International Birth Limitation

Facts compute but don't convert.

Telenovelas with a message;

we sit glued and learn:

there's a better way!

Back in the late 1960's, the U.S. government recognized the need for international birth reduction and started to take an active role in dealing with the population issue. Family planning assistance was provided both nationally and internationally. Congressmen Schemer, Tidings and Bush were instrumental in creating the Federal Title X Family Planning Program to provide birth control services and support contraceptive research. Hundreds of millions of dollars were made available through the population office of the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist developing countries in establishing family planning services. In 1974, the U.S. played an active role at the first U.N. Population Conference in an attempt to help solve the Earth's environmental crisis. Earth day had been established in 1970, and the awareness of environmental issues seemed to be growing. There was hope for a rational solution to the massive problems created by our excessive population. Optimism was soaring.

Now, more than thirty years later where do we stand? Was the optimism of the 70's justified? Have we solved the interlinked environmental and population problems? Is the human population finally beginning to decline? Has mankind learned to live within the bounds of Mother Nature without destroying her?

The human population has nearly doubled in the past 36 years, and when George W. Bush assumed the Office of the President, all international assistance for birth control was intentionally brought to an abrupt halt. Environmental issues were not merely neglected; the earlier legislation to protect the environment and wildlife reserves was brutally assaulted. New destructive measures were taken, aimed at allowing industrial concerns to increase levels of pollution and rape our national forests. The United States government turned towards a policy of allowing big business to maximize momentary profits while disregarding the consequences to future generations.

With the basis for optimism thus thoroughly undermined, what chances do we now have of preserving what's left of our natural heritage for future generations? Have a majority of Americans come to appreciate the destructive impact we are having on our environment? We all know the answer to this last question. Americans as a whole, and many other world citizens, particularly in third world countries, are as ignorant as ever. Consequently, we must try to learn from and correct the mistakes of the past. We must try to create awareness of the consequences of our actions, both within the U.S. and in other backward countries. But how?

In any country, there is an inverse relationship between population increase and personal prosperity. Expanding populations have gobbled up economic growth in many developing countries so that no one reaps the benefits. The need to provide children with the essentials prevents expenditure for education and the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment. Of equal importance are the consequences of our growing numbers to environmental destruction: to species extinction, to deforestation, to depletion of agricultural resources, to global warming, and to pollution.

The optimal human population would be one that allows long-term sustainability without loss of resources. Using this as a measure of optimal population size, we can conclude that human society has overstepped its appropriate limit by perhaps a hundred-fold. A collapse of human health seems inevitable without implementation of drastic measures to curb our numbers. If we do not limit birth, devastation by infectious agents such as HIV and SARS, or due to starvation and inadequate water supplies will bring the human population to its knees. We can be sure that under these circumstances, tremendous suffering will be the ultimate outcome.

Most past efforts to provide birth control to developing countries have been unsuccessful in controlling the population explosion. Thus, for example, while contraceptives became available to the greater populations of Pakistan and Kenya in the ‘70's and ‘80's, they were used by only a small fraction of these populations. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are over 500 million sexually active couples that do not want children, yet do not use contraceptives. For many of these couples, contraceptives are freely available! The problem deals in part with the lack of motivation to use family planning methods. If the targeted couples are resistant to the use of contraceptives for any reason, availability won't solve the problem. And reluctance may result from any one of a number of causes: ignorance of the methodology, prejudice against their use, conflict with religious beliefs, or a lack of appreciation of the benefits of smaller family size. Effort and funds must therefore be devoted to motivating the public, both here and abroad. It is clear that availability of contraceptive devices is a necessary but insufficient prerequisite for population stability.

How can people in either a developed or a developing country be motivated to use family planning methods? There are undoubtedly many answers to this question, not all applicable to any one group of individuals. For many people, however, the most effective approach may involve the use of the mass media, radio and television, preferably in the evening during prime time when many ordinary folks want to relax and enjoy themselves. It is then that the media should provide popular entertainment programs designed to teach the benefits of education and family planning.

Throughout much of the world, a popular entertainment format involves serial dramas known as ‘telenovelas' or soap operas. In the 1970's, one of the leading producers of Mexican telenovelas, Miguel Sabido, created a soap opera about an illiterate man, designed to resemble the average TV viewing audience in Mexico. Miguel Sabido was familiar with the social learning theory which claims that people acquire new attitudes and behaviors by first observing them in others, thereby becoming cognizant of the consequences of an action before trying them themselves. Thus, Miguel wrote a series that featured characters who initially had traditional attitudes about moral customs and practices. These characters gradually evolved to the point where they came to appreciate the benefits of knowledge and enrolled in educational classes, which eventually allowed them to gain greater control over their lives. The program was a smash hit with high ratings. The targeted people increased their participation in educational programs over 8-fold within a 12-month period. During the next year, when the program no longer aired, registration fell to less than half of the peak value. The Mexican Institute for Communications Research (MICR) conducted extensive studies that confirmed a direct link to the TV program.

Miguel subsequently did a soap opera on family planning and family harmony. In the program, a young couple discovers the personal benefits of family planning, adopts a method of their choosing and lives happily ever after. During that year, attendance at family planning clinics and the sale of contraceptives climbed nearly 50%. Additional such programs were aired, and Mexico underwent one of the greatest declines in population growth recorded for any developing country. The current Mexican population is about 30 million less than if the previous growth rate had continued unabated.

Based on Miguel's success in Mexico, Population Communications International (PCI), an organization that works with local partners worldwide to produce culturally sensitive radio and TV soap operas, worked with Miguel and local educators to produce similar programs in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and India. In Kenya, both TV and radio serials were aimed at opening the minds of men so as to let their wives use family planning approaches. They also linked family size with land inheritance and the capacity of the kids to support their aging parents. These programs were the most popular programs ever produced by the Voice of Kenya. By the end of the series, contraceptive use had increased 58%, and desired family size had fallen from 6.3 to 4.4 children per couple. Studies conducted by the University of Nairobi and the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center linked the results to the broadcasts and identified the changing attitudes of the people as those emphasized in the soap operas. Regardless of whether the programs are considered education, propaganda, or merely entertainment, it was clear that they were producing dramatic effects that the mere availability of contraceptives could not. Similar approaches could benefit most world communities, including the U.S. population.

PCI continues to work with several countries. To promote the dissemination of motivational literature, comic books, newspapers and entertainment formats in addition to serial dramas are being tried. Yet in spite of the positive results and documented statistics, the U.S. government and even the U.N. Population Fund have not been supportive. These organizations believe that formal education will provide the best solution. As an educated educator, I'd like to suggest that education alone would prove insufficient. The use of entertaining emotional approaches through the popular media may prove to be far more effective than any purely intellectual approach that aims to present the cold hard facts. As professed by my colleague Michael Soule, "Facts compute but they can't convert. An instant of honesty and compassion is more important than an hour of logical argumentation."

Further Reading