"They are Coming in So Fast That if We Had Publicity About the Clinic We Would Be Swamped": Edris Rice-Wray, the First Family Planning Clinic in Mexico (1959), and the Intervention of US-Based Private Foundations

Abstract:Population growth in the so-called third world countries became a cause for international concern at the dawn of the Cold War era. In this scenario, Mexico, whose total population doubled every twenty years, became one of the main preoccupations for the emergent global population control movement. While most accounts on the history of family planning in Mexico have tended to focus on the mid-1970s, when the government abandoned its pro-natalist stance, this article demonstrates that, by that time, American and Mexican actors had already launched a systematic effort to implement family planning programs. This work explores the history of the creation of Mexico's first family planning clinic, founded in 1959 by American doctor Edris Rice-Wray, and the subsequent development of national associations and programs that, with the support of the Population Council and the Ford Foundation, provided family planning services throughout the 1960s.