[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 140 (Friday, September 30, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 30, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    WORLD POPULATION AWARENESS WEEK

  Mrs. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee 
on Post Office and Civil Service be discharged from further 
consideration of the Senate joint resolution (S.J. Res. 135) 
designating the week beginning October 25, 1993, as ``World Population 
Awareness Week,'' and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the Senate joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Virginia?
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not 
object, but I would just simply like to inform the House that the 
minority has no objection to the legislation now being considered.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Joint Resolution 268, 
designating the week beginning October 23, 1994, as ``World Population 
Awareness Week.'' Over 3,000 events around the world will be held in 
honor of this year's World Population Awareness Week, which will 
highlight the recent success of the United Nations Conference on 
Population and Development, otherwise known as the ICPD, held in Cairo, 
Egypt earlier this month.
  Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of traveling to Cairo to attend the ICPD 
as a congressional delegate, and I commend the organizers of World 
Population Awareness Week for focusing this year's events on prompt and 
meaningful follow-up to the conference. The Population Conference was 
one of the most critical meetings in world history. Delegates to this 
conference, representing over 160 countries, agreed, with very few 
exceptions, by unanimous consent to a program of action to slow 
population growth over the next 20 years. How well the world community 
implements that document will determine the quality of life for every 
person on earth well into the future.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the fine work of the U.S. 
delegation to the conference and our delegation's leaders. The U.S. 
delegation, which included representatives from the administration, 
Congress and a range of non-governmental organizations, garnered 
widespread praise for working toward genuine compromise and consensus. 
I would also like to acknowledge President Mubarak and the Egyptian 
people for hosting the conference and for their hospitality and warmth. 
Finally, I would like to thank the other governments, their leaders and 
non-governmental organizations from around the world who participated 
in the conference and helped make it a true success.
  Approximately 5.5 billion people occupy the world today. As has been 
cited many times, if actions are not taken to slow the current rate of 
population growth, the world's population could reach 12.5 billion or 
more by the year 2050. Over 90 percent of this growth will take place 
in the developing world, where governments are already struggling to 
meet the basic needs of their people. If governments carry out the 
actions outlined in the Cairo document, global population will reach 
only 9.8 billion as opposed to 12.5 billion by the middle of the next 
century.
  In my mind, slowing this rate of growth is the most important 
challenge the world community faces and one where the United States 
must demonstrate international leadership. Rapid population growth is 
both the cause and result of persistent poverty, natural resource 
scarcity, mass migrations, disease and other conditions which undermine 
sustainable development efforts and lead to political instability. With 
the threat of communism over, the United States must now turn its 
attention to these urgent matters.
  Thanks in large part of U.S. leadership, delegates to the Cairo 
Conference agreed that, rather than adopt strict national targets for 
reducing fertility and impose top-down contraceptive programs, the best 
way to slow population growth over the long run is to empower 
individuals, especially women. I have long argued that it is a 
fundamental human right to determine the number, timing, and spacing of 
one's children and to have the means to do so. Delegates to the 
conference recognized this right and identified the obstacles which 
prevent individuals from exercising it.

  The conference delegates overwhelmingly agreed, Mr. Speaker, that the 
inaccessibility of safe, affordable, and comprehensive reproductive 
health care and women's low status prevent millions of women from 
exercising the control over their fertility that they desire. The 
International Planned Parenthood Federation [IPPF) estimates that more 
than 500 million women lack access to safe and effective family 
planning. Even where these services are available, social, cultural and 
economic barriers may prevent women from using them.
  In many parts of the world, women are denied education, secure 
livelihoods, and the full legal and social rights of citizenship, and 
as a result may depend on children as their only means of attaining 
status and security. Where women are better educated, have more 
economic opportunities and political freedoms, they not only have 
greater power to make decisions over their fertility, but they 
generally want to have fewer children in the first place.
  Mr. Speaker, representatives from 160 countries--representing a wide 
range of moral beliefs and political idealogies--agreed in Cairo that 
enhancing educational, political, and economic opportunities for women 
is perhaps the surest way to curb further population growth. In many 
parts of the world, acknowledging that gender equality is a laudable 
goal is absolutely radical. In this context, it is a near miracle that 
these 160 governments agreed to take concrete steps to eliminate legal 
and social barriers to gender equality within their borders.
  While the media focused almost entirely on the discord over abortion 
at the conference, the Cairo Conference was in fact characterized by an 
extraordinary degree of international agreement rivaled only by the 
Earth Summit held 2 years earlier. Given the sensitive nature of the 
issue, the degree of consensus at the Population Conference is 
unprecedented. Even the Vatican, which appeared determined to obstruct 
progress at the conference, in the end joined in consensus on several 
parts of the Cairo document, including the chapters on ``Gender 
Equality'' and the ``Interrelationship between Population, Sustained 
Economic Growth, and Sustainable Development.''
  Mr. Speaker, the type of negotiation and agreement that prevailed 
both prior to and during the ICPD should serve as a model for dealing 
with other global issues that confront humanity and place demands on 
our shared planet. The majority of delegates, in partnership with non-
governmental organizations, operated under the assumption that the 
interests of the human community cut across national and ideological 
boundaries. Only through this type of cooperation can we prepare for 
the future rather than letting the future overtake us.
  It is imperative that the United States lead the world in 
implementing the program of action agreed to in Cairo. As a first step, 
it is very important that we declare the week of October 23d as World 
Population Awareness Week. I urge my colleagues to support House Joint 
Resolution 268.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Maryland [Mrs. Morella] 
for comments on the World Population Awareness Week resolution.
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the measure before us, Senate Joint 
Resolution 135, World Population Awareness Week. There is also the 
counterpart on the House side, H.J. Res. 268, that was introduced by 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson]. I think it is so 
important that we look at overpopulation and population awareness.
  Overpopulation is an issue touching nearly every aspect of our lives, 
including unemployment, immigration, disease, hunger, and ecological 
degradation. The world's population is almost at the 5.6 billion mark 
and is expected to double by 2025. Ninety percent of this growth will 
occur in developing countries, those countries already hard-pressed to 
provide food, shelter, education, employment, and basic health and 
social services to their citizens. With 93 million people added to the 
planet last year, an increasing strain on environmental and economic 
systems is incurred as natural resources are consumed at greater rates.
  The impact of human population growth, combined with widespread 
poverty, is evident in mounting signs of stress on the world's 
environment, particularly in tropical deforestation, erosion of arable 
land and watersheds, extinction of plant and animal species, global 
climate changes, waste management, and air and water pollution.
  Earlier this year, the gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] and 
I introduced the International Population Stabilization and 
Reproductive Health Act, and Senators Bingaman and Simpson introduced 
similar legislation in the Senate. This legislation will establish 
accessibility to family planning services and information as a 
principle objective of U.S. foreign policy. Of critical importance is 
the bill's emphasis on improving the health, social, and economic 
status of women as essential for any country's economic progress. It 
has been established that women who participate in the social, 
economic, and political affairs of their communities are more likely to 
exercise their choices about childbearing than those who do not. 
Indeed, it is important to note that the current rate of global 
population growth would decrease by 30 percent if women were able to 
have only the number of children they wanted.
  Whether the Earth's population doubles or triples in the next century 
will be determined by actions we take during this decade to improve 
access to family planning programs for all women who desire it.
  Rapid population growth fuels tensions and instability, as 
hopelessness and desperation arise from rapid urbanization, lack of 
government services, unemployment, and declining public health 
standards. As early as 1980, the National Security Council reported 
that ``these factors add up to a growing potential for social unrest, 
political instability, mass migrations and international conflict.''
  Mr. Speaker, I finally just want to allude to what I consider to have 
been a very successful International Conference on Population and 
Development that was held in Cairo. The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. 
Porter] was there with me and the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Beilenson], the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Smith], the gentlewoman 
from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder], and the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. 
Simpson].
  At that conference, we entered the conference with 92 percent of the 
plan of action already approved, so only 8 percent was considered in 
terms of possible changes. The conferences looked to the effect on the 
environment, migration, family responsibility, health care, and the 
education of women. Now it is up to us in Congress and in other bodies 
to move forward beyond the plan of action.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Senate Joint Resolution 
135, which designates the week beginning October 23, 1994, as ``World 
Population Awareness Week.'' I commend my colleague, Congressman 
Beilenson, for working so tirelessly to educate us on global population 
issues.
  This is a vital international issue. This resolution seeks to educate 
Americans about overpopulation and the dramatic effects that global 
population will have on the world's future. Our world population today 
exceeds 5.7 billion, and increases at the rate of some 100 million per 
day.
  Population growth is fast becoming one of the most critical issues 
impacting our society, and the world at this time. Population trends 
affect our lives in profound ways. Poverty and food supply, the 
international economy, the environment, and the health of children and 
women around the world are all influenced by population growth.
  It is critical for us as policy-makers to understand population's 
significant relationship to our global society.
  This resolution comes at an appropriate time, as the United Nations 
has recently concluded its International Conference on Population and 
Development. This Conference, which examined global population, child 
and maternal health, education of women and girls, development in Third 
World countries, and a host of other issues, brought worldwide 
attention to the issues related to rapid and unsustainable population 
growth.
  Population and family planning are crucial matters for our 
environment, our economy, and our children's future. World Population 
Week serves as an important time for Americans to focus on these 
issues, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.
  Mr. BEILENSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of Senate 
Joint Resolution 135, which I introduced with our colleague, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Porter], to designate the week of October 
23, 1994, as ``World Population Awareness Week.'' The purpose of this 
observance, which has already been approved by the Senate, is to 
increase understanding about overpopulation and the adverse effects 
that rapid global population growth will have on the world's future.
  The rapid growth of the human population is the No. 1 problem facing 
our planet and yet, there is a general lack of awareness of how rapidly 
the world's population is growing and the fact that what we do this 
decade will significantly determine the kind of world we leave to 
future generations.
  The world's population now exceeds 5.6 billion people, and it is 
growing by almost 100 million people every year. Every day every single 
day, there are 260,000 more people on the Earth than there were the day 
before. Day after day, inexorably, unendingly, relentlessly more than a 
quarter of a million people are added to the population: a quarter of a 
million more people to provide shelter, jobs, health care, and drinking 
water for, a quarter of a million more mouths to feed and children to 
educate.
  Nearly 95 percent of this increase is occurring in developing 
countries, countries which cannot begin to adequately take care of 
their existing populations, where there are already too few jobs, 
inadequate schools, inadequate health care, inadequate amounts of food 
and, usually, very little, if any, individual freedom.
  Future prospects, moreover, are even more staggering. The United 
Nations' high fertility populations indicate that even if the total 
fertility rate drops from the current world average of 3.2 children per 
woman to stabilize at 2.5 children--quite a significant reduction--
world population could still grow to 12.5 billion by the year 2050. 
And, if effective action is not taken within this decade, as today's 
1.6 billion children in the developing world under the age of 15 reach 
their child-bearing years, the Earth's population could nearly 
quadruple to over 19 billion people by the end of the next century.

  This rapid growth underlies virtually every environmental, 
developmental, and national security problem facing the world today. In 
much of the developing world, high birth rates, caused largely by the 
lack of access of women to basic reproductive health services and 
information, are contributing to intractable poverty, malnutrition, 
widespread unemployment, urban overcrowding, and the rapid spread of 
disease. Population growth is outstripping the capacity of many nations 
to make even modest gains in economic development, leading to political 
instability and negating other U.S. development efforts. In the next 15 
years, developing nations will need to create jobs for 700 million new 
workers, which is more than currently exist in all of the 
industrialized nations of the world combined.
  Overpopulation, however, is not a problem for lesser developed 
countries only. In November 1993, the U.S. Census Bureau revised its 
domestic population estimates, projecting U.S. population to reach 392 
million people by the year 2050, more than a 50 percent increase from 
the 1990 population. This is the equivalent of adding more than 38 
cities the size of Los Angeles. But if current trends continue, the 
Nation's population could double during the same time period; if this 
growth remains unchecked, it is easy to foresee a dramatically lower 
quality of life for our children.
  Earlier this month, representatives of nearly 180 countries met in 
Cairo at the International Conference on Population and Development 
[ICPD] to forge a new international consensus on the importance of 
slowing population growth, and to reach a final agreement on a Program 
of Action that will help guide the population programs of the United 
Nations and national governments into the next century.
  As a member of the U.S. delegation, I can report that the Cairo 
conference, was a remarkable success. In contrast to previous 
population conferences, and to the picture of controversy portrayed by 
the media, there was an exceptional level of consensus among 
participating governments on such diverse issues as sustainable 
development, gender equity, reproductive health, migration and funding 
requirements.
  The ICPD Plan of Action represents an historic opportunity to 
adequately address the world's exponential population growth while 
placing an emphasis on individual choice and freedom. But to reap the 
benefits of this conference, we are going to have to find a way to keep 
attention focused on the population problem. This is what we hope to 
achieve by passing this resolution.

  This year, in recognition of World Population Awareness Week, events 
are being planned in every congressional district. Over 110 national 
and local organizations, including the National Wildlife Federation, 
the United Methodist Church, and the American Public Health 
Association, are involved in planning discussion groups, films, and 
other educational events to raise public awareness of this critical 
issue. In addition, many international organizations as diverse as the 
International Confederation of Midwives, the Catholic University of 
Lublin, Poland, and the Family Life Association of Swaziland are also 
observing the week.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe World Population Awareness Week provides an 
important opportunity for Americans to learn more about the rapid 
growth of the world's population and its dire consequences for the 
environment, for food supplies, for political and social stability, and 
for the well-being of people in this country and around the world. I am 
hopeful that as Americans learn more about this problem, they will 
recognize that slowing population growth is the most humane, 
farsighted, and economically effective effort this country and the 
international community can undertake to improve life on earth for 
generations to come.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation.
  Mr. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Virginia?
  There was no objection.
  The Clerk read the Senate joint resolution, as follows:

                              S.J. Res 135

       Whereas the population of the world today exceeds 5.5 
     billion and increases at the rate of some 100 million per 
     year;
       Whereas more than 90 percent of world population growth 
     occurs in developing countries, those least able to provide 
     even basic services for their citizens;
       Whereas rapid population growth and overconsumption are 
     major deterrents to sustainable development;
       Whereas 40 countries with 40 percent of the population of 
     the developing world are currently unable to provide enough 
     food for their inhabitants to meet average nutritional 
     requirements;
       Whereas the global community has for more than 25 years 
     recognized the basic right of individuals to voluntarily and 
     responsibly determine the number and spacing of their 
     children;
       Whereas expanded accessibility to family planning has led 
     to a world with 400 million fewer people than there might 
     have been;
       Whereas at least one-half of the women of reproductive age 
     in developing countries want to limit the number of their 
     children, but lack the means or ability to gain access to 
     modern family planning methods;
       Whereas numerous studies provide compelling evidence of a 
     strong correlation between a smaller desired family size and 
     the elevation of the status of women, especially through 
     opening educational and employment opportunities; and
       Whereas preparations are underway for the 1994 
     International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 
     in Cairo, Egypt, focusing world attention on the integral 
     linkage between population, sustained economic growth and 
     sustainable development--more specifically, the importance of 
     family planning, the role of women, the effects of migration, 
     the need for increased resources, and the devastation caused 
     by AIDS: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That the week 
     beginning October 25, 1993, is designated as ``World 
     Population Awareness Week,'' and the President is authorized 
     and requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the people 
     of the United States to observe such a week with appropriate 
     programs, ceremonies, and activities.


                    amendment offered by mrs. byrne

  Mrs. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mrs. Byrne: Page 2, line 3, strike 
     ``October 25, 1993'' and insert ``October 23, 1994''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the amendment offered by 
the gentlewoman from Virginia [Mrs. Byrne].
  The amendment was agreed to.


            amendment to the preamble offered by mrs. byrne

  Mrs. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment to the preamble.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mrs. Byrne to the Preamble: In the 
     last whereas clause of the preamble--
       (1) strike ``preparations are underway for''; and
       (2) strike ``focusing'' and insert ``will focus''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Question is on the amendment to the preamble 
offered by the gentlewoman from Virginia [Mrs. Byrne].
  The amendment to the preamble was agreed to.
  The Senate joint resolution was ordered to be read a third time, was 
read the third time, and passed.


              amendment to the title offered by mrs. byrne

  Mrs. BYRNE. Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment to the title.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment to the title offered by Mrs. Byrne: Amend the 
     title so as to read: ``Joint Resolution designating the week 
     beginning October 23, 1994, as `World Population Awareness 
     Week'.''.

  The amendment to the title was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________