Letter: Birth control

According to Save the Children, up to nine million children have died as a result of their plight being ignored by various governments (your report, 9 September).

That situation is both unacceptable and lamentable, until one looks more closely at the dynamics and demographics of the situation.

In the case study you quoted, a Tanzanian woman, Zainabu Jafari, complains that she cannot afford to provide for her newly born babies. She has nine children. Surely this alone must give pause for thought?

The situation regarding the deaths of these poor babies seems to be a factor of religious and culture norms in third-world countries where large and increasingly unsustainable families are commonplace. This does nothing to alleviate the starvation and other social issues experienced in these countries; the only rational answer, like it or not, is simply not to have the children in the first place.

One specious and predictable knee-jerk solution promotes the idea that the money spent on wars would be better spent on providing for the needs of these children. In the short term yes, it would, but this is not the answer: the world already has issues with the burgeoning populations outstripping the ability of the planet to feed them.

We need fewer people in our overcrowded world, not more, so better-funded programmes devoted to birth control are the answer, not short-term stop-gap ideas that would only end up making a bad situation worse.

Brian Allan

Keith Street

Kincardine-on-Forth, Alloa