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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Good for Brazil
By VictorM: I don't know how good a solution this is but attempting to tackle the problem with an approach that contradicts the pope and the Catholic church is gutsy for a politician in a predominant Catholic country such as Brazil.The key point for me is what Lula said about providing the poor with "the same right that the wealthy have to plan the number of children they want."Just weeks after Pope Benedict XVI denounced government-backed contraception in a visit to Brazil, the president unveiled a program Monday to provide cheap birth control pills at 10,000 drug stores across the country.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the plan will give poor Brazilians "the same right that the wealthy have to plan the number of children they want."
Brazil already hands out free condoms and birth control pills at government-run pharmacies. But many poor people in Latin America's largest country don't go to those pharmacies, so Silva's administration decided to offer the pills at drastically reduced prices at private drug stores, said Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao.
Tags: brazil, lula, birth control
In fact, Brazil could outlaw contraceptives and wealthy Brazilians would still obtain and use them with impunity. You can bet poor folks wouldn't be able to, though. The prohibition would thus create a two-class society of haves and have nots — both as to too-large families and as to affluence and poverty. This would exacerbate disadvantages the poor already have to contend with.
Social justice and equity are critically important to the success and staying power of any democracy. Past some point of feeling the system is stacked against them and they're being allowed no control over their own situation, people revolt.
This is something anti-abortion hard liners in the U.S. need to reckon with. Prohibition would create the same two-class, government-enforced injustice here.
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