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August 9, 2017On July 20, 2017, I gave a presentation on a topic I have referred to as “Blinders: The Destructive, Downstream Impact of Contraception, Abortion and IVF.” I am hopeful to put this into a book by that name that will allow people to verify their own reflections on the cultural changes that have plagued American life, especially family life. I have investigated the data that is provided by such government sources as the Center for Disease Control, The National Survey of Family Growth, The Abortion Surveillance Branch of the CDC and other very legitimate and accepted approaches to data collection. This talk will present the foundations of my investigations.
Out of that, I’ve developed what has been called the Family Distress Index (FDI) which basically combines the data on the divorce ratio, the increase in non-marital childbearing, the increase in premature births, abortion per 1,000 live births and the suicide rate in young people age 15 to 21. There are many other items that could have also been included in such an index, but there isn’t data that is available for all of the years relative to them at this time. Nonetheless, what this index shows is that there has been a significant increase in this index starting briefly in 1965 and moving through 1985. This is the area of impact in which many of the sociological and cultural changes were observed that came as the result of contraception, abortion and in vitro fertilization. Since then it has been self-perpetuating.Above is a copy of this Family Distress Index for you to study, in particular, as it relates to the total amount of taxpayer money that has gone to Planned Parenthood Federation of America since 1987. It includes significant increases which occurred around the time of the Clinton administration and even worse under the Obama administration. Planned Parenthood has been saying that they want to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and yet out-of-wedlock childbearing is now 40% of all children born in this country. Fifty years ago or more it was about 5%. This means that many children are being born into families that have no father. People wonder why there has been so much turmoil amongst adolescent males in our culture and this one statistic begins to explain it.
All of these items affect the family in a very distinct way and give an interesting perspective to what has been happening and also one of the things that has not been a solution to it. As a nation, we have continued to pour money into Planned Parenthood thinking it is eventually going to bring a halt to all of this, and yet it has actually gotten worse and worse and worse. Throwing money at contraception, abortion and artificial reproduction solves nothing except makes a lot of people wealthy. Their wealth, however, is otherwise very empty.
When we started the Pope Paul VI Institute 32 years ago, it was our hope that we would be able to establish a fully Catholic institution that would not be reluctant to say it identifies with the philosophical and theological insights of the Catholic Church with regard to human reproduction and that I often said of the Church that it is “sitting on top of some of the most important solutions to our cultural malaise.”
We do, however, rely upon those individuals, many of whom are Catholic who deeply believe in the “scientific ministry” that we have established and have moved forward with it in a very successful fashion. If there is anything that you can do to assist us at this time, I would deeply appreciate it. Thanks so much for the help that you have given to us in the past and understand my deep appreciation if you can help us now.
The Family Distress Index has been correlated to the known data on the federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Even though we put more and more and more dollars into Planned Parenthood, it has done nothing to make a dent in the Family Distress Index. In fact, in the second year of the Obama presidency, it reached a peak level (350% higher than in 1960).
I pray that God will continue to be with you in a very special way.Sincerely yours,
Thomas W. Hilgers, MD
Director