At Last, a Choice for Peru’s Poor : President defies church by using birth control program in fighting poverty

President Alberto Fujimori knows well how to read public opinion in Peru and act decisively in response to it. During his first five-year term as president, his regime defeated the Shining Path guerrilla movement and brought inflation down from an astronomical 5,000% to just over 10%.

Now, fresh from winning a second term, Fujimori is facing what may prove to be his toughest challenge yet. He is trying to provide the poor with access to family planning information and surgical methods of birth control--this in rigidly Roman Catholic Peru.

The president’s decision has placed him on a collision course with the powerful hierarchy of the church, but he is steadfast in saying that to ease the rigors of extreme poverty the poor must have the means to determine the size of their families. Peru has one of the highest birthrates in the world. In addition, 13% of the population under 5 years old was classified as undernourished in 1994.

In the cities the average couple has two to three children, in the rural areas three to six. According to current statistics, 116 of every 1,000 newborn children die before reaching the age of 5. Bolivia is the only nation on the continent to have a worse infant mortality rate.

Until Fujimori sent his family planning initiative to Congress, which recently made it law, vasectomies and tubal ligatures were banned. The rich had access to the pill and other contraceptives, but the poor had no adequate information on family planning and no choice but abstinence. Now, there is another way.

With the obvious exception of the Catholic Church hierarchy, public opinion supports the law overwhelmingly. The church continues to preach that artificial birth control is a sin.

Fujimori and Congress are right to present the people of Peru with a legal option. And the church has the right to counter with its teachings. Now the Peruvian family has a choice, and a decision to make.