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Page added on January 10, 2015
A hard look at population control
In November, 13 women in India died after undergoing sterilization procedures at a state-run “population control camp.”
No wonder. The doctor, R.K. Gupta, operated on 83 women on Nov. 8 in assembly-line fashion; government “guidelines” proscribe that 30 patients should be the maximum.
To me, even more shocking than the deaths themselves was the fact that these women were paid to be sterilized, as were the “health” workers who rounded them up. In addition, the women were given no information on other methods of birth control.
This sterilization coercion is apparently common practice in India, a country with a population of 1.25 billion and growing.
But at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt, was also one of the 179 countries that signed off on a program of action strongly stating that women should have the right to decide what kind of contraception to use, “and to make (those) decisions free of discrimination, coercion and violence.”
So if a country were trying to live up to those standards, would payments to patients to be sterilized ever be justified?
Actually, I am beginning to think they might. But only if:
• Other options are fully spelled out, available, and women are paid to use them as well;
• Workers are paid according to how many patients they bring in to make family planning choices, not by how many submitted automatically to sterilization; and
• The number of surgical procedures performed per doctor each day are strictly limited.
A feminist friend questioned my original horror not just at the deaths, but at the incentivized sterilizations. “They wanted fewer children, Dottie,” she said, “Would you rather see women and children starve to death later?”
As a futurist as well as a feminist, I care deeply about how the threat of overpopulation will affect the grandchildren and great- grandchildren of the world in the next century and beyond. Let’s start with the positive steps we can take to reduce this threat:
• Through donating to various non-coercive women’s health non-governmental organizations (NGOs), get the family planning choices to the 250 million women around the world who want access but don’t have it.
• Make sure Congress keeps the $610 million for international family planning and reproductive health in the Fiscal Year 2015 appropriations bill, and lobby to increase this spending.
But those are the easy steps, and frankly just a drop in the population bucket. Scientific American in December estimated that the world population is now 7.2 billion. Just a few years back, it had been projected to be 8.4 billion in 2100; now it is revised to be almost 11 billion by that time.
Combined with climate change, this fact could propel hordes of desperate people to flee destroyed coastlines in the less developed world. Many will die in the process of trying to reach other countries. And most of those countries will not want to accept the ones who get there.
Madeline Weld, president of the Population Institute of Canada, wrote in an online article in April 2012: “While population control programs can be quite benign, environmental coercion is often very cruel.”
Therefore, is human “coercion,” in the form of dollar incentives to use birth control, less cruel than environmental catastrophe? I would say “yes.”
Weld continues, “The environment is also totally impervious to political pressures from the right or the left, from religionists or Marxists. It is completely indifferent to ethics, human rights, public opinion and the pronouncement of religious leaders.”
In other words, nature bats last.
9 Comments on "A hard look at population control"
Makati1 on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 8:40 am
Considering that WW2 claimed over 50 million people over ~5, years or ~10 million people per year…
And considering that the world’s population is now growing by at least 75 million per year…
How do you stop population growth short of a nuclear war? Education? Hahahaha.
How do you change cultural beliefs in a generation? Religion? The reproductive drive?
The human reproduction system is geared to produce about 25 new persons per female. All the wishing and articles in the world are not going to make a difference. We are going to spread until we exhaust our resources, as does every other animal without a predator to keep the herd under control.
peakyeast on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 11:33 am
I wonder how friendly and kind their dieoff will seem to them in comparison?!
Apneaman on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 11:34 am
Like climate change there is plenty of passion on both sides, never ending conferences, debates, books, NGO’s, bla bla bla. Like climate change there has been zero progress in the aggregate. The rapacious ape will burn and fuck to the last ape standing.
GregT on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 12:44 pm
“As a futurist as well as a feminist, I care deeply about how the threat of overpopulation will affect the grandchildren and great- grandchildren of the world in the next century and beyond.”
Overpopulation is already adversely affecting over 3 billion people worldwide and growing. As resources become scarcer and more expensive, and the water crisis really kicks in the next two decades, it won’t be our grandchildren or our great-grandchildren that will be threatened, it will be us.
People are always talking about the next century, when they themselves will no longer be alive. The threats are here and now, and they are growing exponentially. If we don’t act now on multiple different fronts, our children may very well face extinction, never mind their children, their grandchildren, or their great-grandchildren.
Dredd on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 3:25 pm
Over-everything is not in our genes, it is in our ignorance.
Makati1 on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 8:42 pm
The only people who can put over population in the future are 1st worlders. The only people who are not experiencing it’s effects are also 1st worlders. That is about to change…
noobtube on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 9:42 pm
The only thing hurting the world’s population are the American degenerates who seek to oppress and suppress self-determination outside the influence of the Waste (I mean “the West”).
Overpopulation is just another code word for genocide and mass murder… something Americans know all too well. Just ask the Native and African slave descendants.
The world needs to clean up its Waste (I mean “the West”).
dubya on Sat, 10th Jan 2015 11:39 pm
Thanks Noob, I was waiting for that.
Davy on Sun, 11th Jan 2015 6:23 am
I experience blocking whenever I read the population articles because rarely do we see realism. The lack of realism is in multiple areas. There are those who believe current population levels are OK. There is even talk from economist of more population but smarter. Many think-tanks, NGO’s, and UN give exponential forecast 30 years into the future goal seeking the results to match a normal BAU growth as if it is natural to grow normally another 30 years. These organizations express concerns and unrealistic remedies but almost no one admits we are at a point of a population limit i.e. bottleneck now.
We really can’t add many more people. I forecast maybe another 500MIL and that is if we are lucky. PO, the economy, and vital resources are not going to support population growth and the inevitable consumption growth that accompanies it. I often wonder how we are going to get the population stabilized at a minimum and ideally reduced to around 3BIL for starters. Mak, made a good comparison of the tragic death of WWII comparing that to population growth. 75MIL people every year added currently and the best modern humans have ever done to cull their population themselves was an average 10MIL deaths a year during WWII.
The horror of what is ahead I can’t express or fathom. While BAU continues our just-as-it happens news coverage is inevitably going to have a famine and epidemic situation that will dwarf Darfur and Ebola. It is inevitable that mass death and widespread death will occur from any of a number of reasons. We are again facing a cold war with possible NUK results. At any time AGW could conspire to reduce food production far below what will feed the world. Economics appears to be heading for an inevitable contraction. Food is industrial today so any PO effects are going to affect production like any other industry. Vast monocultures, food distribution systems and industrial AG inputs are a dependent on healthy liquid fuel supplies and economy both in danger currently.
There is no plan B for population reduction because it is a predicament of nature. Nature will have to take care of it in a descent that is surely to happen soon. I can offer only ideas for some kind of mitigation and adjustment strategies. We need 1000 different strategies for multiple cultures and locations. None of these except outright genocide should be considered. Forced sterilization being one. Let’s reconsider a medical system that tries to save everyone. End immigration and migration to force areas with high birth rates to end their growth. The rich countries must reduce consumption drastically. Over consumption is as bad or worse as overpopulation on the end result of a bottleneck.
These are just a few unsavory options no one wants to consider. These and other options may occur in a coming crisis but they are unlikely. At the individual level all I can say is move out of overpopulated areas. Prepare for god awful situations of death that will depress even the most hardened corn. I wonder how the happy morning news reports are going to deal with daily mass death. Prep some food, water, shelter, and security yourself because this can strike anywhere rich or poor.
These options are nothing compared to what is required. Nature will have to run its course. My biggest point is we are here now so these articles that claim we have many years to work this problem out are deception. We have little time to deal with PO and population. AGW is anyone’s guess but appears soon. The economy surely is heading for a contraction soon. All the above are precursors to a population cull. This is doom of the highest order folks. I cannot find any reason to doubt death, mayhem, and destruction on a global scale are coming. I hope and pray I am wrong. Go ahead and bash my message I wish I could.