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| Twelve faith leaders read a statement of support for family planning from a larger group of faith leaders attending the International Conference on Family Planning in Indonesia in January 2016. |
NUSA DUA, BALI, Indonesia — To some, it may have been an incongruous image — twelve faith leaders, representing all the major religions of the world, standing on the stage at the closing ceremony of the International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) here. After all, everyone knows that most religious leaders are against family planning, right?
That was never true, and now it’s becoming even less true.
The twelve leaders represented 85 religious leaders and representatives of
faith-based organizations (FBOs) who came to Bali
from 26 different countries to discuss best practices and scaling up services
to help families achieve what they like to call “the healthy timing and spacing
of births” during a two-day Faith
Pre-Conference.
It might surprise some to know that this support is not just
for natural family planning, but extends to all forms of modern contraception
with the single exception of sterilization, which is not approved by all types
of Islam. All other modern methods are acceptable to all the religions
represented at ICFP — Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim.
