MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Countries commit to population control

Latin American and Caribbean nations agreed on Thursday to intensify their commitment to birth control and AIDS prevention programs after a two-day U.N. meeting in Chile.

The United States, a major financial backer for regional family planning programs, was the only one of 38 delegations that withheld support for the declaration.

Latin America has made progress on reproductive health in the last 10 years but poor people and teenagers lack access to family planning, according to an assessment presented at the meeting organized by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

"Today's meeting emphasizes the importance of strengthening programs directed at adolescents, increasing access to services and information," Elena Zuniga, Secretary General of Mexico's National Population Council, told to the press.

She said that although Mexico has brought down its birth rate, 80 percent of adolescents failed to take precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases when they lost their virginity.

The U.S. delegation expressed reservations about providing confidential birth control services to adolescents, saying parents should be involved.

Under the Bush administration the U.S. has concentrated much of its international AIDS-prevention and birth control funding in campaigns, often jointly with religious groups, that promote abstinence.

Delegates said Latin America, despite being largely Catholic, took a different approach.

"Mexico respects those who believe that abstinence is the best method, but as a government we are obliged to offer teenagers all the existing options that are safe and people can make decisions based on their convictions," Zuniga said.

Since a landmark international conference on population and development 10 years ago in Cairo, where 179 countries agreed to aim for universal access to reproductive health services by 2015, global population growth has slowed from 93 million people a year to 77 million.

Nongovernmental groups that support family planning said the United States was out of step with a global commitment to providing contraceptive options and letting people choose.