Political Quotes

“But I disagree with him as to methods in this case. He correctly says that if we do not encourage population control, other parts of foreign aid do not work well. But the reverse is also true, and it may be the converse or the obverse, and I never know which is which of those: the opposite, that is, for population control, for birth control to work well, it cannot be done in isolation. There is increasing evidence of what is commonsense true, one of the best things you can do to help curtail population growth is to improve the status of women in the society. Women who are kept literally ignorant, women who are given no real job opportunities, women whose lives are not going to mean very much because of a variety of economic conditions and social mores are much less likely to be interested in and cooperative with a family planning program. So it is certainly the case we need to do family planning as this appropriation does, but it is also the case that, and we are now beginning, through the efforts of many Members, to get the multinational banks and others to pay more attention to such important issues as improving the status of women.”