The switch in emphasis in population policies from family planning to the development of socioeconomic policies that would encourage smaller families--summed up in the word "developmentalism"--is charted from a 1967 paper by Kinsley Davis to its culmination at the 1974 World Population Conference, when even as staunch a supporter of family planning as John D. Rockefeller came out in support of placing population policy in the context of economic and social development. The real question is, however: To what extent does developmentalism represent a true shift in policy and how much is simply a more sophisticated rhetoric designed to deflect the growing opposition to population control? On the one hand, the endorsement by a man of Rockefeller's stature indicates a significant change. On the other, the changes which the implementation of developmentalism would entail seem irreconcilable with the present political and economic structures of underdeveloped nations and of relations between them and the more developed countries. Further, developmentalism is neither as progressive as its advocates suggest, nor as threatening as its opponents cry. It is, in fact, a prescription for enhancing the effectiveness of family planning through a form of social engineering from the top; its details--more aid, investment, and trade--would involve an expanded Western role in the Third World. It is even suggested that developmentalism might be a cover for the creation of a more stratified society, where marginal members are restricted to their own quarters in an effort to secure political stability and economic growth. In the end, developmentalism might be shortlived, as pressure to step up birth control programs is felt from many quarters.
A summary of a "scientific report" on the development and implementation of population control in Latin America is presented. The report is to be presented at the Bertrand Russell Tribunal 2, concerned with repression in Latin America, in Brussels, Belgium, in January 1975. Hearings from the 1966-1968 U.S. Senate subcommittee on Foreign Aid Expenditures are cited to show evidence of American economic and military interests using theories of population control as a solution to deteriorating material conditions in Latin America. Explosive populations are also regarded as causes of political instability. The report further cites the "widespread use of coercive and misleading birth control propaganda" which distorts cultural and economic factors determining personal choices available to Latin American families. High birthrates are pictured as a major cause of poverty, slow economic growth, and scarcity of raw materials. Evidence of dangerous clinical testing of birth control products in Latin America, beginning in the 1930s in Puerto Rico, is presented. The questionable population policies of such institutions as the World Bank and the Rockefeller Foundation are also discussed.
At the convention of the World Food Conference, leaders of the underdeveloped nations hoped to press for changes in international trade relations while U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger hoped to use the conference as a forum to link food shortages to overpopulation. Kissinger tried to put the blame for the food crisis on the oil producing nations and the "energy crisis" they brought about and made it clear that the U.S. no longer plans to provide most of the world's food aid. The underdeveloped nations did not accept this. They still blame the crisis on the U.S., which they say controls more food than the fuel the oil producing nations control. The U.S. has historically used food as a tool of foreign policy, and with the increasing dependency of the U.S. on the raw supplies of the underdeveloped world, there is growing talk of using food to blackmail nations into adopting population control programs. One such proposal came in Rome by former U.S. government official Richard Gardner, who suggested a "global survival pact" under which rich nations would conserve food, energy, and raw materials in return for commitments by Third World nations to change their suicidal demographic, agricultural and environmental practices. Another proposal was made by Congressman Jerry Litton who said he would introduce legislation banning food aid to any country with above average population growth and which was not doing anything to reduce it.
The author, a representative of the Feminist Women's Movement in America, presents her views of events at the World Population Conference. She noted that the U.S. does have an unwritten population policy and that it is decided by the male-dominated medical profession who make all decisions concerning women's reproductive selves. While Planned Parenthood and International Planned Parenthood Federation with government support export ideas directly "ripped off" the Women's Movement - specifically menstrual extraction - and export them to all "the peasants in the rice paddies," they simutaneously deny these ideas and procedures to American women, by means of licensing. AMERICAN are harassed for doing precisely what they are teaching and giving women abroad equipment to perform.
The decision to have a number of children by a family located within the working peasantry or the appropriated masses is essentially a rational decision, a judgment of their social environment. The pitfall of neoMalthusian liberalism is precisely its "rationalism" - that it assumes a universal rationality and forgets that in a class society there exists class rationality. The demand for population control may be rational in one class situation, but not necessarily in another. The specific historical relation between high rates of population growth in particular social groups is obscured when the phenomenon is defined as the "population problem". Its core assertion is that people are poor because they are too many. Exploitation is reduced to poverty and the explanation of poverty becomes the poor themselves.
The International Youth Population Conference was held in Bucharest, August 10-16, 1974, and attended by 200 participants from over 80 countries. A strong anti-imperialist stand was taken, whereby high fertility in underdeveloped countries was blamed on conditions created by imperialist countries. Polarization occurred along regional lines. Third World and Eastern European delegates were antifeminist, viewed the nuclear family as the only acceptable unit for reporduction, and failed to distinguish between population control and the right to birth control as an individual right. Recommendations were made that youth and women be allowed more participation in the national development policies. The use of Third World and minority women for contraceptive experimentation was deplored.
In answer to a letter from Lyle Webster of the East-West Communication Institute soliciting the author's opinion, as a woman, of worldwide family planning programs, the author makes 4 points: 1) women everywhere want birth control; 2) men need family planning education; 3) the greatest appeal to women is to the desire to be free from unwanted pregnancies; and, most importantly, 4) women should make up at least half of the governing bodies of family planning organizations.
Data indicate an inverse relationship between education of women and fertility, because better-educated women can use contraceptives more effectively and are more receptive to the idea. Increasing educational opportunities for women in order to lower the birthrate is a slow and expensive process. Modernized work results in lower fertility; traditional women's work is compatible with child-raising. For women with well-paid jobs which require skills and provide satisfaction, the job is often more important than having a child. Women who have influence within their families desire and have fewer children. The position of women in a culture is a complex issue, not easily changed. Research should be done on the communication process among women as to birth control methods.
A survey of Honduran elites consisting of 300 government, business, industrial and professional leaders and 400 university students, was undertaken to determine the sources of negative and positive influences on birth control in order to outline a typology of opinions covering the entire range of attidues toward this issue. Major sources of negative influence are the Roman Catholic Church, political parties, and the universities. The support of this issue is also encountered along the entire political spectrum, mainly the centralist and rightist positions, with the most vocal support coming from the Family Planning Association. The paper describes the view of the various groups and then arranges the elite's opinions on birth control into a typology.
Demographic aid is needed in African countries, but it should consist of the development of the country's own demographers and planners who will be able to implement population policies in the future. Problems with past aid have been the appropriation of most aid to a few Anglophone countries, and the overemphasis of family planning. However it should not be assumed that donor agencies have underlying motives for their aid, nor should Aid be considered an attempt to avert social change. Future aid should therefore consist of multilateral aid in the areas of data collection and analysis, with fertility and family planning seen only as 1 aspect of population policy.
High infant and child mortality corresponds to high fertility in West Africa which may be attributed to 3 factors: 1) the desire to replace the dead child, 2) the death of the first child which results in termination of lactation which in turn causes renewed ovulation in the mother, and 3) the birth of a second child at a short interval after previous birth necessitates the early weaning of the first child. Considering the nutritional deficiencies and diseases in West Africa, this early weaning could be fatal. Recommended policy includes more than simply maternal and child care in relation to family planning but a broader approach to overall maternal and child care.
The effects of alternative abortion policies over time in developing nations is discussed. 4 factors need to be involved: 1) family planning services; 2) public education about contraceptives; 3) government support; and 4) legality of abortion. The only combination which would allow the limitation of fertility and reduce the number of illegal abortions is a policy whereby family planning is widely available and intensive efforts are made to educate the public about contraceptives; abortion is legal and there is active government support, including an official policy statement.
The population policies of 3 North African countries are reviewed: Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. There are about 15.5 million persons in Morocco, 14.2 million in Algeria, and 5.2 million in Tunisia, with current growth rates over 3% in the 2 larger nations, and probably 2.7% in Tunisia. The population policies of the 3 countries are quite different. In Tunisia there has been considerable social progress for women plus a vigorous and open concern with population growth. There exists a definite and expanding family planning program. In Morocco there is government policy to reduce population growth via family planning, but the efforts to fulfill this policy are weak. In Algeria research and study are being carried out to obtain more and better data on population growth and related subjects. There is also an avowed policy of economic development as the solution to lower fertility. None of the countries proclaims as policy that it does not have enough people and should seek to increase fertility or in-migration. The author believes that the organized family planning effort began in Tunisia at about the right time. Morocco, however, may have started its family planning program too early, with the result that not only is there very slow program development, but maybe the long-term goal of reduced fertility is pushed a bit further into the future by what might be termed a semi-false start. The author suggests that it would be unwise for the Algerian government to begin an organized family planning program now and even more unwise for outside agencies and organizations to urge it to do so. In the Maghreb, the 2 countries with organized family planning programs want them, and the 1 country without does not want one. The author ends with the question of what and whose criteria are to be utilized in cases in which external agencies are asked for population program assistance once a government decides that it wants a program for its people.
