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But the effort needs to be speeded up. For starters, contraceptive information and devices should be available to every man or woman on earth who wants them. According to surveys by the United Nations and other organizations, fully half the 463 million married women in developing countries (excluding China) do not want more children. Yet many have little or no access to effective methods of birth control, such as the Pill and the intrauterine device (IUD). The World Bank estimates that making birth control readily available on a global basis would require that the $3 billion now spent annually on family-planning services be increased to $8 billion by the year 2000. The increase in funds could shave projected world population from 10 billion to 8 billion over the next 60 years. However, few modern contraceptive methods are ideally suited to the daily lives of Third World citizens. Two-thirds of the 60 million users of condoms, diaphragms and sponges live in the industrialized world. Men in developing countries frequently view condoms as a threat to their masculine image; women often find diaphragms impractical since clean water for washing the device is scarce.
The most popular form of population control in developing countries is sterilization. Some 98 million women and 35 million men around the world have resorted to that permanent solution. The other current mainstay is abortion, which the Worldwatch Institute's Brown called "a reflection of unmet family- planning needs." An estimated 28 million abortions are performed in Third World nations annually, and an additional 26 million in industrial countries. About half are illegal.
New forms of birth control are desperately needed, and a few are slowly appearing. Last year a French pharmaceutical firm introduced RU 486, a drug that helps induce a relatively safe miscarriage when given to a woman in the early stages of pregnancy. Another recent arrival is Norplant, steroid-filled capsules that are embedded in a woman's arm and deliver contraceptive protection for five years. The implant is approved for use in twelve countries, including China, Thailand and Indonesia.
But progress is too slow. Additional spending on contraceptive research and development is badly needed. In 1972 global spending was estimated at $74 million annually, a paltry sum compared with many Third World military budgets. The funding in 1983 was just $57 million. One reason for the decrease was the Reagan Administration's antiabortion policy. U.S. contributions to international population-assistance programs declined 20% between 1985 and 1987, to about $230 million.
Bruce Wilcox, president of the Institute for Sustainable Development, an environmental-research organization based in Palo Alto, Calif., declared that solutions to the population challenge will demand "fundamental changes in society." Ingrained cultural attitudes that promote high birthrates will have to be challenged. Many families in poor agrarian societies, for example, see children as a source of labor and a hedge against poverty in old age. People need to be taught that with lower infant mortality, fewer offspring can provide the same measure of security. In some societies, numerous progeny are viewed as symbols of virility. In Kenya's Nyanza province, a man named Denja boasts that he has fathered 497 children.