Planned parenthood in an unplanned world.

Planned parenthood is considered as a basic human right. Population economist Gunnar Myrdal perceived snags in the theory that a lower dependency burden gives rise to a higher rate of physical investment in economic growth. A better case for population control can be made by speaking about the rising pressure of human wants on limited resources and a struggle for these resources. Planned parenthood becomes meaningless when most parents cannot plan their own lives or that of their children. Demographic transition in the West was a product of social change which reduced the capacity or willingness of people to raise large families. The family acts as a saving and a capital forming unit, a role which it is compelled to adopt in the absence of cheap institutional credit. China seems to have created the social basis for population control. Two lessons that can be learnt from Chinese experience is about the demand to limit fertility which should come from a caring and disciplining social whole and secondly that presenting population control as a cure for poverty carries no conviction. Planned parenthood can find social acceptance as a rearguard action against poverty.