Sterilization in India

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

Re: "States in India Take New Steps to Limit Births" (front page, Nov. 7):

In India, the dominance of female sterilization among contraceptive options is not only unfairly burdening women.

With a rapidly escalating epidemic of H.I.V. and AIDS—at least 4.6 million people in India are already infected—the method of choice should be condoms, including for those who have been sterilized.

One hundred percent condom use (except when pregnancy is desired) will both slow the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS and allow couples to have the number of children they want, when they want to have them.

Without condoms, deaths will become a powerful and dreadful check on economic and population growth, as we are beginning to see in southern Africa.

ADRIENNE GERMAIN
President, International Women's Health Coalition
New York

Originally published in the New York Times, November 14, 2003. Reprinted with permission.

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