[The Spanish woman and birth control]

The author presents in this article just a small part of the results obtained in national survey of 1.902 married women, carried out in 1972, on "fertility and family planning in Spain". More specifically, attitudes of this sample of Spanish married women towards family planning are explained. It is pointed out, in the first place, that eight out of every ten interviewed women say that all married couples who can have children ought to have them. Younger women and those with a higher socio-econimic status, however, are less in favor of that statement. Trough several questions it is also evident that the number of interviewees who think that other women control their fertility is higher the more distant from the respondent is the social circle about which the question is formulated. In other words, interviewees resist to admit that persons with whom they are more intimately related control their fertility. Approximately half the women in the sample say that married couples should have as many children as may come, but the other half say that couples should decide the number of children they want to have and when they want to have them. This last opinion is relatively more important among younger and higher status women. Along with the previous finding, almost half of the interviewees are very much in favor or rather in favor of family planning, that proportion being even higher among younger and higher status women. Finally, seven ou of every ten respondents say that there should be wide and complete information about all family planning methods, leaving it up to each individual to use or not to use them according to its own conscience. This opinion, of course, is also more common among younger and higher status women.