Condoms and abortions for Asia urged

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33093, 7 December 1972, Page 21

Condoms and abortions for Asia urged

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) TOKYO. Asia is seeking drastic action to hold down its population growth and a Japanese official has suggested the method that worked in Japan—condoms and abortions. The method lowered Japan’s population growth rate from 19.9 per 1000 in 1947 to 9.0 in 1957, and Mr Nobuo Shinozaki of the institute of population problems in Japan’s Welfare Ministry says he thinks it will work effectively in other Asian countries.

“However much money you dump, you cannot control the population growth in underdeveloped countries with oral pills and other contraceptive methods,” Mr Shinozaki says. “The pill is too complicated to use for the uneducated farmers, who comprise most of Asia’s population.

“How can you expect them to see a doctor regularly for physical examinations and take the pill every day—even if it was given out free? “Many of these countries cannot wait for educational improvement or economic development which will lessen the pressure of huge population,” Mr Shinozaki said.

“An ideal contraceptive,”, he added, “must be inexpensive, easy to use, safe, effective, and unobjectionable to sexual activity. “The condom is it."

Condoms are available “in many colours and kinds,” and so thin “you almost don’t feel it,” he said. He said people would soon grow to find them satisfactory.

“Why not distribute condoms widely in the countries with serious population problems? And at the same time, send experienced doctors there to train local doctors and nurses in groups for abortion operations?” he asked.

“This way, I believe, we can solve the population problem in many under-

developed countries in a matter of a few years.” Abortions, legalised in Japan shortly after World War 11, are believed to have exceeded the total number of live births for many years in Japan. Some 70 per cent of Japan’s married couples use condoms, some combining them with other contraceptive methods such as the rhythm—or safe period—method, the intra-uterine device and foaming tablets.

The intra-uterine device and the pill are not extensively used in Japan because of pharmaceutical laws regulating them. Japan produced an estimated 6.3 million gross of condoms—or about one-third of the world’s total—in fiscal 1971 ended last March. Officials believe 30 per cent of them were exported mainly to India, Pakistan, and South-east Asian countries.

Asia’s population is expected to exceed the 1970 world population—363s million—by the year 2000. Concern over population Croblems was underscored y a 13-day meeting of some

300 delegates from 23 Asian countries and international organisations which ended in Tokyo on Monday. The second Asian population conference called for “intensive, innovative action” to solve the problem, “not

in isolation but as part of over-all national and regional development.” Mr Shinozaki said that he believes that “if we are serious enough" about curbing population growth, “drastic action" is needed.