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Population control
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Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. The practice has sometimes been voluntary, as a response to poverty, environmental concerns, or out of religious ideology, but in some times and places it has been socially mandated. This is generally conducted to improve quality of life for a society or as a solution to overpopulation. While population control can involve measures that improve people's lives, giving them greater control of their reproduction, some programs have exposed them to exploitation.
The population control movement was active throughout the 1960s and 1970s driving many reproductive health and family planning programs. In the 1980s tension grew between population control advocates and feminist women's health activists who advance women's reproductive rights as part of a human rights-based approach.
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Encyclopedia
Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. The practice has sometimes been voluntary, as a response to poverty, environmental concerns, or out of religious ideology, but in some times and places it has been socially mandated. This is generally conducted to improve quality of life for a society or as a solution to overpopulation. While population control can involve measures that improve people's lives, giving them greater control of their reproduction, some programs have exposed them to exploitation.
The population control movement was active throughout the 1960s and 1970s driving many reproductive health and family planning programs. In the 1980s tension grew between population control advocates and feminist women's health activists who advance women's reproductive rights as part of a human rights-based approach. Growing opposition to the narrow population control focus led to a significant change in population policies in the early 1990s.
Population control may commonly use one or more of the following practices although there are other methods as well:
The method(s) chosen can be strongly influenced by the religious and cultural beliefs of the community's members. Failures of the other methods can lead to the use of abortion or infanticide, in which case it is regarded as a necessary drastic last resort. A specific practice may be allowed or mandated by law in one country while prohibited or severely restricted in another, an indicator of the controversy this topic generates.
History
Ancient and Middle Ages
A number of ancient writers have reflected on the issue of population. Confucius (551-478 BC) and other Chinese writers cautioned that "excessive growth may reduce output per worker, repress levels of living for the masses and engender strife". Confucius also observed that "mortality increases when food supply is insufficient; that permanent marriage makes for high infantile mortality rates, that war checks population growth."
In ancient Greece Plato (427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) discussed the best population size for Greek city states and concluded that cities should be small enough for efficient administration and direct citizen participation in public affairs, but at the same time needed to be large enough to defend themselves against hostile neighbouring city states. In order to maintain the desired optimum population size the philosophers adviced that procreation, and if necessary immigration, should be encouraged if the population size was too small, and emigration to colonies would be encouraged should the population become too big. Like Confucius, Aristotle concluded that a too high increase in population would bring "certain poverty on the citizenry, and poverty is the cause of sedition and evil". To halt too fast population increase Aristotle advocated abortion and the exposition of newborns.
At about 300 BC in India Kautilya, a political philosopher (c. 350-283 BC), considered population as a source of political, economic, and military strength. Through a given territory can hold too many or too few people, the latter is the greater evil. Kautilya favoured the remarriage of widows (which at the time was forbidden in India), opposed taxes that encourage emigration, and thought asceticism should be restricted to the aged. Ancient Rome, especially in the time of Augustus (63 BC- AD 14), needed manpower to acquire and administer the vast Roman Empire. A series of laws were instituted to encourage early marriage and frequent childbirth. Lex Julia (18 BC) and the Lex Papia Poppaea (AD 9) are two well known exampled of such laws and amongst others provided tax breaks and preferential treatment when applying for public office for those that complied with the laws. Severe limitations were imposed on those that did not. For example, the surviving spouse of a childless couple could only inherit one-tenth of the deceased fortune, the rest was taken by the state. Resistance from the population at large led to first the strictest and later all provisions of these laws to be disregarded and eventually abolished as obsolete and unenforceable.
Tertullian, an early Christian author (ca AD 160-220), was one of the first to describe famine and war as preventing overpopulation. He wrote:
"The strongest witness is the vast population of the earth to which we are a burden and she scarcely can provide for our needs; as our demands grow greater, our compliants against Nature's inadequacy are heard by all. The scourges of pestilence, famine, wars and earthquakes have come to be regarded as a blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serve to prune away the luxuriant growth of the human race."
Ibn Khaldoun, a famous North African Arab polymath (1332-1406), considered population increase and decrease as connected to economic development, linking high birth rates and low death rates to times of economic upswing, and low birth rates and high death rates to economic downswing. Khaldoun concluded that high population density rather than high absolute population numbers were desirable to achieve more efficient division of labour and cheap administration.
In the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, population issues were rarely discussed in isolation. Attitudes were generally pro-natalist in line with the Biblical command "Be ye fruitful and multiply".
The 16th and 17th Century
European cities grew more rapidly than before, and throughout the 16th century and early 17th century discussions on the advantaged and disadvantaged of population growth were frequent. Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian political philosopher (1469-1527), wrote "When every province of the world so teems with inhabitants that they can neither subsist where they are nor remove themselves elsewhere... the world will purge itself in one or another of these three ways" listing floods, plague and famine. Martin Luther, a German monk and theologian (1483-1546), concluded on the issue "God makes children. He is also going to feed them." Jean Bodin, a French jurist and political philosopher (1530-1596), argued that a bigger population would mean more production and in turn more export, which would increase the influx of silver and gold, and thus increase the riches of a country. Giovanni Botero, an Italian priest and diplomat (1540-1617), emphasized that "the greatness of a city rests on the multitude of its inhabitants and their power", but pointed out that a population cannot increase beyond its food supply. If this limit was approached late marriage, emigration and war would serve to restore a balance.
Richard Hakluyt, an English writer (1527-1616), observed that "through long peace and seldome sickness... we are growen more populous than ever heretofore;... many thousandes of idle persons are within this realme, which, havinge no way to be sett on worke, be either mutinous and seeks alteration in the state, or at leaste very burdensome to the commonwealthe." Hakluyt thought that this lead to crime and full jails and in A Discourse on Western Planting (1584) Hakluyt advocated for the emigration of surplus population. With the onset of the Thirty Year War (1618–1648), which brought about huge devastation and mass dying though hunger and disease in Europe, concerns about depopulation returned.
The population control movement
In the 20th century population control proponents have drawn from the insights of Thomas Malthus, a British clergyman and economist who published An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Malthus argued that "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio." He predicted that "preventive checks" on exponential population growth, such as poverty, famine, and war, would ultimately save humanity from itself and that human misery is an "absolute necessary consequence".
Paul R. Ehrlich, a US biologist and environmentalist, published The Population Bomb in 1968, advocating stringent population control policies. His central argument on population is as follows:
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies - often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparent brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance to survive."
In his concluding chapter, Ehrlich offered a partial solution to the "population problem":
"(We need) compulsory birth regulation... (though) the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size".
Ehrlich's views came to be accepted by many population control advocates in the United States and Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. Since Ehrlich invoked the imagery of the "population bomb" overpopulation has been blamed for a variety of issues, including, increasing poverty, high unemployment rates, environmental degradation, famine and genocide. Paige Whaley Eager argues that the shift in perception that occurred in the 1960s must be understood in the context of the demographic changes that took place at the time. It was only in the first decade of the 19th Century that the world's population reached one billion. The second billion was added in the 1930s, the next billion in the 1960s. 90 percent of this net increase occurred in developing countries. Whaley Eager also argues that at the time the US recognised that these demographic changes could significantly affect global geopolitics. Large increases occurred in China, Mexico and Nigeria, and demographers warned of an "population explosion" particularly in developing countries from the mid-1950s onwards.
Population control and economics
There is a diversity of opinions among economists on the effects of population reduction or increase on national economic health. Some believe that reduction of the population is a key to economic growth. Others argue that population reduction should be focused on what they judge to be undesirable sections of the population (see Eugenics). Other economists doubt the correlation between population reduction and economic growth. Some economists, such as Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams have argued that poverty and famine are caused by bad government and bad economic policies, and not by overpopulation. In his book The Ultimate Resource, economist Julian Simon argued that higher population density leads to more specialization and technological innovation, and that this leads to a higher standard of living. Simon also claimed that if you look at a list of countries ranked in order by population density, there is no correlation between population density, and poverty and famine, and instead, if you look at a list of countries ranked in order by government corruption, there is a huge correlation between government corruption, and poverty and famine.
Philosophy
Antinatalism is the philosophical position that asserts a negative value judgement towards birth. Supporters of population control may, more or less, be affirmed with its reasons. In contrast, natalism supports population growth.
Contemporary research
It is generally accepted that overpopulation is aggravated by poverty and gender inequality with consequent unavailability, and lack of knowledge of contraception, and third world evidence usually bears this theory out. However, first and second world fertility rates, in the Depression era United States, Modern Russia, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Estonia and France suggest that these populations are responding inversely to poverty and economic pressures especially on women. Thus France is increasing social and women's services like childcare and parental leave, expecting the policy to stop the aging of its population. Italy is regarded as alleviating overpopulation more rapidly than Sweden as a result of less gender equality and fewer children's services.
Newer research has been done by the U.S. National Security Council, in a study entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200, under the direction of Henry Kissinger in 1974. This report stressed that only 13 countries are projected to account for 47 percent of the world population increase by the year 2050. This, it is argued, (due to its impact on development, food requirements, resources and the environment) adversely affected the welfare and progress of countries concerned. It further argued that this would undermine the stability of countries friendly to the US and therefore harmed the "national security" of the United States as well.
David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), place in their study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population will have to be reduced by two-thirds, says the study.
The authors of this study believe that an agricultural crisis will develop, yet that they will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer claims that coming decades could see spiraling food prices without relief and massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before.
Another study had been done by the National Audubon Society which recently released a 16-page document called "Population and Habitat: Making the Connection". In this study, population control is widely supported.
Renewed support from private people and media
Population control is also increasingly being featured in many environmental documentaries and films. An example is the The Planet-documentary, which describes the ongoing rising human population, its effects on the planet and the necessity of population control.
As early as 1798, Thomas Malthus stated in his Essay on the Principle of Population that population control needed to be implemented into society. Around the year 1900, Sir Francis Galton said in his publication called "Hereditary Improvement" that "the unfit could become enemies to the State, if they continue to propagate. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich noted in "The Population Bomb" that "we must cut the cancer of population growth" and that, if this was not done there would only be one other solution, namely the ‘death rate solution’ in which we raise the death rate through war-famine-pestilence etc.” In the same year, another prominent modern advocate for mandatory population control was Garrett Hardin, who proposed in his landmark 1968 essay The Tragedy of the Commons that society must relinquish the "freedom to breed" through "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon." Later on, in 1972, he reaffirmed his support in his new essay “Exploring New Ethics for Survival”, by stating that “We are breeding ourselves into oblivion.” Other people advocating population control in the past were: Bertrand Russell, Margaret Sanger (1939), John D. Rockefeller, Frederick Osborn (1952), Isaac Asimov, Jacques Cousteau, ...
Today, a number of influential people advocate population control. They are:
The head of the UN Millennium Project Jeffrey Sachs is also a heavy proponent of decreasing the effects of overpopulation. In 2007, Jeffrey Sachs gave a number of lectures (2007 Reith Lectures) about population control and overpopulation. In his lectures (called "Bursting at the Seams"), he featured an integrated approach that would deal with a number of problems associated with overpopulation and poverty reduction.
Opposition to population control
The Roman Catholic Church has opposed population control policies. Pope Benedict XVI has stated that "the extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings".
Present-day practice by countries
China
An important example of mandated population control is China's one-child policy in which having more than one child is made extremely unattractive. China's population policy has been credited with a very significant slowing of China's population growth which had been very high before the policy was implemented. It has come under criticism that the implementation of the policy has involved forced abortions and forced sterilization. However, while the punishment of "Unplanned" pregnancy is a fine, both forced abortion and forced sterilization can be charged with intentional assault, which is punished with up to 10 years' imprisonment.
The Chinese government introduced the policy in 1979 to alleviate the social and environmental problems of China. According to government officials, the policy helped prevent 400 million births. However, the reduction in fertility could be more due to the modernisation of China than government policies. The policy is controversial both within and outside China because of the issues it raises; because of the manner in which the policy has been implemented; and because of concerns about negative economic and social consequences.
India
In India, only people with two or fewer children are eligible for election to a Gram panchayat.
Iran
Iran has succeeded in sharply reducing its birth rate in recent years. Iran is the only country where mandatory contraceptive courses are required for both males and females before a marriage license can be obtained. Although a conservative religious regime, the government emphasises the benefits of small families and contraception.
United States
Enacted in 1970 as Title X of the Public Health Service Act provides access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to those in need. Priority for services is given to persons of low-income. The Title X Family Planning program is administered within the Office of Population Affairs within the Office of Public Health and Science. The Office of Family Planning directs Title X. In 2007, Congress appropriated roughly $283 million for family planning under Title X, at least 90 percent of which was used for services in family planning clinics.
Title X is a vital source of funding for family planning clinics throughout the nation. Family planning clinics are very important in providing reproductive health care. The education and services supplied by the Title X-funded clinics support young individuals and low-income families. Goals of developing healthy families are accomplished by helping individuals and couples decide whether and when to have children.
Titles X has made possible the prevention of unintended pregnancies. It has allowed millions of American women to receive necessary reproductive health care, plan their pregnancies and prevent abortions. Title X is dedicated exclusively to funding family planning and reproductive health care services.
Title X as a percentage of total public funding to family planning client services has steadily declined from 44% of total expenditures in 1980 to 12 percent in 2006. Medicaid has increased from 20% to 71% in the same time. In 2006, Medicaid contributed $1.3 billion to public family planning.
See also
Further reading
- Thomlinson, R. 1975. Demographic Problems: Controversy over Population Control. 2nd ed. Encino, CA: Dickenson.
External links
- A statement/video made by Dan Chay about our similarities with yeast in regards too overcrowding
- Population Control. Articles maintained by the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment (CWPE).
- Traces the history of the perceived need for population control.
- , article by Barbara Ehrenreich, Stephen Minkin and Mark Dowie, Mother Jones, November/December 1979
- "" by Maurice King & Charles Elliott, British Medical Journal 1997
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