Published 31 July 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1076
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1076

Editor's Choice

Population control and uncertainty—a doctor’s role

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Several readers have pointed out that the BMJ’s recent coverage of climate change has ignored a key issue—the need for population control. John Guillebaud and Pip Hayes give the same rebuke in their editorial this week (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a576). They may be right that "population" and "family planning" are taboo words. The BMJ hasn’t actively avoided these issues, but we could do more to highlight them. As Guillebaud and Hayes portray it, every week an extra 1.5 million people need food and somewhere to live, amounting to "a huge new city each week, somewhere, which destroys wildlife habitats and augments world fossil fuel consumption."

Population control need not be coercive, they say. Half of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned. Simply by meeting women’s unmet contraceptive needs, several developing countries have halved their fertility rates. Clear evidence points to the demand for contraception increasing when it is available, accessible, and properly . . . [Full text of this article]

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