Population Decisions – Part I: Who Should Decide?
Posted on October 25, 2009
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By
Fred Westmark
The basic questions of overpopulation are: Who? What? Why? How? The decisions made about overpopulation today will have a profound effect on the future of the Earth, Thousands of years hence, if humans survive, the decisions made at the present time will affect the quality of human existence, if any.
The central and critical question is: Who will decide the population size? Who will make decisions regarding human breeding? Should we allow governments to decide for us? Or should people be allowed to make personal breeding decisions?
The modern nation-state is heir to monarchies and aristocracies that ruled mankind for thousands of years. Modern governments control many aspects of people’s daily lives. Democratic governments give lip-service to citizen participation and every two or four years, citizens vote to elect politicians to represent the people’s interests in government. Then, citizens are expected to keep quiet and go about their own lives.
Governments are composed of bureaucrats and politicians. They make the rules, sometimes good rules and sometimes bad rules. Whether citizens like it or not, today’s governments oversee and control most aspects of citizens’ day to day activities. This includes food, housing, health, education and so on. Some governments are more intrusive than others, but all strive to maintain control and oversight.
Should the future population of human beings be placed into the hands of bureaucrats and politicians? And which government body should make the decisions? Locally, decisions could be made by city, county, state or provincial governments. However to have a cohesive program, the national government should pass and control laws governing reproductive rights and quotas.
Unfortunately, all nations follow their own paths, ignoring other nation’s needs and practices. Perhaps, the world should utilize international organizations to oversee reproduction and population. Should the United Nations take charge? The trouble is the United Nations lacks the ability to control nations. Each nation steers its own course in the world. Or should an organization like the World Bank control breeding and breeding quotas? You could go to the bank and get a loan and a baby. The World Bank controls much of the money in the world, why not the population?
Individuals and family groups have been making reproduction decisions since time began, so maybe individuals should continue to make breeding decisions. After all, most people live in democracies and democracies subscribe to individual rights and freedom of choice.
But time is running out. Please! Will somebody decide! Somebody do something!
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6 Responses to “Population Decisions – Part I: Who Should Decide?”
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Hitler and Stalin were very successful at what you are trying to do, this is preposterous and appalling!!!!!!!!!!
To think of yourself as God is very wrong, it is the greatest sin.
A population policy is a decision on a course of action for the country as a whole,so it is reasonably within the responsibility of Government.It does not mean telling individuals how many children they can have, or should have.
There is scope for Government action to encourage people to have more or less children, such as family allowances,or birth control initiatives,without compelling everybody to do either.The planet, and Britain, is grossly overpopulated,and it is not reasonable to expect other countries to continue feeding us if their own populations are short of food.Where will that leave us? The natural world has been horrendously damaged in uncritical efforts to force increases in food production, eg.using herbicides and pesticides,forest destruction, aquafer exhaustion;and all because human population increase is accepted as inevitable,and must not be questioned.It is long past time to question it,and to reduce the Earth’s human population to one that can be supported without damage to the Environment.
First, Hanna, may I correct a miconception. Hitler and Stalin - those thoroughly nasty dictators - (and many others you haven’t mentioned) hardly made a dent on global population numbers and a quick glance at a world population growth curve will confirm that.
As I read Fred Westmark’s article he is saying that ‘individuals should continue to make breeding decisions.’ What’s wrong with that? That is democratic and sensible - not dictatorial. Individuals, however, have to know why that is neceessary - partially adressed by Cecily above - and be encouraged, for the sake of their childrens’ future, to adopt the decision to have a maximum of two - and preferably fewer - children.
I’m afraid I don’t see where God comes into all this. But if its sin you are worried about, Hanna, how about the sin of excess and people breeding so indescriminately that they are putting at severe risk the futures of all those they are supposed to love cherish and protect. Do we not have a duty of care to our fellow humans and to avoid the Armageddon that you might possible bilieve in? Fred Westmark’s plea that “… time is running out. Please! Will somebody decide! Somebody do something!” is a ‘cri de coeur’. We should all listen and be willing to act of our own free will. Having too many children is hardly what Christ had in mind when he said “Love thy neighbour” and he lived at a time when the world poulation was one thirtieth of today’s!
If you are not FOR the survial of the human race then you must be AGAINST it.
Can we really rely on the populations to decide themselves. Nothing will ever get done at the rate it needs to happen.
The only ways to achieve optimum population (assuming such size is radically less than now) is to either reduce the birth rate or increase the death rate, or a blend of the two.
Neither option is, I suggest, politically or socially acceptable, and will not be undertaken by the population willingly.
So what to we do? Nothing? Or does someone have to make the difficult decision for us. As individuals we are somewhat incapable.
I believe that if individual women were reminded of the insecurity of food supplies as a result of world overpopulation and global warming,they would be more concerned about the immediate future than the general population is. Informing them about the advantages and disadvantages of the full range of contraceptive choices available to them, would enable them to see that they really can control their fertility.Offering them a contract (which they could refuse) to (1)delay the birth of their first child until they had reached one third of their life expectancy,plus two or three years; then (2)to have two children,or fewer; then(3) to use some permanent form of birth control;would not (IMO)be coercive.In return the woman would receive health care, birth control and prenatal care,and a significant cash payment after her last baby’s birth, and confirmation of permanent birth control.Universal acceptance of this contract would build in a delay in replacing deaths with births,and ensure that each successive generation would be smaller.While some women would refuse,in developed societies many women are voluntarily freely choosing this course.
The length of the delay in replacing deaths with births would in fact progressively increase with each generation, compared to the first,and be an important factor in the speed of population decline.I focus on women as I think they are naturally more”future oriented” than men.