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96
During the same period, breast cancer deaths in Greenwich
numbered 58 giving a rate of 0.25 compared with 0.41, the rate for
England and Wales.
Family Planning
There is no doubt but that family planning is now considered
an essential ingredient of modern living. However, with all the
controversy stimulated by the introduction of the Family Planning
Act perhaps we ought to ask ourselves—Why Family Planning?
On the practical side we must remember that by the turn of the
century it has been estimated that the then existing population,
living and eating on this planet, will equal the numbers of all who
had lived and died throughout recorded history.
World population is rising by 2% per annum and adds 65
millions (more than equal to the whole population of the British
Isles) to its total every year. Better sanitation and medical care,
advances in law and order and education, have all militated to
reduce mortality to such effect that for every two people born only
one person dies.
Some nations, however, have a growth-rate of 3½% or more
which, although it may not seem extraordinary, means that their
population will double in 20 years. With a country growing as fast
as this, approximately one half of its people will be under the age
of 15 years and their upbringing will be such a burden on the
working section that economic or educational advancement or,
indeed, progress of any kind becomes impossible.
Unfortunately there are immense areas of the world which are
under-developed and over-populated and where the chances of
improved output are remote, if not impossible. In this respect even
our own country, which has the highest productivity rate per acre
in the world, is not self-supporting agriculturally. Moreover,
although it can be argued that there are untapped world resources
sufficient to support the expected population growth, it is a fact
that there is always a "time lag" between the possible and the
practical and the geometrical progression of increasing population
is unlikely to allow these two to coincide.
As with food so with housing, medical, social and other personal
and public services.
There is no such thing as equality when the problem of women
and babies is being considered. It is a fact that the efficiency of
the uterus declines with practice and that the chances of abortion
grow with each pregnancy. Indeed, abortion is common in women
who have had five pregnancies or more by the age of 25 years.
Perinatal and maternal mortality also rise after the third child.