Contraception - Being The Devil's Advocate

How ethically just is it to set a rule on how many children can a physically and mentally sound human being have? How clear is the line of regard for culture when there is an advisory to regulate the reproductive tradition that has been practiced since the birth of a society? If birth-control guidelines were not a violation of the basic human right to freedom of deciding on the number of children they need, then what is it?

Governments in the third world countries have established the practice of treating children (rather, products of conception) as a commodity that can be paid to do without. National contraception programs have encroached into the beds of impoverished hamlets and dictate terms on conception. And as if the lethal verdict was not sufficiently delivered through hospitals, armed doctors invade the villages and severe the reproductive tubes of the women who were missed at the hospitals. India's history of contraception starts from mid-twentieth century when people were advised that exercising control over the number of children they can give birth to would translate into happier societies and higher levels of well-being. The weak spot in this theory lies in missing the fact that society is made up of the people who live in it. When the individuals are denied the freedom to make decisions regarding pregnancy and childbirth, how does the government expect to climb up the happiness ladder? In rural India, contraception is a double-edged sword - freedom curtail on taking personal decisions and killing the future's earning hands. An extra birth means an extra earning member in rural households. There is absolutely no wonder in how social welfare schemes grew as a euphemism for the depopulation agenda in developing countries. When government is a representative body elected by the people to work for the people, nothing big is achieved by setting guidelines on regulating the fertility patterns in the society.

The counter-point raised by the pro-contraceptionists is the potential for the government to provide training and employment opportunities for its population. What if the governments had focused on "demographic bonus" and industrialization rather than population control? Unfairness has gone to the extent of incentivizing the poor in cash and kind to undergo sterilization. It is ridiculous to consider this as a development strategy.



P.S. - These are only views from an anti-contraceptive standpoint. These are not the beliefs upheld by the author. Debates are welcome.