Family Planning Becomes a Global Issue

“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single ‘technology’ now available to the human race. . . . This would still be true even if there were no such thing as a population problem.”​—The State of the World’s Children 1992.

IN THE past it was considered desirable to have many children. Nearly four thousand years ago, when Rebecca was about to leave Mesopotamia to marry Isaac, her mother and her brother blessed her with the words: “O you, our sister, may you become thousands times ten thousand.” (Genesis 24:60) Times have changed. Today, more and more women are saying they want fewer children.

“I was the third of seven children,” said Bu, a 22-year-old Indonesian mother of one daughter. “My father was a palm juice vendor in Klaten, Central Java, and my parents suffered great hardship trying to raise such a huge brood. . . . It’s easier to raise a family if you have only a small number of children.”

Bu’s sentiments are similar to those of parents worldwide. Increasingly, couples want to plan when to begin having children, how many to have, how far apart to have them, and when to stop. This is reflected in UN statistics indicating that the voluntary use of contraceptives in developing countries has risen dramatically, from 10 percent of couples in the 1960’s to 51 percent today.

Governments too are keenly interested in promoting family planning. Over half of the developing nations are pursuing policies to reduce population growth. The UN Population Fund estimates that the total spending on population-control programs is now about $4,500,000,000 a year. To meet future demands, authorities hope that this figure will double by the year 2000.

Why are nations and individuals so interested in controlling birthrates? And what is the Christian view of this important matter? The following two articles will consider these questions.