U.S. Funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Sincerely,

Scott Church, MS

Audrey J.L. Church, MN, ARNP

Footnotes

1)    World Magazine is no stranger to controversy regarding the quality of their reporting. Since their advent, dubious journalism on their part has resulted in a number of incidents. For instance in March of 1998, in an incident that bears striking resemblance to the current controversy regarding UNFPA, they published a story alleging that World Relief (the relief agency of the National Association of Evangelicals) had been cooperating with the government of Honduras in coerced abortion programs (World, March 28, 1998). Further investigation however revealed that the story had been based only on a small handful of very indirect links between World Relief and a few Honduran agencies that support contraception, but had never been independently shown to be involved with coercion. Defending World’s research of the story in another forum, World Cultural Editor Mindy Belz cited an anecdotal statement from a “World Relief health officer” (who of course, is never named) allegedly supporting “all forms of family planning” (First Things, 1999) – a claim that was then interpreted by World’s editorial staff in the broadest and most incriminating terms and of course, never independently verified. In fact, there was never any truth to the allegations and no further proof was ever provided by World or anyone else. Despite widespread criticism of their scurrilous reporting and numerous demands for retraction, World has never made any attempt to correct the error or apologize to World Relief. For more information, see the correspondence between Ms. Belz and Wheaton Professor Alan Jacobs (whose wife works with World Relief) on this controversy in the Christian journal First Things (First Things, 1999).

Likewise, in March 1995, World published another story by Mindy Belz titled “Unspeakable Delicacy, Cannibalism Makes the Chinese Communist Crime List”. In this story it was alleged that there was a large underground black market in China that supplied aborted fetuses to restaurants as “health food” (World May 20/27, 1995). The story created quite a furor in pro-life circles after it was published. It was even picked up and widely circulated by Human Life International (HLI, 1996) – PRI’s parent organization and largest benefactor! But despite the furor, independent verification of the claims never materialized. A photograph alleging to show a man eating a fetus was later proved to have been faked (Taipei Times, March 23, 2001), and repeated inquiries among official and non-official sources within China produced nothing. Further investigation revealed that Ms. Belz’s only source was a Hong Kong based English language tabloid called the Eastern Express (Eastern Express, April 12, 1995), which went defunct shortly after the original story was published. Today it is widely regarded as an urban legend and is even written up at the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society’s Urban Legend Home Page (www.snopes.com) under their “Horrors” section (the article can be directly linked without the HTML Frames at www.snopes2.com/horrors/cannibal/fetus.htm). In fact, the Snopes write-up even includes the infamous photo of the man allegedly eating a fetus. A close examination of the image reveals that the “fetus” is most likely a doll head attached to a roasted duck.

As before, neither World nor Ms. Belz has ever offered a retraction or an apology for their reporting of the issue. Questionable and even slanderous journalism of this sort has been a common occurrence in World’s pages, which no doubt is one reason why their circulation has not grown much outside of the communities that already share their belief system.

References

American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG). 1998. Committee Opinion 208. Obstetrics & gynecology, Sept. 1998.

Bartlett, L.A., Jamieson, D.J., Kahn, T., Sultana, M., Wilson, H.G. 2002. Maternal Mortality Among Afghan Refugees in Pakistan. Lancet. Feb. 23, 2002; 359. Pgs. 643-9.