Posted on 12/20/2020 8:45:30 PM PST by nickcarraway
“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than other single technology now available ...” – James Grant
“Either we reduce the world’s population voluntarily or Nature will do this for us, but brutally.” – Maurice Strong
Two physicians who are concerned about human population just published an article titled, “Doctors and overpopulation 48 years later.” It is based on an article that was published almost a half-century ago.
The original “Doctors and Overpopulation” was signed by 52 physicians. The first paragraph states, “Many regard overpopulation as the supreme dilemma of our age ...” It goes on to say that most people consider overpopulation to only be a problem of developing countries, but that Britain would soon be overpopulated.
The population of the U.S. rose by 121 million – from 210 to 331 million – in those 48 years. Global population has doubled since 1972.
Our medical profession helped cause overpopulation by improving health so people live longer. Decreasing childhood mortality has had a huge effect in increasing population growth, but it is perhaps the most humane action in the history of medicine. The authors of “Doctors and Overpopulation” take some responsibility for our rapid growth.
What could those doctors recommend to combat overpopulation? They list five actions, all of which are still relevant today: Convince the government of the seriousness of overpopulation; increase family planning services, including access to vasectomy; keep abortion legal and available to all women; empower women; include population studies at all levels of education; and use mass media to spread information about the subject.
One of the authors of the current article, Dr. John Guillebaud, was also one of the 52 original signers. Guillebaud is a family planning guru and retired professor of reproductive medicine in London. The other author, Dr. Jan Gregus, is a gynecologist and philosopher in the Czech Republic. He recently presented a paper at the World Congress of Bioethics about the ethics of small families.
They write about five roots of overpopulation, including the decline in mortality and population momentum (the large number of young people who have yet to have their families). These two causes cannot be changed, but the other three can be. There are millions of women who want to control their fertility but don’t have access to reliable contraception; access to family planning services can help. Even more women and men are forced by custom and convention to desire large families. Social norms in some societies force women to be mothers because that is the only role open to them. Education can help here – especially by nontraditional methods such as telenovelas. The Population Media Center has done an excellent job of using electronic media to educate and empower women and to show the advantages of small family size.
I strongly agree with Guillebaud and Gregus in condemning reproductive coercion. It was unnecessary in India and in China, and coercive programs there and elsewhere have done great harm not only to the affected people but to the movement to slow population growth.
They also talk about the effect of large international conferences and lament the fact that the huge Cairo conference in 1994 “failed to articulate the threat of unremitting population growth on a finite planet.” Instead, that conference highlighted the importance of reproductive health services. It also promoted education of girls and women and supported “childbearing needs to become a woman’s personal choice, and not her obligation or a matter of chance.”
Another conference, held last year in Nairobi on the 25th anniversary of the Cairo conference, followed the global trend of ignoring overpopulation. To quote Guillebaud and Gregus, “Despite ... much evidence that unremitting population growth is one of the ‘upstream’ driver(s) of climate change ... at the Nairobi population conference the word ‘population’ was nowhere.”
Yes, there is a taboo against talking about population as a cause of environmental problems. In addition to climate change, the authors list 13 global crises related to overpopulation – but you seldom see the media making this connection. They call for a “taboo-free talk.” Thanks, Guillebaud and Gregus, that has been the goal of Population Matters-USA for the past 25 years!
There is good news. Physicians have been slow to recognize the concept of overpopulation and to acknowledge the connection between medical care and environmental problems. This article, “Doctors and overpopulation 48 years later,” was a step in the correct direction. Earlier this year the equivalent journal in the USA, Contraception, ran a similar editorial: “Family planning, population growth, and the environment.”
I only wish that both articles were published where more people could read them.
Richard Grossman practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Durango. Reach him at richard@population-matters.org.
well they get to pick either side and make it the new crises du jour...
This article is impossible because they promised we’d all be dead by now.
Pubished in 1968, fully 52 years ago.
While you were reading those words four people died, usually by socialist murder.
The fertility rate, total (births per woman) in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2018 was 4.7. African population continues to explode.
Oh No! Another ‘60s retread doc living in the mountains of Southern Colorado who hasn’t heard that Ehrlich was nuts!
Unlike the rest of the world.
Guess Grossman is getting concerned about all the tourists coming to Durango and Pagosa now, can’t figure out where they’re all coming from since he’s been isolated there for the last half century reading his old Whole Earth Catalog back issues.
As I recall, earlier studies maintained that we would have exhausted the world’s food and fuel supply by now. Therefore, we are all dead.
So it doesn’t really matter anymore.
Margaret Sanger was ANTI-Choice. After WWII she insisted to the West, NO MORE BABIES for a period of 10 years and didn’t care if any women WANTED to become mothers or not and didn’t care if they would be unable to bear children after her band was lifted.
“No More Babies!” - Expert Calls For Ban on Childbirth (1947)
British Pathe Newsreel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChCjgYGTL4Y
African population increase is never to be criticized.
The Overpopulationist is only concerned with Too Many Evil Whiteys.
All others are sacred.
Don’t worry, Papa Doc Bill Gates says that if we get vaccinated, we can help reduce the world’s population by 15%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkcZTh9peI4
I guess this Maurice Strong fellow didn't get the memo about global warming, i.e., that man is more powerful than Nature.
It’s just misanthropy. Swaddled in a scientific cloak.
They show a bomb with a burning fuse, and the caption is “The population bomb keeps ticking.”
Morons.
WW3 will take care of the “problem “.
The problem isn’t population, it’s how much of that population lives a primitive lifestyle. Western civilization, with constant technological advances in food production, energy production, sanitation, transportation, etc. enables us to support far more people efficiently on less land than do the primitive cultures of most of the rest of the world. For example, liberals’ vaunted “organic farming” (just a trendy name for primitive farming) takes huge amounts of land to produce the same crop yields that modern farming techniques can produce on a much smaller field.
The solution to growing population is to produce MORE energy, to use advanced food production techniques, including planting drought and disease-resistant hybrid crops, and to modernize primitive cultures.
You first, buck-o!
COVID is close to being vanquished!
The vaccine is getting out there!
QUICK!
Somebody gin up a crisis so we can keep the public fearful and controlled!
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