EDITORIAL: Magufuli on birth control: The 'pros and cons'
What you need to know:
- But, speaking in the same breath,Dr Magufuli for all practical purposes ‘exonerated’ the Presidency–categorically saying he was speaking as an individual and not as President, the country’s Head of State and Government.
President John Magufuli recently lambasted family planning practices, claiming that “women (practising) birth control are too lazy to feed a family…”
But, speaking in the same breath,Dr Magufuli for all practical purposes ‘exonerated’ the Presidency–categorically saying he was speaking as an individual and not as President, the country’s Head of State and Government.
By way of elaboration of his personal views, President Magufuli stressed that people who “go for family planning are lazy ... they are afraid they will not be able to feed their children. They do not want to work hard to feed a large family – and that is why they opt for birth control, ending up with one or two children only.”
Driving his point home, Dr Magufuli said “women can now give up contraceptive methods,” as it is “important to reproduce.” The president railed against family planning when addressing a public rally in the Meatu District of the Simiyu Region on Sunday, September 9 this year.
This was part of his official tour (September 3-to-10) of the country’s Lake Zone administrative regions of Mara, Mwanza and Simiyu .
The medical definition of birth control – also referred to as family planning, pregnancy prevention, fertility control, or contraception – is ‘the use of any practices, methods or devices to prevent pregnancy from occurring in a sexually-active woman.’
In that regard, ‘birth control methods are designed either to prevent fertilisation of the human egg, or implanting a fertilised egg in the uterus…’
Read more: Magufuli advises against birth control
What President Magufuli is up in arms against
In effect, then what President Magufuli is up in arms against (in socio-politico-cultural terms, anyway) is the practice worldwide of controlling the number of children one would have, as well as the intervals between their births – particularly doing the spacing by means of contraception or sterilisation.
Family planning the way we know it today started in earnest in 1936 with the Sex Hygiene and Birth Regulation Society of Wellington, New Zealand – later the New Zealand Family Planning Association.
But it was considered anathema in many societies and, as such, was not generally practised – if not ‘officially’ banned outright by some authority or other.
Indeed – much to the dismay of many – Pope Paul IV issued the Encyclical Humanae vitae (Of human life) on July 29, 1968 upholding the long-standing Church ban on birth control…
This is notwithstanding the fact that properly-practisedfamily planning has certain advantages. One is good health for mother and child/children. Another is the need to balance populations with available resources.
But, as a free citizen of a nation-state that abides by the rule of law and other judicial concepts, Dr Magufuli is entitled to his personal views. In the event, the man should not be hounded for virtually doing or saying that he is against family planning, birth control or some such.
That is what human rights and freedoms are all about – and they must always be respected, upheld.
