Word: births
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson. But these plant species are disappearing now, and people, not comets or volcanoes, are the angels of destruction. Moreover, the earth is suffering the decline of entire ecosystems -- the nurseries of new life-forms. For that reason, Wilson deems this crisis the "death of birth." British ecologist Norman Myers has called it the "greatest single setback to life's abundance and diversity since the first flickerings of life almost 4 billion years...
...evolved over the ages. Almost every society has had its myths about the earth and its origins. The ancient Chinese depicted Chaos as an enormous egg whose parts separated into earth and sky, yin and yang. The Greeks believed Gaia, the earth, was created immediately after Chaos and gave birth to the gods. In many pagan societies, the earth was seen as a mother, a fertile giver of life. Nature -- the soil, forest, sea -- was endowed with divinity, and mortals were subordinate...
...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...
...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...
...Roman Catholics have fought against national family- planning efforts in Mexico, Kenya and the Philippines, while Muslim fundamentalists have done the same in Iran, Egypt and Pakistan. Still, religious objections need not entirely thwart population planning. Where such resistance is encountered, vigorous campaigns should be mounted to promote natural birth-control techniques, including the rhythm method and fertility delay through breast feeding...