In the United States, only about half of pregnancies are planned, and high rates of therapeutic abortion fan political controversy. When statistics are so staggering, one is tempted to dismiss them as incomprehensible or beyond our capacity to influence. Such attitudes, however, make certain a disastrous future for the escalating number of children born each year. In parts of Latin America, at least half the inhabitants live in slums, and the infant mortality rate is as much as 10 times that of individuals in a less populous environment. Women living in poverty in some regions have many children, in order to assure survival of a few offspring to survive and to support the parents in their old age.
Children become their social security.
The cold and horrifying facts are that there are millions of orphans in the world today, many of whom are unlikely to have an education or experience a sense of family. If children are to be wanted, women need to have access to reproductive technologies to determine when and how often they choose to be pregnant. Women should have assurance of their own good health and, in particular, protection from HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases. They should be well nourished and their general medical needs must be met on a continuing basis, not just as part of prenatal care. Adoption of these simple and almost obvious measures would have a profound effect on the outlook for their children, who could then feel the love and stimulation of their own parents.