Population Control Essay, Research Paper

Population Control

“The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.”

-Garrett Hardin

“The prediction that spawned a generation of alarmist has now in turned on its head.

But the prospect of an emptier planet is creating its own set of problems.”

-Ben J Wattenberg

The realization of the world’s population crisis is creating new and disturbing ideas by many people to solve our over population problem. Many ideas are being condoned as well as being criticized. Examples set by other countries such as China and India should help the United States establish a policy that is moral and can solve over population, if there is a problem at all.

Most people believe that the population of the world today is growing at an exponential rate. Environmentalists, politicians, and the concerned public are trying to prove that we are depleting our resources and are slowly killing ourselves. Others argue that technology and new inventions will fix and solve our population problems, and that the population growth is actually slowing down. .

As of October 1999’, the world obtained 6 billion people. Predictions have been made that by the year 2075’ there will be 12 billion people. The major question asked by concerned people is “Is our planet able to provide a healthy and prosperous life style, which we are all a custom to, and can it, be for twice as many people in the future?” “If not, what measures can be taken to prevent such population growth?” “If the United States does take precautions, will these measures be fair, just, and not interfere with natural human rights?”

A growing population will have a serious impact on the needs of the families, especially the poor of LDCs. Food distribution, financing, and shortages will double the effect of families. There is intense controversy concerning these questions, whether Earth is over populated and what measures if any should be taken to slow population growth. To some the planet is already overpopulated, but others claim that if everyone existed at a minimum survival level, Earth could support 20-48 billion people. This would require that everyone abide with a replacement fertility rate. It is a number of children a couple must bear to replace themselves. It is slightly higher than two children per couple. 2.1 children in MDCs and as high as 2.5 children in some LDCs. This suggestion does not mean that if the fertility rates are lowered to replacement level that the population will come to immediate halt. The chain reaction would take 50 years to see if it was continued with success.

Another suggestion made to help slow population growth is an idea that has many other effects, ones that society might not be ready for. Its called, “Reducing Births by Empowering Women”. Women tend to have fewer and healthier children and live longer when they have access to education and to paying jobs outside the home, and when they live in societies in which their individual rights are not suppressed. Having children later in their life infringes on the amount of babies they are capable of bearing. However, empowering women by seeking gender equality will require some major social changes, which will be difficult to achieve. “Using Economic Rewards and Penalties to Reduce Births” is another organization being put to use in some 20 countries. It is taking family planning to another level. They believe that it is morally suitable for the organization to pay individuals who agree to use contraceptives or to become sterilized. However such payments are most likely to attract people who already have all the children they want. Some countries such as China, penalize couples who have more than one or two children by raising their taxes, charging other fees, or disallowing income tax deductions for a couple’s third child. Families who have more children than the prescribed limit may also lose health care benefits, food allotment, and job options. Such economic penalties can be psychologically coercive for the poor, and programs that withhold food or increase the cost of raising children punish innocent children for the actions of their parents.

For at least 30 years the UNFPA has been a complicit partner in some of the most unspeakably brutal population control programs around the globe, including China’s genocidal one-couple, one-child policy. Women and children, at least hundreds of thousands of them have been the victims, of China taking population control to an extreme. To this day no one knows precisely how many babies and women have died at the hands of the population control fanatics in China. Chinese government’s birth control policy has already claimed an estimated 5-10 million victims. I say already because this is an ongoing genocide. An estimated 80-90 percent of the victims have been girls. UNFPA still spends millions each year on population control programs in China. Incredibly the members of Congress leading the campaign to restore funding for the UNFPA tend to be “pro-choice”. But how can an agency that participates in programs that sterilize women against their will or that tells women they have an ecological responsibility to have only one or at most two children possibly be called pro-choice? Last year the U.S. Senate Committee on Human Rights heard from witnesses of the China population program, who related how rural women are forcibly strapped to steel tables in “hospitals” and their babies aborted, in some cases in the 7th, 8th and 9th months of pregnancy. Woman Representative Maloney believes that population control is necessary to “stop hunger and preserve our world’s resources.”

The question of whether these suggestions would work for out countries is up to the people and our government. Which suggestions and ideas will the United States chose to help solve our population crisis? Is China’s program morally right, do they have good intentions for their people, and if so is it worth sacrificing children’s lives for?

What China did and still maybe doing is an extreme to other organizations such as “Family Planning” and “ Empowering Women”. The United States is going to have to make a decision in the near future where they stand on these issues. Are any of these organizations or ideas infringing on human rights and religious beliefs? If so is our government going to disregard or change them for the sake of future generations health and lives? The future only can show what type of solution our government will have.