Peace Without Poison

Responsibility for introducing population control measures in Botswana falls on its firstPresident, Sir Seretse Khama (1966-1980), who proceeded gingerly and mostly by providingfamily planning services. Upon the death of Seretse Khama, however, Quett Masire (1980-1998)was elected president and he allowed the UN and international NGOs to ravage the people’sfertility by covert and involuntary means. The program has been continued but with less fervorby President Festus Mogae (1998-2008) and the incumbent President Ian Khama (since April2008), who is incidentally the son of Seretse Khama.The last two presidents have made great efforts to increase contraceptive use in the hope ofeventually replacing sterilizing vaccines, but for the time being to mask their use. Abortion isillegal (and restricted to saving the life or health of the woman, fetal impairment, rape and incest)and not statistically significant.Botswana is in stage three of the demographic transition.110 | P a g e