Women in conditions of dire poverty very much need to control their procreative power, so as to avoid untimely pregnancy, and achieve healthy pregnancy whenever they want.
But poor women are particularly at risk for harm by contraception:
- It is unreliable unless you use radical measures like sterilization or long-term hormonal implants,
- radical measures either destroy the ability to achieve healthy pregnancy, and/or have serious potential side effects.
- hormonal contraceptives have already contaminated every major river system in the US. Haiti does not have modern water sanitation facilities to remove hormonal effluents from potable water
- Third/Fourth World people would have to devote a big percentage of their national income for contraceptive supplies, and would be totally dependent on the international pharmaceutical industry
- at present poor families don't even have secure access to soap, toothpaste or anti-malarial mosquito measures, let alone contraceptive supplies
- What they need is a method which would be effective, free of charge, not dependent on abortion as a back-up, which has no health counterindications or risks, which does not pollute the environment and which cannot be imposed on them coercively by the state.
Fortunately there is one such method available:modern fertility-awareness methods (NFP).
Doesn't need hormonal injections/implants, will not boost the prevalence of strokes and hormone-sensitive cancers, enhances spousal communication and cooperation.
Doesn't even require calendars and BBT thermometers. The simplest methods have been used by hundreds of thousands of women in Haiti-like conditions.
Fertility choices without contraception. That's the preferred family plkanning method in developing copuntries (LINK)
Fortunately there is one such method available:modern fertility-awareness methods (NFP). NFP (Natural Family Planning), which consists of not having sex during the woman's most fertile period, is most suited for couples where both partners can exercise self-discipline and engage in long-term planning. Does that characterize the majority of the population of Haiti?