JOHN SHARPLESS

The U.S. government position on world population growth as it emerged
in the early 1960s was a fundamental departure in both content and
commitment. We embraced the idea that one of the goals of American
foreign policy should be the simultaneous reduction of both mortality and
fertility across the Third World. It was not simply rhetoric. As the years
passed, we committed a growing portion of our foreign aid to that end.
The decision to link U.S. foreign-policy objectives with the subsidy of
family planning and population control was truly exceptional in that it
explicitly aimed at altering the demographic structure of foreign countries
through long-term intervention. No nation had ever set in motion a
foreign-policy initiative of such magnitude. Its ultimate goal was no less
than to alter the basic fertility behavior of the entire Third World!
Whether one views this goal as idealistic and naive or as arrogant and self-
serving, the project was truly of herculean proportions.

It should not be surprising therefore that U.S. assistance for family
planning programs overseas has engendered sharp opposition both at
home and abroad. Initially it was fear of foreign domination and the
implicit racist implication of such an initiative that brought an angry
reaction from overseas. As time passed, hostility toward family plan-
ning declined across much of the Third World. As opposition declined
overseas, however, the political forces opposing the subsidation of fam-
ily planning programs in the United States increased. Ironically, domes-
tic opposition forced a major reevaluation of U.S. policy in the Reagan
administration at the same time worldwide support for population plan-
ning was finding its greatest support. More recently, with the election
of Bill Clinton to the presidency, the policy pendulum has swung in

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