Fertility and Poverty

The New York Times report below really freaked me out. The POINT BEING is that we cannot eradicate poverty from the planet until we address fertility. This is not easy because making babies is deeply embedded in the human psyche, and there's all kinds of social and cultural memes that must be overcome.

Here is an outline of this short news report:

• The focus is on a slum in Haiti, one of the poorest places in the Western Hemisphere.
• Camera turns to a 30-year-old woman named Nahomi, who lives in a small, dim shack. She has nine children, with a 10th on the way.
• How can we EVER make inroads toward solving global poverty when women like Nahomi are having 10 kids?
• She can barely feed the kids she has.
• Nahomi admits herself that 10 children is far too many. If given the choice, she would prefer two.
  
• Again, we CANNOT make progress toward eliminating global poverty unless we do more to reduce fertility.
• Family planning used to be an integral part of international development efforts, but it was pushed aside because of "abortion politics."
• Promoting family planning is much more difficult than it seems. In Haiti, there are plenty of family planning clinics and women say they want less children, yet the births per woman has remained about the same for the past 25 years.
• Nahomi tried to use contraceptives but suffered from side effects. Her husband refused to wear condoms, and they split up over this issue.
• The 10th child she is carrying now is from a man that was with her for 3 years, who left her.
• In an interview, a guy from the local UN Population Fund says that in Haiti, a woman has to give children to her husband.
• Some say education is the best contraceptive. Nahomi seems to be aware of this when she says that she hopes her oldest daughter will get an education and learn a profession.
• President Obama has lifted the band on funding for the UN Population Fund. HURRAY! That gives us an opportunity to lead a global effort to regain lost momentum for family planning.
• Restoring family planning efforts won't be easy, but Nahomi's story shows that there is simply no alternative.

A thanks to Nicholas Kristof for a great report!