I entered the room a skeptic. I knew Dottie Lamm participates in United Nations conferences on the status of women. But I did not know she is a woman of intellect and passion with an important message that has been overlooked or misunderstood by a vast majority of Americans.
The need to control world population by empowering women through education and readily available means of contraception became startlingly clear over the next hour. As the lecture ended, I left convinced that the United States, under current Republican leadership in Congress and possibly next year in the White House, would not take any significant steps in this direction.
Lamm began her lecture by outlining the problem of the growing world population, which presently stands at 5.6 billion. At the current annualrate of natural increase of 1.6 percent, theworld will have 12.5 billion inhabitants in 20 years. The United Nations conference plan provides for stabilization at 7.27 billion.
Less-developed countries contribute about a two percent annual rate of increase to the global average. In more developed countries, women average about 1.7 children. In LDCs, the average is 3.6. In Africa, families average 5.9 children, and Sub-Saharan Africa averages 6.4.
Critics claim population pressures can be overcome by technology and more efficient use of resources. They point to the decreasing poverty rate as proof that we are indeed not in danger. Statistics like these are misleading because, as the population nearly doubles in some areas, the absolute number of people in poverty dramatically increases. Additionally, the gap between the poor and the wealthy continues to widen.
The more educated women become, the more they yearn to control their reproductive capabilities. Lamm, who has directly interacted with women living in LDCs, said that many of these women want to practice family planning, but simply do not have the means available to use safe contraception. Sterilization and even illegal abortions (which kill 200,000 women a year) are a common substitute for safer methods of prevention we have come to take for granted in the West, such as birth control pills and condoms.
For many areas, the extension of education remains crucial. During the last two decades, investment in the education of women in LDCs has resulted in fewer pregnancies, economic development, environmental protection and political stability. But this education process is useless without a certain amount of monetary support from the more developed countries. The UN conference at Cairo, though it did produce a document that was more inclusive than any previous documents, was overshadowed by political debates on the morality of family planning and abortion.
The effort to derail any specific language regarding contraception was spearheaded by the Vatican on the grounds that contraception "blocks the transmission of life." The goal of the Vatican was the "embrace of Life," but that embrace cannot possibly include a projected 10 billion people by the year 2030. This is not the solution to the population explosion and it certainly is not the means to the empowerment of women.
The U.S. government, has not been significantly more helpful than the Vatican. The Republican Congress has already cut our foreign aid -- a mere one percent of our budget. Family planning only consumes three percent of that $13 billion we spend on foreign aid. The time has come for us to face reality and extend some sympathy for the women of LDCs who are forced to control the growth of their families by rudimentary and often dangerous methods.
The prospect for increased aid for family planning in LDCs is unlikely when Republican presidential front-runner Bob Dole is pictured shaking hands with Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed.
The best thing the Republican party could do for both itself and the world is to abandon its pro-life stance and embrace smart solutions for the advancement of women in America and across the globe. Unless this occurs, more and more women will find it difficult to support the Republican party.
As much as I support the return to conservative fiscal policy and federalism, I cannot shut my eyes to the problems women face in the LDCs. While Roe v. Wade seems to face little threat of being overturned, even in a lengthy Republican administration, the issue of abortion is now bigger than just the U.S.
As we continue to debate the abortion issue, women in LDCs are dying in illegal abortion attempts because they cannot receive the proper means of safe contraception. As these women suffer, the world population increases. With every additional child, the problem grows exponentially.
