Who wants Ed Markey representing Massachusetts in the United States Senate?
Advocates of population control do, apparently.
When Markey (D-Malden) ran for re-election in 2020, he did so with the support of a population control advocacy group called Population Connection.
The Population Connection Action Fund PAC donated $5,000 to Markey’s re-election bid in two installments, according to the Federal Elections Commission. It gave Markey $2,500 on October 8, 2019; the organization also gave him another $2,500 on August 19, 2020.
During that election cycle, Markey was challenged in the Democratic primary by Joseph P. Kennedy III, a Newton Democrat who at the time was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The first donation came 20 days after Kennedy let it be known he would be running against Markey.
It’s a group that advocates for a smaller world population.
Formerly known as Zero Population Growth, the group worries that if more humans exist, there will be fewer resources available to those who already exist.
“Overpopulation threatens the quality of life for people everywhere,” the organization’s web site says. “Population Connection is the national grassroots population organization that educates young people and advocates progressive action to stabilize world population at a level that can be sustained by Earth’s resources.”
Population Connection supports negative population growth; the organization thinks that there are too many people on earth.
“At present the Earth can’t support the 5.2 million children under 5 who die every year, mostly from preventable and treatable causes,” Population Connection’s web site says. “The Earth can’t support the 2.25 billion people who don’t have access to safe drinking water. The Earth can’t support the 4.15 billion people who don’t have access to basic sanitation. The Earth can’t support the 720–811 million people who are chronically hungry.”
The organization’s goals are antithetical to those of the U.S. Department of State.
“The U.S. does not endorse population ‘stabilization’ or ‘control.’ ” the State Department’s web site says. “The ‘ideal’ family size should be determined by the desires of couples, not governments. The U.S. strongly opposes coercive population programs.”
Population Connection’s major focus is reproduction. It supports abortion, contraception, and the introduction of the Advocates for Youth sex-ed curriculum in schools.
Open Secrets considers Population Connection’s political action committee to be a pro-legal- abortion political action committee.
The organization’s co-founder, Paul Ehrlich, once called abortion “a highly effective weapon in the armory of population control,” according to The Daily Caller.
Population Connection describes itself this way:
Population Connection works with our sister organization, Population Connection Action Fund, to expand access to safe, affordable, and comprehensive reproductive health care worldwide by:
Engaging people across the country to take action against the Global Gag Rule and to put pressure on members of Congress to support the bill to permanently repeal it, the Global Health, Empowerment, and Rights (HER) Act
Urging Congress to repeal the Helms Amendment through the Abortion Is Health Care Everywhere Act
Demanding increased funding for international family planning and reproductive health programs to ensure that every individual seeking care can make their own health care decisions — without exceptions
The group supports a permanent repeal of the Mexico City Policy (which opponents call the global gag rule) – a policy that has been enacted by every Republican president since Ronald Reagan.
The Mexico City Policy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, requires foreign non-governmental organizations to certify that they will not “ ‘perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning’ using funds from any source (including non-U.S. funds) as a condition of receiving U.S. government global family planning assistance and, as of Jan. 23, 2017, most other U.S. global health assistance.”
During fiscal year 2021, the United States spent $750 million on international family planning programs, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Population Connection wants that figure increased.
Additionally, the organization wants to repeal the Helms Amendment. The amendment states that “no foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”
Markey’s office could not be reached for comment on Wednesday or Thursday this week. Nor could Population Connection.
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