Sex matters, and so do RIGHTS.
In response to this article http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/prime_numbers_sex_matters
I wrote the following
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Reading the article "Sex Matters" was an exercise in frustration. While I don't debate the lack of birth control (called "unmet need" in the reproductive health circles) has a strong impact on birth rates, the authors completely ignored or glossed over the fact that in many countries still, women lack the legal and social rights to use that birth control or decide when, whether, and how many children they should have.
Population control programs often failed to recognize that, in most of the world, women are not in full control over their reproductive choices - and some of the most notorious programs short-circuited the process of increasing this choice by dictating how many children a woman could have. Of course, all this did was transfer control from the husband/male members of the family to the (usually male dominated) government. Most "old school" population control programs fundamentally turned into the rich (usually men) telling the poor (usually women) how many children they could have, which is not much ethically different from eugenics.
To avoid this ethical quagmire, most current programs focused on population reduction are therefore based on freedom of choice over family size, since in a world where women have full control over their reproductive health, they tend to chose to have fewer children and tend to invest more in each child to enable them to thrive.
Access to birth control is one important part of that world. But also included in that world is the right of a woman have a marriage where she can negotiate with her husband childbearing decisions, where she has control over when and if she has sex, and where she has the information she needs to make the best decisions for herself and her family.
The argument about "more education and social prosperity = fewer children" may be pat, but buried it in are facts about how these things impact birth rates. For example, increasing a woman's education increases a woman's economic options to make her more independent from her husband/family and often gives her increased ability to negotiate how many children she wishes to bear (the cheapest forms of birth control, fertility awareness methods, also require the highest level of male/female negotiation). Access to education, especially literacy, increases her access to information about birth control, where to get it, how it works, etc. And it also increases her access information about how to treat childhood illnesses (lowering child mortality rates does have a direct impact on birthrates), since mothers are still the first line of medical response for children.
While I am sure the authors are deeply familiar with the issues around women's reproductive rights, the article didn't have one mention of any of these issues, doing a grave injustice to the entire topic. To even discuss family planning and birth control access without discussion of women's reproductive rights is missing out on the most critical element of all.
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Still annoyed...
I wrote the following
---------------
Reading the article "Sex Matters" was an exercise in frustration. While I don't debate the lack of birth control (called "unmet need" in the reproductive health circles) has a strong impact on birth rates, the authors completely ignored or glossed over the fact that in many countries still, women lack the legal and social rights to use that birth control or decide when, whether, and how many children they should have.
Population control programs often failed to recognize that, in most of the world, women are not in full control over their reproductive choices - and some of the most notorious programs short-circuited the process of increasing this choice by dictating how many children a woman could have. Of course, all this did was transfer control from the husband/male members of the family to the (usually male dominated) government. Most "old school" population control programs fundamentally turned into the rich (usually men) telling the poor (usually women) how many children they could have, which is not much ethically different from eugenics.
To avoid this ethical quagmire, most current programs focused on population reduction are therefore based on freedom of choice over family size, since in a world where women have full control over their reproductive health, they tend to chose to have fewer children and tend to invest more in each child to enable them to thrive.
Access to birth control is one important part of that world. But also included in that world is the right of a woman have a marriage where she can negotiate with her husband childbearing decisions, where she has control over when and if she has sex, and where she has the information she needs to make the best decisions for herself and her family.
The argument about "more education and social prosperity = fewer children" may be pat, but buried it in are facts about how these things impact birth rates. For example, increasing a woman's education increases a woman's economic options to make her more independent from her husband/family and often gives her increased ability to negotiate how many children she wishes to bear (the cheapest forms of birth control, fertility awareness methods, also require the highest level of male/female negotiation). Access to education, especially literacy, increases her access to information about birth control, where to get it, how it works, etc. And it also increases her access information about how to treat childhood illnesses (lowering child mortality rates does have a direct impact on birthrates), since mothers are still the first line of medical response for children.
While I am sure the authors are deeply familiar with the issues around women's reproductive rights, the article didn't have one mention of any of these issues, doing a grave injustice to the entire topic. To even discuss family planning and birth control access without discussion of women's reproductive rights is missing out on the most critical element of all.
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Still annoyed...