The Commission on Population and Development meeting at the UN in
Secretary Ban Ki-moon supported the importance of family planning for more sustainable development and higher standards of living. Providing comprehensive health care for women and children, including family planning, significantly lowers mother and infant mortality.
Successful programs for women provide dramatic evidence for saving the lives of women and newborns. In
However, these recommendations and findings are not without sharp criticism from representatives of governments and NGOs. Limiting birth rate, providing sexual education and family planning are vigorously challenged on the basis of moral and religious grounds. The debate is sharply defined by those that view lowering the population growth as the key to sustainable development, and opposed by those that view controlling population growth as a tool of developed countries to exert financial control and manipulation of their social and religious values, i.e, a 21st century colonialism.
The debate on these issues is always a heated one, and there is no easy answer when faced with these lines of argument. However, it is important that women have control over their family planning choices, that they are educated as to what the options are, and what their reproductive rights are. It is important that women all over the world have the knowledge and confidence to ensure that they remain healthy throughout pregnancy and childbirth are able to make informed and supported choices about family planning.
Reported by:
Lois Beilin
SI/UN