Notes on the Provision of Contraceptive Services as a Direct Anti-Natalist Policies of Population Control

Among the more important direct policies are those concerning contraceptive services? It is expected that, by providing such services and by conducting family planning educational programmes, individual couples would accept family planning, reduce fertility at the micro level and thus bring about a reduction in the birth rate.

Two points of view have to be considered in this context. There is a school of thought whom is optimistic and maintains that, with an efficient management of the family planning programmes in developing countries; it should be possible to bring down the birth rates, as has been demonstrated by some countries.

At the other extreme are those who maintain that current family planning programmes can never succeed in curbing the birth rates. Kingsley Davis puts forward several reasons in support of this argument.

Most family planning programmes, following the Planned Parenthood approach, emphasise the right of the parents to decide on the number of children they would like to have and how they should space them out.

Davis points out that such an approach would reduce reproduction only to the extent that unwanted births would be eliminated, which may still result in a high rate of population growth, specially in developing countries.

He argues that motivation for smaller families depends on changes in the family structure, in the position of women and in sexual mores; but the scope of the current family planning programmes does not encompass these factors.

The strong emphasis on familial roles in the traditional societies of developing countries is seen as one of the reasons for large families by Judith Blake, and she complains that current family planning programmes make no effort to deflect people from familial roles and, therefore, do not succeed in reducing motivation for large families.

Davis asserted that there was a need for support and encouragement of other socio-economic measures which would help to solve the population problem. “The need is not to abandon the family planning programmes, but to put equal or greater resources into other approaches.”

In spite of all the controversy surrounding family planning programmes, the fact remains that never before in the history of mankind has the population problem received so much attention and family planning such wholehearted support from the highest quarters.

On Human Rights Day, December 10, 1967, the then Secretary-General of United Nations, U Thant, issued a Declaration on Population signed by the Heads of State or Prime Ministers of twelve countries, in which the population problem was recognised as the principle element in long-range national planning, and it was emphasised that the opportunity to decide on the number and spacing of children was a basic human right.

It was also recognised that lasting and meaningful peace would depend in a large measure upon how the challenge of population was met. Finally, it was affirmed: “We believe that the objective of family planning is the enrichment of human life, not its restriction, that family planning, by assuring greater opportunity to each person, frees man to attain his individual dignity and reach his full potential.”

This section reviews the evolution and the current status of family planning programmes in the developing world.

In a review undertaken by the Population Council of New York, it has been pointed out that, as of 1974-1975, 81 countries had family planning supportive policies, covering a population of 2,712 million, that is, 94 per cent of the population of the developing world.

Table 13.2 traces the evolution of the adoption of family planning policy in the developing world for the period 1952-1975. India was the first to adopt such a policy in 1952, followed by China and Hong Kong in 1956.

Important among other countries with active family planning programmes were Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, etc.

Regional differences could be observed in the proportion of population in developing countries supporting family planning. While in the regions of South Asia, East Asia, South- East Asia, Oceania, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Anglophone countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, 89 to 99 per cent of the population was covered by family planning programmes, this percentage was only 38 for the Francophone countries of Sub- Saharan African (Table 13.3).

It may be pointed out here that there are countries like Malawi in Northern Africa, Saudi Arabia in Western Asia and Burma in Eastern Asia, where the Governments actively enforce laws designed to restrict, in some way, the production or import or distribution of contraceptives.

In 1982, it was found that of the 134 less developed countries that have official government population policy positions or that have estimated populations of 100,000 or more, 39 had official policies to reduce the population growth rate and 33 gave official support to family planning activities for other than demographic reasons. These 72 countries together covered 94 per cent of the population of the 134 countries.

In recent years, several countries have reversed their policies regarding family planning. Iran, in line with the religious fundamentalist approach adopted by the new regime which came into power in 1979, scrapped the family planning programme.

Contraceptive supplies are now difficult to obtain, tubal ligation and vasectomy are illegal and abortion carries heavy penalties. In August 1984, the Government of Malaysia approved the long-term population development policy with the ultimate size of 70 million to be attained in 115 years.

This policy was adopted after taking into consideration the problems caused by a small population, important among which were a domestic market too small to support mass consumption industries and ageing of the population.

The Family Planning Board is now known as the National Population and Family Development Board. The Board has adopted a low-key approach avoiding direct promotion of contraception, at the same time involving itself in integrated family development programmes.

In 1987, Singapore adopted a pronatalist policy with incentives and disincentives to encourage larger family size mainly out of concern about any future labour shortage.

The Philippines, yielding to pressures from the Catholic Church, has deleted from the new constitution (1987) the provision that it was the responsibility of the state to achieve and maintain population levels conducive to national welfare.

The National Population Commission has been renamed as the Population Welfare Council and placed under the Ministry of Social Services and Development.