Of Philanthropy and Population Control: An Open Letter to Bill Gates

by Richard Becker

God bless you, Mr. Gates. You made a pile of dough, and now you’re trying to spread the love—like your foundation’s efforts to fight disease and poverty throughout the developing world. You’re making possible tremendous change for the good—keep it up! The world admires and applauds you.

Here’s the problem, though: In addition to underwriting tons of initiatives that directly and indirectly address disease and poverty, the Gates Foundation seems inordinately interested in “family planning”—a euphemism, as I’m sure your know, for birth control.

That’s a problem because people might get the idea that the two things are connected—the fighting disease and poverty thing on the one hand, and the family planning agenda thing on the other.

Take your recent Wall Street Journal article about polio eradication in India. What you and your foundation have done and are doing there is magnificent, and your commitment to underwriting such important work is truly edifying. But you let the cat out of the bag with this opening statement:

Our foundation began working in India a decade ago, at a time when many feared that the country would become a flashpoint for HIV/AIDS. Since then, we have expanded into other areas, including vaccines, family planning and agricultural development [emphasis added].

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 Richard Becker is a husband, father of seven, nursing instructor, and religious educator. He and his family reside in South Bend, Indiana.