Family planning is a personal matter

Family planning is a personal matter

Family planning is a personal matter. Should government have any say in this matter?
Explain the reasons behind your stand.

I do agree that family planning is a personal matter. But in countries like India, where huge proportion of people is under poverty line and rate of illiteracy is very high, Government intervention becomes absolutely necessary.

For example, people in India do not understand the significance of family planning. While one class of superstitious people feel that a child is a “gift from God” and hence should be accepted, there is another class of low income group which feels that more children mean as many hands to earn money. They do not realise that before earning money, it means as many stomachs to be fed and in a country like India where resources are limited and poverty very high, it lands up deteriorating the quality of life of young children and thereby society at large.
Hence, with Government intervention through its various promotional campaigns and laws to be followed, helps not only in changing the mentality of people but also by forcefully making them restrict their family size and improving the quality of life for all.

It is true and has been proven that promotion of family planning in countries with high birth rates has the potential to reduce poverty and hunger. It also helps in averting maternal deaths and childhood deaths. It has the potential to contribute substantially to women empowerment, increase the percentage of children able to get primary schooling and also cause long term environmental sustainability

It is heartening to see that in the past 40 years, family-planning programmes and various advertising campaigns run by the Government have been successful in raising the prevalence of contraceptive practice from less than ten percent to sixty percent.

It can be concluded that, it is true that family planning is a personal matter. But it is also true, that in some developing countries like India, with low levels of literacy especially among females, people do not understand the importance of family planning. With Government intervention, things have only seen a positive change over the years, be it increase in contraceptive usage, or decrease in female fertility rate or improvement in overall health of females and children. Hence, one should follow various rules and laws formulated by the Government in this area for these changes to have a long term impact on the society.