ROME — The Vatican published the list of participants in its upcoming pan-Amazon Synod Saturday, which includes as “special invitee” Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is among the world’s foremost proponents of population control.

In his 2008 book Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Sachs argued for legalizing abortion as a cost-effective way to eliminate “unwanted children” when contraception fails.

Abortion, he wrote, is a “lower-risk and lower-cost option” than having unwanted children born into the world.

The “legalization of abortion reduces a country’s total fertility rate significantly, by as much as half a child on average,” he wrote approvingly, while criticizing America’s “Mexico City Policy,” which denies funding to NGOs that perform or promote abortions.

Particularly in Africa, he wrote, abortion should be legalized and family planning programs made to “cater to adolescents as well as to married households.”

Sachs was also the lead architect of the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals and pleaded for countries to include “sexual and reproductive health” and “reproductive rights” in the scheme, after they were initially left out, which eventually led to their inclusion over and against objections from the Holy See and the United States.

Sachs wrote that the Cairo Plan of Action, which called for universal access to reproductive healthcare including abortion, was “one of the most important Millennium Promises,” noting that “population policy is integral to the overall challenge of sustainable development.”

Sachs also ushered in the Sustainable Development Goals when the Millennium Development Goals expired at the end of 2015. He is Special Advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General on the Sustainable Development Goals and previously advised both Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan on the MDGs.

The U.N. agenda encapsulates “17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets,” some of which directly contradict the Catholic Church’s core beliefs regarding human life.

“We are committed to ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-care services, including for family planning, information and education,” the agenda declares.

Along with Sachs, the Vatican has also invited another major population control advocate, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, to participate in the October Synod of Bishops.

As Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon openly instructed U.N. officials in war-torn areas to promote legal abortion, when countries are most vulnerable and reliant on the support of the United Nations to rebuild their countries.

As Stefano Gennarini wrote in 2015, Jeffrey Sachs and Ban Ki-moon are “arguably the most powerful proponents of abortion and population control in the world.”

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