Family Planning Between Thought and Belief

Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes:

The problem of population growth is the most prominent continuing challenge facing Egypt since the sixties of the last century, which has brought the population to about 103 million, because it simply devours the state’s resources and burdens its budget with growing burdens that negatively affect the country’s development plans.

Population growth at a rate of 1.5 million people during 2021 requires economic growth of no less than 7.5% just to meet the needs of this increase, to provide them with education, health, job opportunities and a decent living.

This is apart from the requirements of the state’s development plans, which aim to increase production and achieve the highest rates of economic growth in light of the other growing challenges facing the world at present as a result of the repercussions of “the coronavirus – the wars currently under way”, which have led to an unprecedented rise in energy prices; and the effect of the war on the supply of wheat and foodstuffs will increase the financial burdens on the state and the individual alike and will reflect negatively on the exchange rate and the country’s economic growth rates.

Talk of the birth rate in Egypt rising to one baby every 14 seconds, with a fertility rate reaching 3.4%, will lead to the population increasing to 150 million over the next twenty years under normal circumstances.

Population growth is therefore a ghoul that swallows natural resources and productive power, threatens the national economy and food security and negatively affects the future of the coming generations.

This makes it imperative for everyone to cooperate in facing this challenge and dealing with it scientifically through family planning and reducing birth rates to the level that achieves a decent life for children, the family and society as a whole.

And evaluating previous international and local experiences in the field of family planning and the use of contraceptives, and carrying out the necessary studies with the support of the partners of the United Nations Population Fund, and the means and methods of awareness of reproductive health and other UN and national programmes, to reach the best possible solutions suited to our society to treat this problem.

The state has announced many presidential initiatives aimed at treating the problem of population growth and changing the difficult way of life of a broad sector of our people in the countryside and the poorest areas by providing a decent life in accordance with the principles and values of human rights.

Such as the (2 Is Enough) initiative and the (Decent Life) initiative, and the National Project for the Development of the Egyptian Family was recently announced, which relies on: improving population characteristics and controlling population growth.

The President of the Republic’s address to citizens last February came warning of the causes and dangers of the problem of population growth and the means of treating it “with all clarity and frankness”.

The state’s direction of calling for family planning to provide a decent life for children and families has enjoyed the support of the religious institutions, especially the Egyptian Church, and of His Eminence the Grand Imam, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, who declared that family planning is halal.. halal.. halal.

But these efforts face great difficulties on the ground, represented by the religious belief deeply rooted among many people that family planning is forbidden and contrary to religion, that Islam encourages increasing offspring because human numbers are a source of strength, and that human beings are the basis and goal of development, which is the content and substance of the discourse of the Salafi current on this issue.

It relies in spreading these ideas and beliefs on two means: the first, popular proverbs such as “a child comes with its own livelihood” and “children are a source of strength” and others; and the second, adherence to fundamentalism in the face of the renewal of religious discourse in keeping with the developments of the age.

The influence of belief may be stronger than the influence of thought among Egyptian society, which requires devoting all efforts to drawing up a new strategy for developing awareness among members of society, especially in the Egyptian countryside, whose people make up about 60% of Egypt’s total population, in which the religious aspect and belief would be a main axis, in addition to the axes of the media, reproductive health awareness, education and the elements of a decent life, while allocating and granting material incentives and providing small projects to all who commit to this strategy, and opening bridges of dialogue and exchange of views with the holders of mistaken beliefs, or those that led to the tsunami of the population explosion in Egypt, with the aim of reaching real solutions that can be implemented on the ground and keep pace with the times, so as to provide a decent and respectable living and life for the Egyptian citizen anywhere in the New Republic.