American Exports

Unfortunately, the United States government and the development agencies it funds seem determined to export our culture of contraception.

As a story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports , American agencies have been intimately involved in the design of a big push to “normalize” contraceptive technologies in the Philippines.

All of this tends to be wrapped in rhetoric about empowering women. But the results in America suggest a very mixed outcome. A culture of contraception detaches sex from reproduction, which encourages men to see women as ready, trouble-free resources for the satisfaction of their sexual appetites. So much for empowerment.

Lurking in the background is the perverse modern Western presumption that children are impediments—impediments to adult happiness, impediments to economic growth, impediments to a global green revolution.

There are good reasons to fund initiatives to encourage the extension of education and health care for women, including reproductive issues. But I wish our government agencies and private foundations would be a lot more self-critical. Do we have all the answers? Is our culture of contraception something so obviously wonderful, all ready to be wrapped up and shipped elsewhere?