Population – Page 58 – Population Matters-USA

Mull Over these Videosâ€”7-2010

Â© Richard Grossman MD, 2010

One of the funniest videos I have ever seen is a French advertisement for glue: http://www.canneslions.com/lions/lightbox.cfm?sub_channel_id=103

The video opens with a pair of young nuns strolling in a cloister. Music is playing as the nuns carry bouquets of spring flowers. When they approach a white marble sculpture of a young boy, one realizes that a terrible accident has happened: his protruding member (not his nose!) has been broken off. The member is found, and taken to the Mother Superior, who knows just how to fix his broken penis. She reaches for a tube of rubber cement and heals the poor fellow. The video closes as a young novitiate sneakily turns the member from the resting to the ready position.

This hilarious video brings up some serious food for thought for us in the United States.

Yes, even those pledged to abstinence still have urges. The pretty young nun in the video didnâ€™t leave her libido behind when she put on her habit. The Roman Catholic Church in this country is finally (although tacitly) admitting this by paying out huge sums because some priests did not live up to their vows and abused children.

In the past women became nuns for many reasons. Desire to have power and education in a society that didnâ€™t respect women, poverty, and lack of pulchritude were all secular motives. Fear of childbirth was another, although one we might not even think of today. Until recently a woman had a substantial risk of dying from a complication of pregnancy. Furthermore, there was no reliable way to prevent pregnancy until the twentieth century. Serving God had a notable side effect of saving your neck!

The video illustrates the differences in mores between France and the USA. For instance, this advertisement could never be shown on our TV. Furthermore, we in the USA live in an era that gives young people mixed messages. Sex is used to market products, is featured on TV and draws crowds to the movies. We are continually exposed to the sexual high jinks of our celebrities such as Tiger Woods and Jimmy Swaggart. Yet we often fail to give teens the straight scoop on sexuality and how to protect themselves against infections and pregnancy.

Not long ago teens were not taught about contraception, and were supposed to keep their virginity until marriage. Yet many studies show that modern â€œabstinence onlyâ€ programs do not work, and indeed, may expose our adolescents to greater risks because of their ignorance.

In 2007 Colorado voters showed their wisdom in rejecting abstinence-only idiocy by passing a law that requires any sexuality education curriculum to include accurate information about STDs and pregnancy prevention. Nationally, the current administration has put a nation-wide stop to â€œabstinence onlyâ€ programs.

The teen birth rate in the USA is at least four times that of any other rich country. Our teen pregnancy rate is more than five times that of the French. The difference between teen birth rates is not due to more abortions in France, since the teen abortion rate is lower there than in the USA. The principal reason for this difference is that French teens use more contraception. Why? I have some ideas, although I am not a sociologist. We have mores left over from the Victorian era, when sexuality was swept under the carpet. We still pretend that adolescent sexuality will go away if we ignore it.

Remember: the best way to lower the abortion rate is to encourage the use of effective contraception.

Commenting on the rubber cement video, a French woman said that sexuality is just part of life in her country. People talk more freely about sex in Europe. She also observed that the separation of church and state is stronger there. A program such as our â€œabstinence until marriageâ€ (which was spearheaded by born-again Christians) would never have been adopted in France.

Another video illustrates the differences between our cultures. Search the Internet for â€œTeens & Sex in Europe: A Story of Rights, Respect & Responsibilityâ€. Its producer, Advocates for Youth, is a leading organization in the field of adolescent reproductive health. Working both here and internationally, they lead study tours to European countries. This film documents the differences between the different cultures.

What can you do to help your children be more rational about their sexuality? One step would be to sit down with them, watch these videos and then talk about them. You might be surprised what you can learn from your kids!

This article may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words â€œFirst published in the Durango Heraldâ€ accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.

Welcome Back Family Planning–12-2009

The International Conference on Population and Development helped propel me toward being a more dynamic population activist. Bryan (our younger son) and I attended the conference in 1994 with press credentials from The Durango Herald.
You may remember that the ICPD in Cairo, Egypt, strongly supported reproductive health. Unfortunately it was soft on population. Reproductive health includes family planning, but is much broader, and therefore more expensive. Abuses, especially in India and China, were cited as the reason to turn away from goals in reducing population growth rates.
Certainly reproductive health is important; I have spent my professional life working for this goal. It is unfortunate that the ICPD turned attention away from population growth, however.
It is true that setting goals and offering incentives for meeting those goals caused some abuses. In the past family planning workers were given bonuses depending on how many people they convinced to limit their family size. Now there is careful policing of programs to avoid that sort of coercion, so family planning programs are purely voluntary. Incentives are unnecessary since people are happy to accept contraception of their free will; they want to limit their fertility.
The first major international family planning conference in fifteen years was held last month in Kampala, Uganda. It was a lot smaller than the Cairo conference, and was sponsored by nongovernmental agencies rather than by the United Nations. Sub-Saharan Africa was very well represented, showing great interest in family planning in that part of the world.
Human population has been out of the limelight for fifteen years now; indeed, the Kampala conference received scant attention in the US press. The consequences of the burgeoning population have received attention, however. Global climate change, extinction of species, pollution and depletion of fisheries all make the headlines. In the intervening fifteen years the number of people in the world has increased by 1.2 billion with nary a mention of this basic cause of these problems.
The recent International Conference on Family Planning in Kampala focused on several important issues. People reported on the importance of family planning in decreasing transmission of HIV to newborn babies, lowering infant and maternal mortality, and reducing unsafe abortionsâ€”largely by preventing unwanted pregnancies. Research also demonstrated the importance of involving men. For instance, a study in Nigeria found that women were much more likely to use contraception postpartum if their husbands were with them and witnessed their giving birth.
Researchers are stressing the importance of linking family planning with HIV prevention. There is a call for methods, such as a vaginal gel, that will achieve both these goals.
Another point from the conference is that women are relying more on long acting contraceptive methods. This is just as true here in Durango as it is worldwide. In much of the world IUDs and implants are favored over short acting methods (such as pills and condoms) because their supply is more reliable. In Durango, with excellent pharmacies, women like the long acting methods because they donâ€™t have to worry about taking a pill every night.
In much of the world vasectomy is becoming more popular. Unfortunately, tubal ligations still outnumber vasectomies. For many providers it will require a new mindset to include men.
Dr. Cates, a US family planning expert, mentioned another change in mindset when he summarized the conference. He pointed out that the cost to provide reproductive health care and family planning worldwide would be less than just ten days of worldwide military action.
The Kampala conference was an important step in the correct direction. Remember that the least expensive way to reduce carbon emissions is by reducing the number of unplanned pregnanciesâ€”and thereby reducing the number of people causing emissions. As I write this, the Copenhagen conference on climate change is underway. It is much bigger than the Kampala one, and is receiving much more press coverageâ€”partially because President Obama will attend. Please remember, however, that if more attention had been paid to family planning over the past fifteen years, the climate crisis would be much less severe. We can slow carbon emissions if the 200 million women who wish to limit their fertility (but lack the wherewithal) had access to modern contraceptive methods.
â€œReproductive health is a human rightâ€ was the mantra at ICPD. Although RH is an important goal, it may be too inclusive at this point in time. We need to move quickly to help people limit their fertility when they wish to do so.