Family Planning and the Budget

Mauritius Times – 70 Years

The Government’s proposal to use fiscal means to encourage people to plan their families is original and excellent

By Peter Ibbotson

Some time ago Mr Jagatsingh was in London. He and I were one evening discussing the problem of over-population, and I light-heartedly suggested that it could be tackled through the income tax laws. Give personal allowances for the first three children, I suggested, then none for the next two; thereafter, increase the taxpayers liability for income tax with every additional child. We pursued this light-hearted suggestion further, until we agreed that it could not be adopted because the people with large families were, by and large, not liable to income tax anyway.

In view of this suggestion of mine, you will readily understand why I was somewhat amused to see, in the Budget speech, the intention of the Government to introduce a rational system of non-contributory social assistance benefits related to the concept of the three-child family. It is excellent news that the Government has decided to implement a policy of planned population control, with the whole weight of its authority and resources behind a policy of family planning, with as the core of that policy the encouragement of people to limit their families to three children only.

That this Is a development which I personally welcome should need no saying to those who have read my articles over the last five or six years in the Mauritius Times as well as Advance. As is well known, I have always advocated family planning as the inevitable solution to the population problem; l have always argued in favour of family limitation. The Government’s proposal to use fiscal means to encourage people to plan their families is original and excellent. No one will be compelled to resort to family planning and birth control; no one is to be compelled to have no more than three children. It is simply that social assistance benefits will be available for three children only; and they will be greater for later marriages and well-spaced families. But let it be repeated, as the Government has made clear, no individual will be induced to take any action which is in conflict with his religious beliefs. It is worthwhile emphasising that guarantee from the Budget speech by putting it in bold types, because already there are indications that people who are opposed to any form of family planning are indulging in false propaganda by disregarding this pledge.

The Government expects criticism. It is already getting criticism — some of it from the most demagogic and irresponsible quarters. There is a difference between the criticism from the Eccentric Sideways Bloc and the criticism from the Catholic Church — the one is cheap political propaganda, the other derives from sincerely-held beliefs; but I submit that both forms of anti-governmental propaganda are wrong.

The Catholic Church opposes family planning and birth control because they are, it says, against the Divine Law. However, I would say this. Either we are to have family planning in Mauritius, based on the concept of the three-child family, with the target of a planned population of around one million; or we are to have an ever-growing population, rising to nearly three million by 2002, with all the inevitable attendant consequences of misery, distress, malnutrition, destitution, and homelessness.

There are the alternatives — planned families with economic progress and comparative well-being, or unlimited families with economic retrogression and social desolation. Everyone regards the latter as an evil prospect; the Catholic Church regards the former also as an evil. Can we, therefore, have an authoritative statement from the Catholic Church as to its attitude when faced with what it regards as two evils, one of which must be adopted? Is birth control a lesser evil than economic distress or is economic distress a lesser evil than birth control? We are faced with economic and social distress if we do not have birth control — that is very clear. Can we have an equally clear and unequivocal statement from the Catholic hierarchy?

Already the Catholic press has begun to talk about the Government’s family planning policy as leading to degradation. But there is plenty of degradation about without family planning; so even if (which I do not for one moment admit, anyway) family planning did lead to degradation, it would be no new phenomenon and no argument against family planning! The Catholic press tells us, too, that the Government’s family planning policy will lead to legalised abortions, nonsense. It is in those countries where family planning has been officially discouraged that women have resorted to abortions to avoid childbirth: France, Puerto Rico, Yugoslavia, to name but three. Since contraception has been permitted in Puerto Rico, abortions have diminished in number; recently the Yugoslav government, alarmed that the number of abortions has for years exceeded the number of births (10 abortions to every 7 births), has begun to intensify a campaign in favour of birth control by contraception.

The Government’s plans to popularise family planning are comprehensive and excellent. Family planning clinics are to be set up. Free advice will be available, and contraceptive appliances will be fitted. Contraceptives will be available, and they will be kept cheap by the abolition of all import duties and (if necessary) price control. I wonder if, when the island’s finances permit, the Government will be prepared to issue contraceptives free of charge, as the Burns Commission recently recommended for Fiji!

For other fiscal proposals in the budget, I have little but praise. The conspicuous consumption of the richer section of the community has long needed curbing, and the budget is designed to do just this. Wines, spirits, and tobacco are luxuries which people can well afford to pay more for; the social purpose behind the budget is very welcome. The higher level of tax on imported tobacco will give a fillip to the indigenous industry; so, will the tax on imported leather. The Automobile Association has protested at the higher petrol tax; but it is clear from the Purchasing Power report that wholesalers can well afford to absorb the extra 20% duty — in fact, they could probably afford the whole 30% without having to pass on any of the increase to the public.

Altogether, an excellent budget. Mr Wilson, we salute you.

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 28 February 2025