Lying for a Cause (part 2)

Cherry pciking image from http://outofthestormnews.com/2010/07/22/louisiana-continues-to-improve-punts-cherry-picking-restrictions/The article “Lying for a Cause” generated a response from the creator of the anti-RH video, the core paragraphs of which are as follows:

In the said article, they accused us of purposely lying because in the video was a picture of a small kid being vaccinated. The video subtitle said it was sterilization and they point out that the picture was taken from another article regarding swine flu (?) and they go on ranting about this mistake, and how sterilizations are about vasectomy and ligations. They therefore concluded that we lied.

First of all, it is a given that I used pictures from all over the internet. Is this how Freethinkers are supposed to think? Cherry-pick on a small issue that is virtually a non-issue? That’s just shows the intellectual void between your ears. By focusing on that small point, they missed the larger point of the video. You miss the forest for the trees. But hey, let’s not stop them from doing their thing. They’re freethinkers after all. That is how they think.

Lastly, the article pointed out vasectomies and ligations as ways of sterilizations. Haven’t they heard of vaccines that were deliberately sterilized people? Try visiting this and read up: http://www.whale.to/m/sterile.html

Anti-RH groups have consistently hammered on artificial contraception as their main issue against reproductive health. Female sterilization is the most popular method of artificial contraception worldwide (20% use) and ranks second here in the Philippines (10% use). Opponents of RH should know what they are opposing. Sterilization, tubal ligation and vasectomy are not esoteric procedures. If the video’s creator thinks that not knowing what he is opposing is “virtually a non-issue”, I do hope responsible members of his group will tell him otherwise.

Besides the cherry-picking defense, the video’s creator came up with a bolder counterpoint: that there are vaccines that deliberately sterilize people. This claim is dangerous to infants and mothers and deserves a longer response.

First let’s tackle the source. Whale.to is a conspiracy theory site. It gave rise to Scopie’s Law which states: “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the room.” Others have written extensively on the website which you can read here and here, or you can simply browse www.whale.to and judge for yourself the general credibility of the site. This article’s point is more on the anti-RH video, specifically these two contradictory claims:

Anti-RH video says: “In 1916, Margaret Sanger formed Planned Parenthood. She believed in racial purity and targeted Black People. Adolf Hitler eventually adopted Sanger’s Eugenics… and killed more than 4 million Jews.”

Whale.to says: “There isn’t any evidence for homicidal gas chambers, only gas shelters or disinfection chambers to kill lice that spread Typhus (hence the use of Zyklon B), a major cause of death at the time and the reason for all the bodies seen in the mass graves at Belsen, that were used to convince people of Nazi ‘death camps.’ The gas chamber myth can easily be seen in the absurdity of the morgues that are passed off as gas chambers at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, and in the actual mechanics of using gas to kill humans (see Mechanics of Gassing Gas chambers). There also isn’t any written evidence for a policy of genocide known as the ‘Final Solution’.”

If the video’s creator thinks whale.to is credible enough to support his bold claim on vaccines that sterilize people, will he also believe the site’s extensive denial of Nazi death camps and drop his Sanger-Hitler-genocide argument? Or will he just admit his mistake on the sterilization-vaccination link? (Before answering, he may also want to examine first articles in the site that touch on Catholicism such as this one The Homosexual Colonization of The Catholic Church and this page Popes.)


This photo was used in the anti-RH video with the caption “…and killed more than 4 million Jews.” On the other hand, whale.to claims in the photo caption that these are victims of typhus and starvation.


Caption of the anti-RH video: “The rest of the world have adopted an RH bill in one form or another. These countries eventually embraced abortion and the culture of death.” At the whale.to site where this photo is also posted, the topmost part of the page says: “Belsen photographs … Typhus victims were stripped after death in order to burn the clothing and destroy the typhus-bearing lice.”


Now on to the video’s message that contraception leads to genocide or is genocide. One test of this claim is to look at the Jewish people—the victims of Hitler’s genocide—and their current handling of contraception.

Genocide is punishable with death in Israel. Similar to the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Israel defines the crime as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious (hereinafter referred to as ‘group’), as such:

(1)   killing members of the group;

(2)   causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(3)   inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part;

(4)   imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(5)   forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Yet, despite Act number 4 above being defined as genocide, contraception is legal and practiced in Israel, with 30% using IUDs, 13% pills, 4% condoms and 5% other modern methods. The key word in Act number 4 is “imposing”—making people use birth control against their will. Contraception based on free choice is legal and accepted.

Another test of the contraception-leads-to-genocide claim is to look at disparities in the use of modern methods in the Philippines. If less powerful groups are being targeted for destruction through contraception as part of a eugenics agenda, then we should see higher rates of contraceptive use among these groups. But the opposite trend is quite apparent—more powerful groups use more contraceptives (see table below). Instead of evidence of genocide, what we have are signs that marginalized people do not have equitable access to contraception.

Percentage Current Use of Modern Contraceptives
Richest region (NCR) – 32% Poorest region (ARMM) – 10%
With college education – 36% With no education – 9%
Highest wealth quintile – 33% Lowest wealth quintile – 26%
Highest wealth quintile
using female sterilization – 12%
Lowest wealth quintile
using female sterilization – 4%
Source: 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey, p. 56

 

Forcible sex is rape. Forcing others to follow your sexual practices violates a host of civil rights. Sex between consenting adults is accepted by society. Similar norms are applicable to contraception. Imposing birth control is genocide. Imposing Vatican-approved methods—as was done in Manila by ex-mayor Lito Atienza of Pro-Life Philippinesis a violation of human rights. The freedom to choose a family planning method and government services to realize the choice is a fine policy, and is at the core of the current Reproductive Health bill.

(Next: Erroneous claims on vaccines and abortion/sterilization and the deadly consequences for infants and women)

34 comments

    • Just read your article–nice and concise. RH bill authors have decided to make changes in response to criticisms from the other side; see here http://www.likhaan.org/content/15th-congress-auth… Specifically, the whole Ideal Family Size section and the Malicious Disinformation provision mentioned in your article will be removed, proving once more that RH advocates are reasonable and flexible.

        • There will be an opt-out provision. This means the default mode is to get the education, unless the parent opts out. (I think there should be a commensurate responsibility for parents who will do this to take over sex-ed). This opt-out provision is similar to the law on teaching Noli and Fili.

          • the worry there is that it will leave the child vulnerable to sexual predators.

            a well-designed age-appropriate sex ed class will also teach kids how to avoid, identify, handle, and report pedophiles. They should be taught how to avoid molestation, who they can report it to, and how social welfare groups can ensure their safety and well-being when facing sexual predators, especially if the ones harming them are their own family.

            the cruel irony here is that the parent molesting their own child will opt out of a sex-ed class so that the child will not learn to protect himself or herself from parental abuse. so what you were suggesting is critical to the opt-out provision. maybe the parents themselves should be required to take a sex-ed class in lieu of the child, to identify any possible red flags as well pass along instructional material that the parents themselves can teach to the child.

          • As it is written now, education starts at grade 5–probably too late for incest-type abuse prevention. But we have to start somewhere, and I'm not too confident we can push this to an earlier age. It should have been in the RCC bishops interest to support the anti-sex abuse of children part of the bill to show that they are serious in rooting out their own sex abuse problems, but who knows how their minds work. One option is to drop the specific starting grade so DepEd gets the flexibility, but this will also allow them to do the reverse of what we prefer. I agree, there should be safeguards against that scenario of parent-molesters, just not sure how.

  1. Arm, are you planning to make a follow-up article regarding the assertion that the RH Bill is Pro-Eugenics, on account that Margaret Sanger was also a eugenics supporter?

    • I'm reading up on Sanger, trying to get unbiased sources–too much propaganda around her. So far this is the only academic source I have found: http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs
      I have no problem condemning her racism, if it turns up true. But I have not read enough. And no, my follow-up article will be about the vaccine-abortion-sterilization lie that HLI/Pro-Life launched in the mid-90s.

    • Just saw this now. Surprise! I think we're being taken for a ride with the Sanger-the-eugenicist-influenced-Hitler claim.
      "In May 1933, the Nazi party decreed that any book, 'which acts subversively on our future or strikes at the root of German thought, the German home and the driving forces of our people…' was to be burnt. … Some of the authors targeted in the book burning campaign are listed below. Albert Einstein … Margaret Sanger …" -The Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holoc

    • Eugenics is already passe in this day and age when medical science is already paving the way for genetic manipulation that will cure genetic predispositions to certain inheritable diseases. You dont need to discriminate against "people with bad genes" when soon you can fix the problem at the source.

      Just like the Kissinger report , these are artifacts of a bygone era. They are no longer relevant today. The US is no longer interested in reducing the population of developing nations to make it easier to conquer them later on. Territorial conquest is so last century. Nowadays, they'd prefer that 3rd World countries keep producing a steady supply of cheap labor to man the sweatshops.

      So why are prolife crazies still waving these conspiracy theories around?

      • "So why are prolife crazies still waving these conspiracy theories around?" For one, half-truths are more effective than straight lies. And I'd say racism, which spawned eugenics, is still very much alive today.

      • One problem that I have with Eugenics is that it works on a very poor understanding of how evolution in the natural world works.

        For example, homosexuality was one target of Nazi eugenics, under the half-baked assumption that anything less than Hitler's concept of a superior Aryan superman was not fit to reproduce.

        As more recent indicate however, homosexuality as a naturally occurring trait that may have helped in keeping species communities alive in the long run:
        http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13674-evolu

  2. the more we talk of them, the more power they have over us..so if we talk more of the positive side of our cause rather than giving them the attention that they so long wish to have.we will win in this war of us caring for life..over the devil's minions.

  3. ANTI RH BILL, Y U NO USE BRAIN???!!!!

    This just goes to show that the maker of the video, like a lot of other people in his camp, simply doesn't know how to think. Or at least get their facts straight. I'm glad to be on the side that does.

    I had my share of youth camps and Christian participation in college. In hindsight, their culture does little to promote inquisitiveness and critical thinking, and so you get people who grow up to make videos like these. Nakakahiya.

    I'm happy I found a home in FF. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up with underdeveloped rational faculties, like my batchmates who are currently mouthpieces for the Pro-Liars.

    • Maybe he realized his mistakes. Notice how he's not so quick to jump the gun with a response this time.

      It's like you took the video and slapped him with it. Ouch.

      • We all make mistakes. Tao lang po. But instead of simply retracting, he added the vaccine-sterilization claim. Human Life International with Pro-Life Phil. campaigned against anti-tetanus vaccines in the mid-90s, claiming the same thing: sterilization and abortion. They have not retracted that claim, and the Philippines is now way behind other countries in providing anti-tetanus protection for newborns. Lives can be lost with lies.

  4. "First of all, it is a given that I used pictures from all over the internet."

    it does not necessarily follow that if you can grab something off the internet, it means that is public domain. these images still have copyrights (and would need crediting/permission)

    usage of the photo was still way out of context

    • The 1st article was a comment/protest on how he passed off a vaccination photo as one about sterilization. I have no beef with the copyright issue–I leave that for the owners to pursue.

  5. oh my 🙁
    they seem to be just ripping stuff out of the internet left and right without any consideration of the validity of their sources. though I'm glad most readers here are smart enough to do more competent fact-checking. the more these anti-RH guys try to use false info as a crutch, the deeper the whole they're digging for themselves. relying on non-related articles and and images just to evoke an emotion response is intellectually dishonest.

    "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" diba? How will lying for their cause ever be justified?

  6. Calling us idiots while claiming a notorious conspiracy website with zero credibility is something to be taken consistently.

    So who's the real idiot?

  7. Great article, arm! I'm glad FF took the time to make two posts on their lies. After seeing the video, I laughed my ass off. Not a very constructive response but the video just paralyzed me with hilarity.

    I don't like the title, because the "cause" they are lying for are their self-interest or their interest to control other people's reproduction. RH/RP is not the coercive force. It's the anti-RH camp.

    More power to FF and Likhaan! I expect another round of sanctimonious hurt from the creators of the vid. ^_^

Leave a reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here