Dr. Kunio Kitamura, head of the Japan Family Planning Association, has come up with a list:

1. Fewer kids are experiencing sex.

He doesn't offer any evidence on this. And actually I wonder how he can even speculate. Are these results from a Peeping Tom study? I suppose that he's just going by self-reported behavior by teens -- the most reliable kind of data, right?

2. Women are starting to choose to give birth rather than abort pregnancies.

"Starting to choose"....That's a good thing. It's about time they started. (But where did all those Japanese come from in the first place?)

3. Information about birth control is starting to filter through the media and schools and awareness of the practice has been raised.

Uh oh. Don't tell the Republicans. They won't like that. You know, the birth control stuff.

4. It has become easier to gain access to emergency contraception measures used as a last resort to end pregnancies.

Yeah, really really really don't tell the Republicans. They'll get all upset. Maybe even try to impose trade embargoes on Japan until they stop all forms of family planning.

5. A growing number of women are using the Pill, a contraception measure that women can take at their own discretion.

OMG. I can see Pat Robertson now, calling for the CIA to "take out" the Japanese government. Speeches of self-righteous piety and judgment in the Senate. Protests at the Japanese Embassy. How dare they let women take control of their own bodies!! Don't they know that we won the war? They have to do what we say! Ban the pill in Japan! Now!

6. Others

Unexplained others. (Cue Twilight Zone music....)

Following is some plain talk about birth control and abortion. Warning: Its lack of screaming religious zealotry with bulging veins and spittle-covered lips may shock you.

Sweden offers a good example of how the proliferation of the Pill has reduced abortion rates. When the first AIDS patient was discovered in the United States in 1981, there was a sudden and rapid movement in Sweden to encourage people to use condoms as a means of avoiding the disease. What had been widespread use of the Pill became less frequent and instead condoms became the preferred method of birth control. The belief was that condoms would prevent both AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. The reality was different. As the number of people using the Pill declined, there was a rapid rise in the abortion rate.

In 1987, the surprised World Health Organization and International Planned Parenthood Federation issued a warning not to discard the Pill as a birth control device, but to continue to use condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

In response, the number of women on the Pill began to rise again and, after about a year or so, the abortion rate went down once more.

History tells us that it is important to select safe and reliable methods of contraception to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It has been my life work to prevent unwanted pregnancies in this country and it is a long-cherished dream of mine to see the Japanese experience mimic that of Sweden in the '80s.

Life's problems seem pretty manageable when you let reason have a crack at things.

So will someone please tell me why Republicans oppose birth control like Plan B or regular birth control pills? And why Republicans favor letting pharmacists play doctor and refuse to fill birth control prescriptions?

They say they want to eliminate abortions, but do everything they can to block ways for most women to avoid needing an abortion in the first place. How does that add up?

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