Congratulations to Bill and Melinda Gates

Access to birth control is the single most important aid that will help people dig themselves out of poverty [“Gates birth-control plan could fire up its critics,” page one, July 8].

Look around, societies with access to birth control are both healthier and wealthier. Among many other benefits, fewer unplanned births also reduces unemployment. We are living in a technological world that has decapitated the need for a huge workforce. Add political and economic policies that are very much against government “make-work” programs and surprise, we have millions in poverty mired in a situation that is nearly hopeless.

What is really weird? Many of the people who oppose big government also oppose free birth control. Is their goal a huge pool of cheap labor? Go figure!

— Mike Weatherby, Auburn