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 Health & Beauty | August 2006 
Mexico Gets Serious About Improving Public Health
 Houston Chronicle
| | Mexico's nearly 90 percent Roman Catholic population has a long tradition of not taking church teachings too literally. Maintaining church- state separation is a national passion. |
As it did to great effect in the 1970s, Mexico is setting out to improve public health through science. If only more U.S. leaders could be as pragmatic.
After years of church and government encouraging huge families, Mexico's government saw the light on population control 40 years ago. Thanks to family planning clinics, free birth control and education, Mexican families' average family size dropped from seven children in 1968 to two today.
That success, which has already improved countless lives, may well raise Mexico's standard of living and slow emigration in upcoming decades.
Now the government of President Vicente Fox wants to reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. It's gone to work with utter practicality.
The program's centerpiece is comprehensive sex education for youngsters. Government-mandated textbooks frankly explain topics such as masturbation and homosexuality, noting that there's nothing wrong with either.
Church leaders and conservative followers object strongly. Catholic leaders have told governors to replace the new books. The texts' clinical tone, the bishop of Tehuacan warned, could unleash "sinful behavior."
The controversy, as well as the concern about pregnancy and disease, echoes similar debates in this country. What is different is the Mexican parents' and government's bold defense of science over shibboleth.
"It is scientifically proven that information does not lead to promiscuity," the president of a 19-million-member parents group asserted.
"On the contrary," he added, "it helps protect our youths."
Mexico's nearly 90 percent Roman Catholic population has a long tradition of not taking church teachings too literally. Maintaining church-state separation is a national passion.
Unlike the United States, Mexico's government remains largely centralized — and wields heavy influence on local education standards.
This is not to say that Mexicans, by nature conservative, won't undergo real tensions over this campaign. Some wonder if it's a gauntlet thrown down to test conservative President-elect Felipe Calderon.
But Transborder Institute scholar David Shirk says Calderon, whose contested victory was backed this week by a tribunal, probably wants no further controversy. Instead, Shirk predicts, Calderon will back the current government's status quo — and thus the sex education program and new books.
If so, Mexico will be the richer. Fewer children will be ignorant of, and vulnerable to, sexual abuse. Fewer teens will get pregnant, and fewer women will seek illegal abortions. What a far-reaching gift for a country with so many challenges. |
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