family planning
Poster publicizing the government's one family one child policy in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China. Under this policy families are offered incentives to have only one child in order to slow the population increase.
Deliberate control of human population growth by various means (contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion), in order to reduce the birth rate. The majority of developing nations now have governments that support some sort of family planning programme.
Since the early 1950s India has taken the lead among developing nations to control its population growth, with government-sponsored programmes. However, in April 2001, it became the second country after China to have a population of over 1 billion. In China, there is a one-child policy, and couples lose large financial benefits if they have a second child.
According to a 2003 UN report, the average number of births per woman is 1.5 in the industrialized countries, where most women use birth control, compared with 5.0 births per woman in Africa and 2.9 across the developing world.
| In the face of increased populations and decreased food supplies and natural resources, family planning has become a priority for some nations. |
Family size Access to family planning is only one of the factors that determine family size. The others are health care for mothers and children, family income, education for women, and women's status in society. Poor people tend to have large families but mothers and children are more likely to be undernourished and vulnerable to disease; women who have had little or no schooling have twice as many children as women who have received higher education; and women whose status in the community depends on their role as wives and mothers have more children than women who enjoy other social rights and duties. |
family planning - events
| 1800 | USA | The birth rate in the USA is over seven per woman, which is the highest in the world. |
| 1826 | England | The English radical thinker Richard Carlile writes Every Woman's Book, a birth control manual. |
| 1827 | UK | English clergyman Thomas Malthus's sixth edition of his 1798 pamphlet An Essay on the Principle of Population expresses the view that the poor laws only encourage large families; he encourages people to marry late and to exercise ‘moral restrain’ as a means of economic control. |
| 1838 | Germany | German physician Friedrich Wilde develops the contraceptive rubber cap. This is the first use of rubber for medical purposes. |
| 1878 | Netherlands | Dutch doctor Aletta Jacobs opens the first contraceptive clinic in the world, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. |
| 1909 | USA | The increasing cost of living in the USA is resulting in people having smaller families. |
| 1920 | France | Abortion is made illegal in France, to increase the population which has dropped because of World War I. |
| 1920 | Russia | Abortion is legalized in Russia. |
| 1930 | Italy | Mussolini's regime outlaws the distribution of birth control information and abortions, but half a million abortions continue to be carried out in Italy every year. |
| 1930 | | Pope Pius XI condemns contraception, but allows the use of the rhythm method for birth control. |
| 1 January 1961 | UK | The first oral contraceptive pill, Conovid, goes on sale in Britain, manufactured by the British firm G D Searle. From 4 December, it is available on the NHS. |
| 22 March 1972 | USA | The Supreme Court in the USA rules that a Massachusetts law denying contraceptives to single people is unconstitutional. |
| 1 April 1972 | UK | Hounslow Borough Council in London, England, is the first local authority to offer free contraceptives to residents. |
| 1 April 1974 | UK | Free contraception is made universally available on the National Health Service in Britain. |
| 20 February 1985 | Ireland | The sale of contraceptives becomes legal in Eire. |
| 1987 | South Africa | Pat Anthony of Northern Transvaal in South Africa becomes the first surrogate grandmother, giving birth to her daughter's triplets. |
| 1987 | USA | The case of Baby M, the child of a surrogate birth agreement in the USA, raises ethical issues when her custody is contested by her natural mother Mary Beth Whitehead and the couple who paid for the surrogacy, William and Elizabeth Stern. On 31 March, the New Jersey judge rules that Whitehead has no parental rights. Surrogacy, not covered by existing laws, is becoming increasingly common. Full custody of the baby is given to William Stern. |
| 16 January 1987 | USA | KRON television in San Francisco, California, shows the first advertisements promoting the use of condoms for safe sex. |
| 1992 | USA | The US company Pharmacal launches Femidom, a female condom originally developed for use in the developing world. |
| 1993 | USA | US religious groups launch True Love Waits, an organization aiming to make pre-marital celibacy attractive to young people. Its effectiveness is unknown, although it garners a lot of publicity. |
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