Family planning yes] (Letter to the editor)

At a recent meeting of the New York City Inter-Agency Council on Family Planning we discussed the joint use of the terms "birth control" and "family planning" to identify clinics and other institutions offering contraceptive counseling and services as suggested by a professional group of physicians at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in your Letters Column (July 1971). The members of the Council most of whom are providers of services took considerable issue with this recommendation. They considered the term "family planning" adequate and appropriate in describing the services which such clinics purport to provide. These clinics should offer much more than contraceptive services and counseling alone. Social services are an important aspect of family planning as well as a medical work-up including an adequate m edical history and physical examination if meaningful preventive medicin e is to be carried out. In fact the term "birth control" in itself is inaccurate and could be misconstrued and may even serve as a deterrent to those who seek family planning services. Also in the minds of some people "birth control" and "genocide" are synonymous. On the other hand family planning services when properly conducted should mean much more than the prevention of pregnancy per se. Accordingly in our opini on the suggestion that the term "birth control" be added to the title of family planning clinics is not advantageous and serves no constructiv e purpose.(FULL TEXT)