Today, I'd like to talk with you about something that should be a totally uncontroversial topic. But, unfortunately, it's become incredibly controversial.
今天,我想和大家谈谈 一个本应毫无争议的话题。 但很不幸, 这个话题现在变得饱受争议。
This year, if you think about it, over a billion couples will have sex with one another. Couples like this one, and this one, and this one, and, yes, even this one.
想想看,就在今年, 有超过十亿对伴侣发生性关系。 比如这对, 还有这对, 这对, 没错, 也包括这对。
(Laughter)
(大笑)
And my idea is this -- all these men and women should be free to decide whether they do or do not want to conceive a child. And they should be able to use one of these birth control methods to act on their decision. Now, I think you'd have a hard time finding many people who disagree with this idea. Over one billion people use birth control without any hesitation at all. They want the power to plan their own lives and to raise healthier, better educated and more prosperous families.
而我是这样想的—— 所有这些男男女女都应该自由决定 他们是否愿意生育子女。 同时他们应该能够根据自己的决定 使用某种避孕方法。 现在应该已经很难找到 很多不同意这个观点的人了。 超过十亿人会毫不犹豫地 使用避孕措施。 他们想要掌控自己的生活, 想要营造一个更健康、教育程度更高、 更富裕的家庭。
But, for an idea that is so broadly accepted in private, birth control certainly generates a lot of opposition in public. Some people think when we talk about contraception that it's code for abortion, which it's not. Some people -- let's be honest -- they're uncomfortable with the topic because it's about sex. Some people worry that the real goal of family planning is to control populations. These are all side issues that have attached themselves to this core idea that men and women should be able to decide when they want to have a child. And as a result, birth control has almost completely and totally disappeared from the global health agenda.
然而,避孕这么一个在私底下 被广泛接受的想法, 在公开场合却遭到了诸多反对。 有些人觉得当我们谈论避孕时, 我们实际上是在说堕胎, 但事实并非如此。 坦白地说,有些人 对这个话题感到不自在, 因为它和性有关。 有些人担心 计划生育的真正目的是 控制人口数量。 但是这些都是围绕 男女各方应该自由决定 什么时候要孩子 这个核心观点的次要问题。 就这样,在全球的卫生议程上, 避孕的话题 几乎完全消失了。
The victims of this paralysis are the people of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Here in Germany, the proportion of people that use contraception is about 66 percent. That's about what you'd expect. In El Salvador, very similar, 66 percent. Thailand, 64 percent. But let's compare that to other places, like Uttar Pradesh, one of the largest states in India. In fact, if Uttar Pradesh was its own country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world. Their contraception rate -- 29 percent. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, 10 percent. Chad, 2 percent. Let's just take one country in Africa, Senegal. Their rate is about 12 percent.
这一议程缺失的受害者是 是撒哈拉周边,以及 南亚的人民。 在德国,使用避孕措施的人口比例 大约是66%。 应该跟各位预期的差不多。 在塞尔瓦多也大概是66% 在泰国,是64% 但把这个数字和其他地方比较一下, 比如北方邦,印度最大的邦(省)之一。 实际上,如果北方邦是一个国家, 它会成为世界上人口数量 第五大的国家。 那里避孕率只有29%。 尼日利亚,非洲人口最多的国家,10%。 乍得,2%。 我们来看看非洲的一个国家, 塞内加尔。 避孕率大约是12%。
But why is it so low? One reason is that the most popular contraceptives are rarely available. Women in Africa will tell you over and over again that what they prefer today is an injectable. They get it in their arm -- and they go about four times a year, they have to get it every three months -- to get their injection. The reason women like it so much in Africa is they can hide it from their husbands, who sometimes want a lot of children. The problem is every other time a woman goes into a clinic in Senegal, that injection is stocked out. It's stocked out 150 days out of the year. So can you imagine the situation -- she walks all this way to go get her injection. She leaves her field, sometimes leaves her children, and it's not there. And she doesn't know when it's going to be available again. This is the same story across the continent of Africa today.
为什么会这么低? 其中一个原因是最常用的避孕工具 在那里都很难获得。 非洲的女性会一次又一次地告诉你, 她们更喜欢使用一种注射剂。 (把避孕药物)注射在手臂上, 一年四次。 每三个月就要去注射一次。 非洲女人喜欢这种方法, 是因为这样可以瞒着丈夫, 有些丈夫想要很多个孩子。 但问题是,通常当她们去 当地诊所的时候, 注射剂都处于断货状态。 全年有150天都是如此。 所以你们可以想象一下—— 一个女人,走那么远的路去打针。 她离开田地,有时候还得离开孩子, 去到诊所却发现没货。 她甚至也无从得知什么时候 可以恢复供应。 今天,整个非洲大陆都是这样的情况。
And so what we've created as a world has become a life-and-death crisis. There are 100,000 women [per year] who say they don't want to be pregnant and they die in childbirth -- 100,000 women a year. There are another 600,000 women [per year] who say they didn't want to be pregnant in the first place, and they give birth to a baby and her baby dies in that first month of life. I know everyone wants to save these mothers and these children. But somewhere along the way, we got confused by our own conversation. And we stopped trying to save these lives.
因此,我们在当今世界上创造了一个 出生和死亡的危机。 有10万名女性 表示她们不想怀孕, 然后她们却死于分娩—— 整整10万名女性,每一年。 (每年)还有60万女性 一开始表示不想怀孕, 但还是把孩子生了下来, 孩子在出生一个月后便夭折了。 我知道,每个人都想拯救 这些母亲和孩子。 但在这个过程中, 我们会为自己的说辞感到困惑。 我们停止了挽救生命的步伐。
So if we're going to make progress on this issue, we have to be really clear about what our agenda is. We're not talking about abortion. We're not talking about population control. What I'm talking about is giving women the power to save their lives, to save their children's lives and to give their families the best possible future.
因此,如果我们希望 这个问题有所改善, 我们必须非常清楚该干些什么。 我们在讨论的并不是堕胎, 也不是人口控制。 而是赋予女性权利, 使她们能够拯救自己的生命, 拯救孩子的生命, 和为她们的家庭创造最好的未来。
Now, as a world, there are lots of things we have to do in the global health community if we want to make the world better in the future -- things like fight diseases. So many children today die of diarrhea, as you heard earlier, and pneumonia. They kill literally millions of children a year. We also need to help small farmers -- farmers who plow small plots of land in Africa -- so that they can grow enough food to feed their children. And we have to make sure that children are educated around the world. But one of the simplest and most transformative things we can do is to give everybody access to birth control methods that almost all Germans have access to and all Americans, at some point, they use these tools during their life. And I think as long as we're really clear about what our agenda is, there's a global movement waiting to happen and ready to get behind this totally uncontroversial idea.
如今,放眼全球, 如果想让世界的未来变得更美好, 全球卫生界还任重而道远—— 比如说如何对抗疾病。 大家可能都知道, 现在还有很多儿童会死于痢疾和肺炎。 这两种病每年让数百万儿童丧命。 我们还需要帮助小农场主—— 那些在小块土地上耕种的非洲农民—— 保证他们种的粮食足够 喂饱自己的孩子。 我们还需要确保 全世界的儿童都能接受教育。 但我们能做的最简单、 最有成效的事情之一, 就是让所有人都能有效避孕, 在某种程度上说, 就是能够使用那些几乎所有 德国人和美国人常用的避孕措施。 我认为,只要我们有明确的计划, 一场全球性的变革就会发生, 成为这个毫无争议的话题背后 强有力的支撑。
When I grew up, I grew up in a Catholic home. I still consider myself a practicing Catholic. My mom's great-uncle was a Jesuit priest. My great-aunt was a Dominican nun. She was a schoolteacher and a principal her entire life. In fact, she's the one who taught me as a young girl how to read. I was very close to her. And I went to Catholic schools for my entire childhood until I left home to go to university. In my high school, Ursuline Academy, the nuns made service and social justice a high priority in the school. Today, in the [Gates] Foundation's work, I believe I'm applying the lessons that I learned in high school.
我是在一个天主教的家庭长大的。 我始终认为自己是 一个虔诚的天主教徒。 我曾祖父的兄弟曾是耶稣会的牧师。 我祖父的姐妹曾是 一名多米尼加的修女。 一生中,她只担任过教师和校长。 是她在我小的时候, 教会了我如何认字。 我们的关系非常密切。 儿时的我就读的都是天主教的学校, 直到我离开家上大学为止。 在我的高中,乌尔苏拉学院, 修女们非常看重服务和社会正义感。 如今,在(盖茨)基金会的工作中, 我相信我正在运用那些 在高中学到的知识。
So, in the tradition of Catholic scholars, the nuns also taught us to question received teachings. And one of the teachings that we girls and my peers questioned was is birth control really a sin? Because I think one of the reasons we have this huge discomfort talking about contraception is this lingering concern that if we separate sex from reproduction, we're going to promote promiscuity. And I think that's a reasonable question to be asked about contraception -- what is its impact on sexual morality?
按照天主教学者的惯例, 修女们同样会教导我们去质疑 被灌输的教义。 而我们女孩子以及同伴们 质疑的教义之一就是, 计划生育真的是个罪孽吗? 因为我认为 我们谈避孕的时候 会感到很不适的原因之一, 是一个挥之不去的忧虑, 如果我们独立地看待性交和生殖, 滥交将不可避免。 而我觉得有关避孕的问题 是非常合理的—— 避孕对性道德的影响究竟是什么?
But, like most women, my decision about birth control had nothing to do with promiscuity. I had a plan for my future. I wanted to go to college. I studied really hard in college, and I was proud to be one of the very few female computer science graduates at my university. I wanted to have a career, so I went on to business school and I became one of the youngest female executives at Microsoft.
但是,如同多数的女性, 我对计划生育所做的决定和滥交无关。 我对未来有自己的计划。我想上大学。 我在大学里埋头苦读, 我很荣幸可以成为大学里 少数选修计算机科学的 女性毕业生之一。 我想拥有自己的事业, 所以我接着报读了商学院, 后来我成为了 微软最年轻的女性行政人员之一。
I still remember, though, when I left my parents' home to move across the country to start this new job at Microsoft. They had sacrificed a lot to give me five years of higher education. But they said, as I left home -- and I literally went down the front steps, down the porch at home -- and they said, "Even though you've had this great education, if you decide to get married and have kids right away, that's OK by us, too." They wanted me to do the thing that would make me the very happiest. I was free to decide what that would be. It was an amazing feeling.
我仍然还记得离开父母, 移居到另一个城市, 开始在微软的新工作的时候。 为了让我接受五年的高等教育, 我的父母牺牲了很多。 可是在我离家, 走下台阶,走到门廊的时候, 他们对我说, "虽然你接受了良好的教育, 但如果你决定马上结婚生子, 我们都会支持你的。" 他们希望我能做令我最开心的事情。 我有自己做决定的自由。 那是一种很棒的感觉。
In fact, I did want to have kids -- but I wanted to have them when I was ready. And so now, Bill and I have three. And when our eldest daughter was born, we weren't, I would say, exactly sure how to be great parents. Maybe some of you know that feeling. And so we waited a little while before we had our second child. And it's no accident that we have three children that are spaced three years apart. Now, as a mother, what do I want the very most for my children? I want them to feel the way I did -- like they can do anything they want to do in life. And so, what has struck me as I've travelled the last decade for the foundation around the world is that all women want that same thing.
其实,我确实想要孩子—— 但我想在做好准备的情况下再去生。 现在,我和比尔拥有三个孩子。 当我们的长女出生时, 我们不确定如何当好父母。 可能你们当中会有人明白那种感觉。 于是,我们隔了一段日子 才生下第二个孩子。 我们三个孩子的出生都隔了三年的时间, 这并不难理解。 身为母亲, 我对孩子最大的期望是什么呢? 我希望他们会和当年的我 有同样的感受—— 比如他们一生都可以做 所有自己想做的事。 过去的十年里, 我为了基金会的事情走遍了世界, 发现所有女性也都想要这样的生活。
Last year, I was in Nairobi, in the slums, in one called Korogocho -- which literally means when translated, "standing shoulder to shoulder." And I spoke with this women's group that's pictured here. And the women talked very openly about their family life in the slums, what it was like. And they talked quite intimately about what they did for birth control. Marianne, in the center of the screen in the red sweater, she summed up that entire two-hour conversation in a phrase that I will never forget. She said, "I want to bring every good thing to this child before I have another." And I thought -- that's it. That's universal. We all want to bring every good thing to our children.
去年,我拜访了内罗毕(非洲)的 一个叫科罗戈乔的贫民窟—— 地名直译的意思是"肩并肩地站着"。 我和照片里的女性团体交流。 女人们坦诚地聊起在 贫民窟里的家庭生活, 到底是什么样子的。 她们也毫不避讳地聊起如何避孕。 这位屏幕中央穿着红外套的女人 叫马丽安, 她用了一句话为整个两小时的谈话 做了一个总结,让我十分难忘。 她说,"我想确保现在这个孩子 能拥有最好的, 然后再考虑生第二个。" 我想——就是这样了。 这是最普遍的想法。 我们都想让孩子们拥有最好的。
But what's not universal is our ability to provide every good thing. So many women suffer from domestic violence. And they can't even broach the subject of contraception, even inside their own marriage. There are many women who lack basic education. Even many of the women who do have knowledge and do have power don't have access to contraceptives.
但不是所有人都有能力 为孩子提供最好的。 很多女人都遭受家庭暴力。 她们甚至根本不能提及避孕, 即便是在自己的婚姻中。 很多女人都缺乏基础教育。 很多有知识和权力的女人 甚至都无法采取避孕措施。
For 250 years, parents around the world have been deciding to have smaller families. This trend has been steady for a quarter of a millennium, across cultures and across geographies, with the glaring exception of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The French started bringing down their family size in the mid-1700s. And over the next 150 years, this trend spread all across Europe. The surprising thing to me, as I learned this history, was that it spread not along socioeconomic lines but around cultural lines. People who spoke the same language made that change as a group. They made the same choice for their family, whether they were rich or whether they were poor. The reason that trend toward smaller families spread was that this whole way was driven by an idea -- the idea that couples can exercise conscious control over how many children they have. This is a very powerful idea. It means that parents have the ability to affect the future, not just accept it as it is.
在过去的250年里,世界各地的父母 都决定建立比较小的家庭。 这个趋势稳定了250年, 无论他们处在什么样的 地理和文化背景下。 除了南非洲和南亚地区以外。 在18世纪中期, 法国人就开始减小家庭规模。 在接下来的150年里, 这个趋势蔓延到了整个欧洲。 我在学习这段历史的时候, 令我惊讶的是, 导致这种趋势蔓延的并不是 社会科学的考量,而是文化的考量。 用共同语言沟通的人们携手改变了趋势。 他们都为了家庭而作出了同样的选择, 无关贫富。 倾向小家庭的趋势之所以会蔓延, 是因为这个方式是 由一个想法引起的—— 那个想法就是夫妻们有权力 刻意地掌控家庭人口数量。 这是很有影响力的想法。 这意味着父母们有权力影响未来, 而不必接受一切现实。
In France, the average family size went down every decade for 150 years in a row until it stabilized. It took so long back then because the contraceptives weren't that good. In Germany, this transition started in the 1880s, and it took just 50 years for family size to stabilize in this country. And in Asia and Latin America, the transition started in the 1960s, and it happened much faster because of modern contraception.
在法国,家庭的平均人口数量 每十年都会发生缩减, 直到150年后才稳定下来。 过渡期如此之长主要是因为 那时侯的避孕方式效果并不好。 在德国,这个趋势在19世纪末 就已经开始了,仅仅五十年的时间 家庭人口数量就稳定了下来。 亚洲和拉美的过渡期发生在1960年代, 因为有了现代的避孕法, 过渡期更短了。
I think, as we go through this history, it's important to pause for a moment and to remember why this has become such a contentious issue. It's because some family planning programs resorted to unfortunate incentives and coercive policies. For instance, in the 1960s, India adopted very specific numeric targets and they paid women to accept having an IUD placed in their bodies. Now, Indian women were really smart in this situation. When they went to get an IUD inserted, they got paid six rupees. And so what did they do? They waited a few hours or a few days, and they went to another service provider and had the IUD removed for one rupee. For decades in the United States, African-American women were sterilized without their consent. The procedure was so common it became known as the Mississippi appendectomy -- a tragic chapter in my country's history. And as recently as the 1990s, in Peru, women from the Andes region were given anesthesia and they were sterilized without their knowledge.
但我认为,在我们回顾这短历史的时候, 应该停下来想想, 这个话题为什么如此惹争议。 这是因为有的家庭计划项目 采取了不正当的奖励及强制性的政策。 比如,在1960年代, 印度制定了很具体的数字指标, 他们会奖励愿意把 节育器安装在体内的女性。 面对这种情况, 印度的女人表现得很聪明。 她们安装节育器时,得到了六个卢比。 然后她们做了什么呢? 她们等了几个小时或几天, 然后到另一个服务提供者那里, 用一个卢比把节育器拿出来。 几十年来,在美国, 非洲裔美国女性往往在 未经同意的情况下被节育。 这种程序非常普遍, 被称为密西西比阑尾切除术—— 是我国历史中一个悲惨的章节。 更近一点的,1990年代的秘鲁, 安第斯山脉地区的女性 被迫服下麻醉药, 然后在不知情的情况下被节育了。
The most startling thing about this is that these coercive policies weren't even needed. They were carried out in places where parents already wanted to lower their family size. Because in region after region, again and again, parents have wanted to have smaller families. There's no reason to believe that African women have innately different desires. Given the option, they will have fewer children. The question is: will we invest in helping all women get what they want now? Or, are we going to condemn them to some century-long struggle, as if this was still revolutionary France and the best method was coitus interruptus?
最惊人的是, 这些强制性的政策完全是多余的。 它们实行在 已经开始减小家庭规模的地方。 因为在一个又一个的地区,一次又一次, 父母们都不约而同想要缩减家庭规模。 我们没有理由相信 非洲女性生来就有不同的欲望。 如果有选择的话, 她们会选择少生孩子。 问题是: 我们会竭尽所能帮助 全体女性争取她们的权利吗? 或者,我们只能眼睁睁 看着她们再挣扎几十年, 仿佛这还是法国革命时期, 而最好的方法是体外射精?
Empowering parents -- it doesn't need justification. But here's the thing -- our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It's what propels societies forward. In that same slum in Nairobi, I met a young businesswoman, and she was making backpacks out of her home. She and her young kids would go to the local jeans factory and collect scraps of denim. She'd create these backpacks and resell them. And when I talked with her, she had three children, and I asked her about her family. And she said she and her husband decided that they wanted to stop having children after their third one. And so when I asked her why, she simply said, "Well, because I couldn't run my business if I had another child." And she explained the income that she was getting out of her business afforded her to be able to give an education to all three of her children. She was incredibly optimistic about her family's future. This is the same mental calculus that hundreds of millions of men and women have gone through. And evidence proves that they have it exactly right. They are able to give their children more opportunities by exercising control over when they have them.
赋予父母们应有的权利—— 并不需要理由。 不过,我们想让孩子拥有 最好的一切的欲望, 是能够让世界变得更好的力量。 这推动了社会的进步。 在奈罗比的同一个贫民窟, 我遇到了一个年轻的女商人, 她正在家门口做背包。 她和年幼的孩子会到当地的牛仔裤工厂, 去收集剩余的牛仔布料。 她会做好背包然后把它们转售。 在我们的谈话中,她说她有三个孩子, 我问了她的家庭情况。 她说她和丈夫决定 在生下第三个孩子之后,就不再生了。 我问她为什么,她只是说, "如果再多一个孩子, 我就不能做生意了。" 她解释说做生意赚来的钱, 使她有能力让三个孩子们都接受教育。 对于家庭的未来,她表现得非常乐观。 这种内心的衡量, 是成千上万的男人女人都经历过的。 而事实证明他们的决定是明智的。 他们通过合理的控制生育, 有能力让孩子们拥有更多的机遇。
In Bangladesh, there's a district called Matlab. It's where researchers have collected data on over 180,000 inhabitants since 1963. In the global health community, we like to say it's one of the longest pieces of research that's been running. We have so many great health statistics. In one of the studies, what did they do? Half the villagers were chosen to get contraceptives. They got education and access to contraception. Twenty years later, following those villages, what we learned is that they had a better quality of life than their neighbors. The families were healthier. The women were less likely to die in childbirth. Their children were less likely to die in the first thirty days of life. The children were better nourished. The families were also wealthier. The adult women's wages were higher. Households had more assets -- things like livestock or land or savings. Finally, their sons and daughters had more schooling. So when you multiply these types of effects over millions of families, the product can be large-scale economic development. People talk about the Asian economic miracle of the 1980s -- but it wasn't really a miracle. One of the leading causes of economic growth across that region was this cultural trend towards smaller families.
在孟加拉, 有个叫 Matlab 的县。 那里的研究人员从1963 年开始, 收集了超过了18万居民的资料。 在全球卫生界内, 我们认为这是为期最久的研究之一。 我们拥有很多很好的卫生数据。 在其中一项研究当中,他们做了什么? 他们让一半的村民了解如何避孕。 他们得到了避孕方面的教育, 获得了必要的避孕工具。 在20年后对这些村子的随访中, 我们发现这些村民都拥有 比邻居们优越的生活水平。 实施避孕的家庭比较健康。 更少的女性会难产而死。 孩子们在生下来的三十天内 死亡的可能性也减少了。 孩子们获得了更好的营养补充。 家庭也都比较富裕。 成年女性的工资都比较高。 家家户户都有较多资产, 例如畜牧业、土地和储蓄。 最后,他们的儿女 都接受了更多的教育。 当你们把这些影响 乘以数百万个家庭的时候, 得到的可能是大型的经济发展。 人们都会谈起1980年代 亚洲的经济奇迹—— 但那并不是奇迹。 那个区域的经济之所以会 快速发展的主要原因之一, 是倾向小家庭的文化趋势。
Sweeping changes start at the individual family level -- the family making a decision about what's best for their children. When they make that change and that decision, those become sweeping regional and national trends. When families in sub-Saharan Africa are given the opportunity to make those decisions for themselves, I think it will help spark a virtuous cycle of development in communities across the continent. We can help poor families build a better future. We can insist that all people have the opportunity to learn about contraceptives and have access to the full variety of methods.
广泛的变化发生在了个人家庭中—— 家庭为孩子们的未来 做出了最好的选择。 他们做出的选择和改变, 成为了地区性和全国性的广泛趋势。 当撒哈拉以南的非洲家庭得到 为自己做出选择的机会时, 我觉得这就会在整个 大洲的社区中推动 触发发展的良性循环。 我们可以帮助贫困家庭建立更好的未来。 我们可以坚决主张所有人都有机会 认识避孕, 以及得到齐全的避孕方式的途径。
I think the goal here is really clear: universal access to birth control that women want. And for that to happen, it means that both rich and poor governments alike must make contraception a total priority. We can do our part, in this room and globally, by talking about the hundreds of millions of families that don't have access to contraception today and what it would do to change their lives if they did have access.
我认为现在的目标很明确: 最大范围的让女性得到想要的避孕措施。 而为了实现这个目标, 所有的政府,不论贫富, 都必须让避孕得到重视。 我们可以在这个房间里, 或者在全球范围内尽自己的力量, 通过谈论上亿个 无法合理避孕的家庭, 以及他们如果能避孕,生活将如何改变。
I think if Marianne and the members of her women's group can talk about this openly and have this discussion out amongst themselves and in public, we can, too. And we need to start now. Because like Marianne, we all want to bring every good thing to our children. And where is the controversy in that? Thank you.
我想如果马丽安和女性团体的成员 能够公开地谈论这个话题, 能够在彼此和公众间讨论这个话题, 我们也一样可以。 我们必须现在就开始行动。 因为像马丽安一样, 我们都想让自己的孩子拥有最好的。 而在这个问题上, 是否还存在任何争议呢? 谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Chris Anderson: Thank you. I have some questions for Melinda.
克里斯 安德勋(CA): 谢谢。 我有一些问题想问梅琳达。
(Applause ends)
(掌声终止)
Thank you for your courage and everything else.
谢谢你的勇敢和所做的一切。
So, Melinda, in the last few years I've heard a lot of smart people say something to the effect of, "We don't need to worry about the population issue anymore. Family sizes are coming down naturally all over the world. We're going to peak at nine or 10 billion. And that's it." Are they wrong?
梅琳达,在过去的几年里, 我听过很多聪明的人说过类似的话, "我们不必担心人口问题了。 家庭规模已在世界范围内不断减小, 我们的人口最多增加到 90或者100亿人。就这样。" 他们错了吗?
Melinda Gates: If you look at the statistics across Africa, they are wrong. And I think we need to look at it, though, from a different lens. We need to look at it from the ground upwards. I think that's one of the reasons we got ourselves in so much trouble on this issue of contraception. We looked at it from top down and said we want to have different population numbers over time. Yes, we care about the planet. Yes, we need to make the right choices. But the choices have to be made at the family level. And it's only by giving people access and letting them choose what to do that you get those sweeping changes that we have seen globally -- except for sub-Saharan Africa and those places in South Asia and Afghanistan.
梅琳达·盖茨(MG): 如果你看看非洲的数据, 他们的确错了。 我认为我们需要以 不同的角度来看待问题。 我们需要追源溯本的看问题, 我觉得这是我们在避孕的问题上 给自己惹了 这么多麻烦的原因之一、 我们只是着眼现在这个时间点, 然后说我们想要在未来 有不同的人口数据。 没错,我们关心地球。 没错,我们需要做出正确的选择。 但这些选择必须以家庭为重。 只有让人们有能力和途径 选择想做的事, 才能得到那些全球性的广泛变化—— 除了南非和南亚、阿富汗的某些地区。
CA: Some people on the right in America and in many conservative cultures around the world might say something like this: "It's all very well to talk about saving lives and empowering women and so on. But, sex is sacred. What you're proposing is going to increase the likelihood that lots of sex happens outside marriage. And that is wrong." What would you say to them?
CA: 有些在美国, 以及在世界各地的 很多保守的文化里的人, 可能会说类似这样的话: "谈论拯救生命,赋予女性权利 等等的问题是没错。 但性爱是神圣的。 你的提议将会增加 性爱发生在婚姻外的可能性。 而那是不对的。" 你会对他们说什么?
MG: I would say that sex is absolutely sacred. And it's sacred in Germany, and it's sacred in the United States, and it's sacred in France and so many places around the world. And the fact that 98 percent of women in my country who are sexually experienced say they use birth control doesn't make sex any less sacred. It just means that they're getting to make choices about their lives. And I think in that choice, we're also honoring the sacredness of the family and the sacredness of the mother's life and the childrens' lives by saving their lives. To me, that's incredibly sacred, too.
MG:我会说性爱的确是神圣的。 它在德国、美国是神圣的。 它在法国和世界各国都是神圣的。 在我国98%有性经验的女性表示, 使用节育措施并不会 让性爱变得不再神圣。 这只是代表她们 能为自己的生活做选择。 我觉得在做选择的时候, 我们也在尊敬家庭, 和一位母亲的生命, 以及挽救孩子的生命的神圣。 那也是非常神圣的。
CA: So what is your foundation doing to promote this issue? And what could people here and people listening on the web -- what would you like them to do?
CA: 你的基金会如何提倡这个问题? 这里的人和在网络上的观众—— 你希望他们做些什么?
MG: I would say this -- join the conversation. We've listed the website up here. Join the conversation. Tell your story about how contraception has either changed your life or somebody's life that you know. And say that you're for this. We need a groundswell of people saying, "This makes sense. We've got to give all women access -- no matter where they live." And one of the things that we're going to do is do a large event July 11 in London, with a whole host of countries, a whole host of African nations, to all say we're putting this back on the global health agenda. We're going to commit resources to it, and we're going to do planning from the bottom up with governments to make sure that women are educated -- so that if they want the tool, they have it, and that they have lots of options available either through their local healthcare worker or their local community rural clinic.
MG:我想说——要积极参与讨论, 我们在屏幕上列出了网站。 请加入我们的讨论。 告诉我们避孕如何改变了你的生活, 或你认识的人的生活。 然后说你赞同这种做法。 我们需要听到越来越多的人说, "这很有道理。 我们需要让全体女性获得避孕的措施—— 不论她们身在何处。" 而我们将会做的事情之一 就是7月11号在伦敦 举办一个大型的活动, 跟许多国家,包括许多非洲国家, 宣布我们要把这个(避孕) 重新列入全球卫生议程里。 我们将会投入资源, 并与政府从基层开始策划, 以确保女性受到避孕方面的教育—— 让她们可以在需要的时候 得到避孕工具, 也会有很多的选择, 无论是通过当地的卫生保健员, 还是当地的社区诊所。
CA: Melinda, I'm guessing that some of those nuns who taught you at school are going to see this TED Talk at some point. Are they going to be horrified, or are they cheering you on?
CA:我猜想在学校教过你的一些修女 总有一天会看到这个讲座。 她们会为你的所作所为吓到, 还是会为你感到高兴?
MG: I know they're going to see the TED Talk because they know that I'm doing it and I plan to send it to them. And, you know, the nuns who taught me were incredibly progressive. I hope that they'll be very proud of me for living out what they taught us about social justice and service. I have come to feel incredibly passionate about this issue because of what I've seen in the developing world. And for me, this topic has become very close to heart because you meet these women and they are so often voiceless. And yet they shouldn't be -- they should have a voice, they should have access. And so I hope they'll feel that I'm living out what I've learned from them and from the decades of work that I've already done at the foundation.
MG:我知道她们会看到这个讲座, 因为她们知道我会举办这个讲座, 而且我打算把讲座发给她们。 你知道吗,教过我的修女们 观念非常与时俱进。 我希望她们会以我为荣, 因为我实践了她们教会我的 社会正义和服务。 我已经开始对这个问题非常的关切, 介于我在发展中的 世界里所看到的一切。 对我而言, 这个课题已经根植于我的内心, 因为我亲眼见到了 这些没有话语权的女人。 但她们本不应该这样—— 她们应该表达自己的意见, 应该有途径避孕。 我希望她们会觉得 我实践了从她们身上, 以及我通过在基金会 几十年的工作所学到的。
CA: So, you and your team brought together today an amazing group of speakers to whom we're all grateful. Did you learn anything?
CA:今天,你和你的队伍集合了 一群很棒的演讲人, 我们很感激。 你学到了什么吗?
(Laughter)
(笑声)
MG: Oh my gosh, I learned so many things. I have so many follow-up questions. And I think a lot of this work is a journey. You heard the discussion about the journey through energy, or the journey through social design, or the journey in the coming and saying, "Why aren't there any women on this platform?" And I think for all of us who work on these development issues, you learn by talking to other people. You learn by doing. You learn by trying and making mistakes. And it's the questions you ask. Sometimes it's the questions you ask that helps lead to the answer the next person that can help you answer it. So I have lots of questions for the panelists from today. And I thought it was just an amazing day.
MG:我学到了好多。 我有好多跟进的问题。 我觉得这项工作是个充满未知的旅程。 你听到了关于能量的讨论, 或者社会设计, 或者还有这样的质疑, "为什么这个平台上没有任何的女性?" 我觉得我们这些从事发展问题的人, 都是通过与人交流来学习的。 你通过实践来学习。 你通过尝试和犯错来学习。 你问的问题也很重要。 有的时候是你的提问帮忙引出了答案, 也许下一个人就能够回答你的问题。 今天我给小组成员准备了很多问题。 我觉得这会是很精彩的一天。
CA: Melinda, thank you for inviting all of us on this journey with you.
CA: 梅琳达,谢谢你邀请我们和你 一起搭上这个旅程。
Thank you so much. MG: Great. Thanks, Chris.
非常感谢你。 MG:没问题。谢谢你,克里斯。