| Description |
all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplannedâ€"and it is certainly not that way at all in much of the rest of the world. Let me reach the conclusion. Is the picture I've been painting here a recommendation, a prediction, a Utopian fantasy, a totalitarian plot, a hypothetical conjecture, or a realistic solution? Indeed, it has elements of all of these. It is hypothetical because it trades on assumptions about technologiesâ€"especially male technologies in addition to female onesâ€"which are not yet fully available. It is Utopian in that it describes a dramatically better world. It gives us a chilling view of what completely "con-trolista," totalitarian population-control programs would look like, where people are forced into contraceptive use without guarantees either that they will not be singled out as a contraceptive "target," whether as an individual or as a member of a minority group, or that they will always be able to choose to have children. It is also a prediction, because I think someâ€" maybe muchâ€"of this picture describes the way we will actually practice reproductive responsibility in the future. But it is also, I think, a realistic solutionâ€"far better both for reducing growth and for protecting reproductive rights than any alternative. For that reason, what I've had to say here is a recommendation as well. The longer we wait to get on with these thingsâ€"not only with making the technology available, but with writing the two essential guarantees of reproductive liberty into law and social policyâ€"the more we are likely to exacerbate the problem we will be forced to faceâ€"and forced to face sooner rather than later. ...25.. |
