Peace Without Poison

Guatemala’s leaders have used legal and voluntary methods of population control until 1998when salt fluoridation was adopted by President Álvaro Arzú (1996-2000).His successors - Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004), Óscar Berger (2004-2008), Álvaro Colom (2008-2012), and the incumbent Otto Pérez Molina, have continued to suppress fertility but have doneso cautiously and due to heavy pressure from the UN and the international community.The drop in fertility from 5 to 3 children per woman from 1999 to today cannot be explained byGuatemala’s contraceptive prevalence rate, which only recently reached 50%, or by the abortionrate, which is very low because it is allowed only to save a woman’s life.Guatemala is in stage three of the demographic transition.311 | P a g e