首页
登录
职称英语
When representatives from 170 nations gather in Cairo next month for the thi
When representatives from 170 nations gather in Cairo next month for the thi
游客
2025-01-11
6
管理
问题
When representatives from 170 nations gather in Cairo next month for the third International Conference on Population and Development, they will vote on the largest population-control plan in history. It is ambitious. Not only does it call for a host of "reproductive rights" and aim to freeze world population at 7.2 billion people by 2050; it also calls for billions of dollars in new government spending on the issue — US $ 13.2 billion by the end of the century.
Some of the plan’s provisions have already aroused opposition, most notably from Pope John Paul II. All this has been gleefully covered by the newspapers. Yet scant attention has been paid to many of the dubious social and economic assumptions that underlie the plan. In particular, it is interesting to see how these programs are being sold in places like the Philippines, on the front lines of the population debate. For the way the proponents of population control have gone about pushing their programs raises serious doubts about the integrity of their studies, their ultimate value to development, and the role of foreign-aid groups.
Although population-control measure in the Philippines never reached the coercive levels they did in India, they were not popular. This time, proponents have learned their lesson. For the past few years, they have been quietly laying the groundwork for Cairo. Rather than attack the issue head-on, it has been redefined in terms of a host of new "reproductive rights" to which the solution is invariably a government-funded initiative.
We have just had a good taste of this in the Philippines. The National Statistics Office recently published the results of the 1993 National Demographic Survey (NDS), which happens to have been funded by the U. S. Agency for International Development. It is probably mere coincidence, but the NDS report, published on the eve of the Cairo meeting, nicely supports the thrust of the Cairo Declaration. That is, it has found a connection between mothers’ and childrens’ health and fertility behavior. The implication is that large- scale government family-planning programs are essential if health issues are to be addressed.
But the demographic survey seems to have been selective about what facts it would report and connections it would make. Take the health issue. The document concludes that the high risk of infant, child and maternal mortality is associated with pregnancies where mothers are too young, too old, or have already had several childern. But a discussion of poverty is missing from the list of factors related to health. It would be difficult to deny that poverty, lack of access to safe water, poor housing, poor hygiene and unsanitary conditions all have a strong bearing on the health of the mother and child. Although the NDS collected data on housing characteristics, it did not include any date on income.
A closer look at the fertility behavior of the poor is important because of the extensive literature on the "replacement effect" of high infant mortality. Statistical studies in various countries show high fertility among the poor as a rational desire to have children who will survive into adulthood to help take care of them. This helps to explain why many poor women have babies at such short intervals, The 1993 NDS would have been a good opportunity to verify the validity of this behavior in the Philippines.
The NDS avoided collecting data on socio-economic variables that would have a serious effect on these health issues. But, in one area, it made painstaking efforts to quantify fertility preference to derive figures for planned and unplanned pregnancies. It concluded that," if all unwanted births were avoided, the total fertility rate would be 2.9 children, which is almost 30% less than the observed rate. "This, too, was used to establish an "unmet" need requiring a government program.
Yet the NDS’s own numbers suggest that Filipinos are aware of their options. The total fertility rate — the number of babies the average woman bears over her lifetime — has dropped to 4.1 in 1993 from 6.4 in 1960. Some 61% used contraceptives, just a few percentage points short of the 65-80% rate prevailing in Europe, North America and most of East Asia. The delay of marriage by Filipinos to the age of 23 years represents a reduction of the risk of pregnancy by 19% given the 35 years of their reproductive life.
In short, the Philippines has its problems but its people are not as ignorant as the population-control lobby would suppose. Unfortunately, this lobby has development dollars, organizational muscle and support of the media. "We’ve built a consensus about population as a global issue and family planning as a health issue," says the UN’s Naris Sadik, host of the conference. Yes, they have. And now we know how.
选项
A、new
B、regional
C、UN
D、US
答案
D
解析
此题为跳读题。此题可读的关键是找到The Agency for International Development。相关信息见第四段。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3907849.html
相关试题推荐
There’sanewcampaignfortheunder-30scalledUndivided.Itgatherssugges
There’sanewcampaignfortheunder-30scalledUndivided.Itgatherssugges
Whenrepresentativesfrom170nationsgatherinCaironextmonthforthethi
WhichofthefollowingisNOTtrueoftheUnitedNations?[br]Thepresentrefor
WhichofthefollowingisNOTtrueoftheUnitedNations?[br]Itcanbeinferre
WhichofthefollowingisNOTtrueoftheUnitedNations?[br]KofiAnnanhopes
DavidLandes,authorofTheWealthandPovertyofNations:WhySomeAreSoR
GoingForth,TheNationsMultiplyUnevenlyDespitewars,famines,andep
______andWilliamShakespearearethebestrepresentativesoftheEnglishhuman
TheUnitedNationsConferenceonDrugAbusethattookplaceearlierthisyear
随机试题
[originaltext](19)Forgetmilkydrinks,hotwaterbottlesorcurlingupwit
Archaeologistshavelongthoughtthatstoneshipsservedasgravesforoneo
在采购预算中,可以结合采购成本、质量、交期、付款方式等的讨论,以支持采购领域KP
混凝土硅烷浸渍试验,应在喷涂后()d进行。A.3 B.7 C.14
某企业的流动资产是500万元,非流动资产是1000万元,流动负债是300万元,非
只有结合公司实际,并与公司发展模式、业务理念相融合,文化建设工作才能抓出成效。在
下列各项,不属急性心肌梗死检测指标的是()A.天门冬氨酸氨基转移酶(AST
某A级高度钢筋混凝土高层建筑,采用框架-剪力墙结构,部分楼层初步计算的X向地震剪
共用题干 甲在国外旅游,见有人兜售高仿真人民币,用1万元换取10万元假币,将假
(2015年真题)产于贵州的道地药材是( )。A.天麻 B.阿胶 C.玄参
最新回复
(
0
)