Family Planning and Public Policy: Who Is Misleading Whom?

Abstract

This article rebuts points proposed by Judith Blake in Population Policy for Americans: Is the government being misled?. Contrary to Blakes opinions U.S. family planning programs have been advanced to improve health and reduce poverty rather than to control the population growth. Blake accuses family planners of misleading the public into the belief that extending family planning to the poor would bring population stability but family planners have not suggested this since they acknowledge that the high fertility of the poor is not the major reason for the U.S. population growth. Advocates of family planning do not assert that birth control was not extended to the poor because of political considerations. Blake overstates the differences in fertility between social classes and assumes the poor desire a larger family size basing her arguments on opinion polls rather than in depth studies. Data from the 1965 National Fertility Study shows that excessive fertility among lower socioeconomic groups is due to a lack of information and services and not due to higher desired fertility size. Family planners thus attempt to equalize access to effective methods of contraception by providing services to the poor. The estimate of 5 million women who need subsidized family planning is not an exaggeration but a reasonable approximation. It is concluded that the immediate objective of federal policy on family planning is the extension of effective fertility control measures to all women who want and need them.