They also have different views on the appropriate number of children each family should have. In the past, Western-funded projects have been accused of coercing people into sterilisation and abortion, making local people unwilling to come forward. Not surprisingly, many third world governments have been actively resistant to such intrusive intervention into their societies. Delegates to ICPD '94 will be very sensitive to this problem. Today's public discussions on family planning come in a coded form, cloaking their arguments in liberalism.
Family planning is dressed up as a way of safeguarding people's health in the third world.
Family planning projects abroad are motivated as a means to improve standards of healthcare, to educate women about sexual health and to give women as much control over their lives as possible. Simply scratch the surface of today's feminist-speak arguments for family planning in the third world, and straight away the old motivation of population control begins to reappear. Health projects, we are told, now concentrate on the area of reproductive and maternal health and contraception services, because it is the most effective way to save the lives of third world women. It is estimated that every year half a million women die from causes associated with childbearing. Unsafe abortion is a frequent killer.