The many obstacles to Family Planning

In the above captioned article, by Shobha Shukla -CNS – “Where are men in family planning…” appearing in your issue of 27th July, says ‘Family planning is largely viewed as a women’s issue and family planning programming is primarily focused on women’.

This statement is partly true as the not-so-educated rural folk think so, but the educated, knowing the responsibility of feeding and providing for the family, cooperate with their wives to plan their families.

But some religious beliefs stand in the way of family planning. A very interesting observation has been made by Dan Brown in his book ‘INFERNO’: “Do you know that if you live another 19 years, until the age of 80, you will witness the population triple in your lifetime. Think of the implications. As you know, the World Health Organisation has again increased its forecast, predicting there will be some nine billion people on earth before the midpoint of this century. Animal species are going extinct at a precipitously accelerated rate. The demand for dwindling natural resources is skyrocketing, clean water is harder and harder to come by. And, in the face of this disaster, WHO, the gatekeeper of the planet’s health, is investing in things like curing diabetes, filling blood banks, battling cancer. Whoever you are, you know WHO takes over population very seriously. Recently, we spent millions of dollars, sending doctors into Africa to deliver, free condoms and educate the people about Birth Control. Even a bigger army of Catholic missionaries marched on your heels and told the Africans that if they used condoms, they would all go to hell. Africa has a new environmental issue, landfills overflowing with unused condoms’’.

Here, in Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks, and other Sinhala Organisations, are urging Sinhala families to have large families to outdo the growth of the Muslim population.

It may be seen that besides the cooperation between men and women, obstacles to family planning, such as religious beliefs, ethno-national sentiments, too, should be overcome if the problem of overpopulation is to be solved.

G. A. D. SIRIMAL

Boralesgamuwa