Support For Family Planning In Taiwan

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32018, 19 June 1969, Page 5

Support For Family Planning In Taiwan

'By

LIONEL TSAI.

Reuter \orres-

pondent, through N.Z.AfI.)

TAIPEI. ; Taiwan has decided to i adopt a more practical approach to its popula- ' tion policy by taking ‘ an active part in family planning campaigns. Until recently the Government dung to the view of Dr Sun Yat Sen, first President of the Chinese Republic, that an increase in the Chinese population would prevent foreigners from turning the country into a joint colony. Then years ago no Government official would dare advocate family planning. Dr Monlin Chang, the late chairman of the Joint Commission of Rural Construction, was almost forced to renounce his support of family planning by outraged public opinion. He had pointed out that the average annual increase of Taiwan’s population was equal to the total population of Kaohsiung—-the second largest city on the island, with half a million people. But Dr Chang’s warning awakened some private organisations who quietly launched family planning campaigns. Among them was Miss Su Tse-kuan, now president of the Taiwan Family Planning Assoication. Professor Dmitri Tsitsishviii, director of the Institute for Female Physiology and Pathology, in Tbilisi, made a report on the problems to the Ministry of Health in which he suggested a simple solution. Children resulting from artificial insemination would be fully legitimate if both the I parents had agreed to the use i of the method. Despite the influential support for artificial inseminaI tion, its introduction undoubt-1

edly will not come quickly, if at all. Public opinion in the Soviet Union is extremely conservative on matters of sex.

Innovations, like sex education in schools, usually must go through a long period of discussion before they stand a chance of being accepted.