while $680 million will go towards helping infertile couples
conceive.

Bloomberg reports the country wants to increase the number of births to 1.6 per woman by 2010. The country is also
considering changes to the nation's tax structure to make it more affordable to have a larger family and to help
businesses help large families.
_________________________________________________
Alternative Information and Opinion at:

[mannyamador]

Japan posts year-to-year population decline for first time last year
http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/nation...na001000c.html

Japan's population shrank in the year through November 2005 -- the first annual decrease on record, the health and
welfare ministry said Friday, confirming an earlier government prediction.

The country's population fell by 8,340 from December 2004 to November 2005, marking the first yearly decline since
the government began compiling data in 1899, the ministry said in a statement. However, it added that data for
1944-1946 was missing.

The government had said Japan's population of 127 million began to fall for the first time on record last year, fanning
worries that future generations of workers won't generate enough tax revenue to support the growing legions of
elderly.

At the center of the population debate is the question of how to encourage women to have more babies. Japan's
average birth rate of 1.29 babies per woman is one of the lowest in the world.

On Friday, the ministry's data also showed that the number of births in the first 11 months of 2005 totaled 971,291,
down 43,331, or 4.3 percent, from a year earlier. The number of deaths totaled 979,827 during the same period,
up 47,136, or 5.1 percent, the ministry said.

The ministry had earlier predicted that Japan's population declined in 2005.

In an attempt to encourage women to have more babies, the government began a five-year project last year to
build more daycare centers, while encouraging men to take paternity leave.

Yet Japanese companies typically expect long hours from workers, and many women with careers feel they cannot
meet the demands of both work and family and must choose one or the other.

Other factors include expensive housing and education costs. (AP)