ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 1997 TAG: 9704080052
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
Family planning in developing countries can help reduce the rates of abortion, infant mortality and maternal deaths.
IN 1960, FEWER than 3 percent of married women in Chile practiced family planning. The abortion rate was 77 per 1,000 married women of reproductive age.
By 1990, 56 percent of married women in Chile practiced family planning. The abortion rate had dropped to 45 per 1,000 married women of reproductive age.
Numbers like those helped persuade Congress a few weeks ago to release $385 million budgeted for 1997 for international family-planning programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
The money cannot be used for abortions, but opponents nevertheless tried to link it to the abortion issue. Proponents prevailed in part because enough pro-life congressmen saw through the rhetoric to the substance: Effective family planning doesn't boost abortion rates, it reduces them.
Moreover, reports Population Reference Bureau policy analyst Barbara Shane in "Family Planning Saves Lives," family planning also reduces the death rate among young children - especially in developing countries, which is where the U.S.-funded programs operate.
In those countries, Shane reports, babies born to women younger than 20 are 1.5 times more likely to die in their first year than babies born to women in their 20s. Babies born less than two years after their next oldest sibling are twice as likely to die in their first year as those born two years or more after the next oldest.
As for the women of the developing world, their lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes is 38 times that of women in developed countries like the United States. Many became pregnant while malnourished or otherwise weak physically.
Family-planning assistance is often regarded as a way to help poorer countries reduce the long-term strain on their limited resources by reducing their rates of population growth. True enough - but it is also a way to reduce abortions, and to save lives of mothers and infants.
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