On unwanted children and mothers of multiple births...

You've been on a fast of sorts. You haven purchased the newspaper for a few days, unwilling to read about all the economic down-melting, those blood smeared bodies in India, the plans of president-elect Obama in the U.S.A. to use old faces to blow new wind, and the yesterday's murders and the day before yesterday's scandals and the rating of TV programs that deserve no rating at all...and so you read an article in the December 3 issue of the Buenos Aires daily, "Clarín" about undesired pregnancies...

According to a study carried out by the Buenos Aires Province Ministry of Health, 50% of births in public hospitals are undesired and unplanned and the result of chance and the lack of knowledge about birth control...young mothers whose partners failed to take the necessary precautions. Of the 12,018 mothers included in the survey, 43% used absolutely no anti-conceptive method; ten percent were single mothers and 21.6% were under 20 years of age. Of the mothers who frequently give birth once a year around three percent can neither read nor write...

Says Flavia Rainieri, head of the provincial program for mothers of infant children: "Couples don't talke about anti-concptive measures because that stirs up disagreements; religious beliefs arise in the couple due to what anti-conceptive method should be used."

In a society where poverty and lack of opportunities strikes especially at the impoverished sectors of the population, the explosion of unwanted children is a tragic social problem of dramatic consequences for the future. Yet the predominantly Catholic Church continues to pressure strongly against any form of birth control, against family planning and abortion. In Argentina a woman who gets raped is still obliged to give birth to her unwanted infant; in slums and poor neighborhoods mothers with barely enough means to survive themselves frequently have four, five or more children.

The problem of unwanted children should also be seen in the light of the unending violence that women suffer at the hands of women beaters, overly jealous husbands or lovers and the lack of protection provided them by the State. (Although Congress is discussing a measure now to protect women from varied forms of domestic violence).

What future lies ahead for those children? Most will arrived undernourished to adulthood, with only scant education, little or no skills, and the chances they have of finding a dignified place in society are practically non-existent. Isn't it time not only government but society, religious organizations, scholars, teachers, civil rights leaders and others interested in the genuine development of the country take hold of this situation to work out effective measures to protect the lives not only of the children but also of their mothers?