Lying for a Cause (part 2)

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.

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.

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 Philippines—is 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)