In 1970, 41.6% of the Brazilian population was represented by children aged 0-14, and by 21.3% of women in fertile age; the birth rate was 36.9/1000. Without an appropriate national program of family planning, Brazil will have in the year 2000, 218.8 million inhabitants. The need for family planning services in Brazil is evident, even more so since abortion is forbidden, unless for therapeutic reasons. A national family planning program should include a complete range of maternal and child services, and screening for high-risk women; in other words, family planning should be thought of and used as preventive medicine. Family planning is not so much a right as a duty of the couple. The Catholic church, largely prevalent in Brazil, approves of family planning when practiced with the means allowed by the church itself.
