General
Thomas Malthus in 1798 in An Essay on the Principle of Population theorized
how populations might increase faster than the supply of goods necessary for
their survival. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood,
introduced ideas and practices of birth control in the early 20th century to
control the natural and obvious consequences of her call for unrestrained
sexual activity. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 best-selling book The Population Bomb
warned of dire circumstances that could result from the ‘population
explosion’(“we will breed ourselves into oblivion.”). They have influenced
generations of people as well as governmental polices with their bad ideas.
Their predictions have mostly been wrong. Dreadfully wrong. In missing the
truth they have potentially helped bring about a future social and economic
upheaval (the “mass starvation” and “social chaos” they feared) by their
manmade solutions to their theorized population problems. The resultant
real, manmade consequences of their actions have caused (and are causing)
grievous wounds to the natural order and health of our world. The numbers
presented below are facts, not theory.
Thomas Malthus’s Erroneous Population/Goods Theory
What factual data can we apply to a consideration of Malthus’s theory that
we have exponential increases in population and only linear increases in
consumer goods? From 1900-2000 the world’s population increased from 1.6 to
6.1 billion while the world’s real gross domestic product increased 20 to 40
percent. The U.N.’s Population Division reports (“World Population
Monitoring 2001”) that as for oil and minerals as “consumption has risen, so
has the estimated amount of the resources as yet untapped”. They claim there
is now “vastly higher standards of living” for the world’s inhabitants. Of
the effects of population growth on pollution, water contamination, and
fisheries depletion they say, “in general, population growth appears to be
less important as a driving force of such problems (including, they note,
global warming) than is economic growth and technology.”
The United States comprises just 5% of the world’s population, yet consumes
26% of the world’s energy resources. Population growth, which tends to
naturally adjust on its own (fertility rates, i.e.), may be much less of a
threat to the world than is technological consumption. Manmade population
reduction schemes under the guise of ‘reproductive health’ appear to have
already begun to threaten the future health and stability of the world. The
UNFPA (UN Population Fund-in charge of population control programs for the
UN) in their 2002 report mentions ‘reproductive health’ 186 times in
relation to human health in the world, but only once mentions malaria, clean
water, and safe sanitation. In contrast, the UN’s own Development Programme
(UNDP) in 1998 calculated that less than 4% of the combined wealth of the
225 richest people in the world could achieve and maintain access to basic
education, basic health care, adequate food, safe water, and adequate
sanitation for all human beings living on the planet![pc24]
The UN’s Population Division report, Concise Report on World Population
Monitoring, 2001 reports than when famines occur it is not because of over
population but because of ”inadequate…access to food as a result of poverty,
political instability, economic inefficiency, and social inequity.”
Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb-A Lethal Dud
A popular poster found in college dorm rooms in the early 1970s, just after
the publication of Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, showed a world so populated
that people had to live on crowded beaches. In reality fertility rates have
steadily dropped since the 19th century, declining by half in the last 50
years; 2.65 today. Generally, a man and a woman need to produce at least 2
children to replace themselves to keep the population at current levels. In
practical application it is really 2.1 children. To see the problem more
clearly; imagine 10 men and 10 women coming together as 10 couples and each
family having just 1 child. Then unite their offspring (5 couples) -again,
just one child for each couple. Within several generations the population is
reduced to extinction! Population growth in the 20th century occurred not
primarily because of fertility rates, but because of increased life
expectancy. Rather than a bad thing, the increase in human longevity may be
one of the greatest social/medical achievements of the 20th century. In 1950
the average lifespan of a person in Pakistan was 27 years. In 1980 it was 54
years. As for people spilling over to live on crowded beaches; If ALL the
earth’s present 6 billion inhabitants were brought to Texas they would EACH
have 1120 square feet to live on.(link)
A bit of a bizarre analogy, but far from humans covering every square inch
of the planet.
The negative environmental impact of people is an argument used to support a
control of population growth. There is no doubt that humans do interact with
the environment both positively (i.e. co2 is required for plant growth) and
negatively. What is deliberately over-looked in pro-population control
arguments is the more important detrimental impact to the environment of
consumption patterns of developed countries with stable to declining
populations. Again, to see the problem more clearly, put 6 people each in 4
houses or 3 people each in 8 houses. Which situation consumes more resources
and is less efficient? Christians have a responsibility with their faith to
be good stewards of the earth. Genesis (1:28-30) says, “fill the earth and
subdue it. Have dominion over” it “the fish…the birds…all the living
things…every seed-bearing plant…to be your food.” The hypothesized perfect
environmental world without humans in it begs the question of why we are
here.
Margaret Sanger’s Contraceptive Eugenics
Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, along with those with
similar ideas, have left the most damaging legacy for the world in their
arguments for promiscuous sex with concomitant reliance on birth control
(with emphasis originally for eugenic purposes) and their support of
abortion to take care of the ‘mistakes’.(see Contraception and Abortion
pages) Those who have used Malthus’s points for population control in their
arguments never mention his statement that, “a policy of moral restraint” is
the only way to potentially “keep population within manageable
proportions.”[rs15]
It is quite ironic that Margaret Sanger proved her fellow population control
ally wrong on this point by professing a life totally devoid of sexual moral
restraint and coupling it with birth control (including abortion). The
artificial methods of birth control she argued for have been used in
population control programs to help bring about a reduction in fertility
rates to potentially disastrous levels, threatening the health, stability,
and moral structure of the future of our world.
Population control advocates continue to push for reduced population
numbers, but what do the numbers, the facts, show? Italy had one of the
highest birthrates in Europe in the 1930s, it now has one of the world’s
lowest. “Before 2050, 80% of the world population will be projected to have
below-replacement fertility.”[pc4]
As noted above, fertility rates of 2.1 are required to maintain populations.
Some present fertility rates in the world include France-1.9, Australia-1.7,
Germany-1.3, Italy and Spain-1.2, Japan-1.2, and Korea-1.1. By 2050 Italy
will lose 28% of its population (from 127 to 105 million), Russia is
expected to drop from 147 million to 121 million people, and Germany is
expected to decline from 57 to 41 million people. 1 out of 10 persons in the
world are now 60 years of age or older. Predictions have that ratio at 1 in
5 by 2050, and 1 in three (60 years of age or older) by 2150. By 2050 the
number of working age people will have dropped by 43% in Italy, 34% in
Japan, and 23% in Germany. Even in the USA where we now have 5.2 working
people for each retiree; it is expected that we will have only 2 workers per
retiree by 2050. The president of the European Commission warned in 2001
that nearly one-third of pension systems in Europe will likely collapse by
2050. The make-believe “population bomb” scare may have led us into actions
that will bring about the real pensions bomb, and perhaps even lead to the
financial collapse of the world.
Some demographers are now concerned that the anti-natal ethos promoted by
the contraceptive movement and population explosion hysteria may well be
impossible to reverse. Original estimates had world population at 9.3
billion by 2050, but re-estimates are now 8.9 billion people. Half of the
estimated reduction are 400 million from unexpected increased deaths (mainly
HIV/Aids) and the other missing are an estimated 200 million from unexpected
decreased births. It seems the relentless push of contraceptives (as well as
abortion!) by International Planned Parenthood and UNFPA has worked so well
that it has helped reduce fertility numbers to less than replacement in many
countries, with more joining the list yearly. 62% of women worldwide in
married or “consensual unions” use contraceptives. 70% of similar women use
them in developed countries and a surprising 60% in less developed
countries. The health care focus of population control planners is so much
on reducing births that when a high ranking UNFPA staffer visited a “basic
health clinic” in Vietnam and broke her leg, there were no bandages,
splints, aspirins or other medications available at the ‘clinic’; only shelf
after shelf of condoms and contraceptives.[pc5]
A world with potential fertility rates below human replacement numbers seems
to loom before us; an opposite scary scenario than that envisioned by the
population explosion ‘thinkers’. Fortunately, this world was not brought
into existence by the hand of man and is run by natural law forces greater
than we can totally control. Despite forced sterilizations (and, at times
forced abortion) in such countries as China, Senegal and Peru (to name but a
few) often with the help of UNFPA (and the USA) man’s natural procreative
desire can not be eliminated. It is ironic, but not surprising if you put
brain to it, that the eugenic attempts by Margaret Sanger’s Planned
Parenthood, in their distorted ideas of how to bring about the perfect
population, threatens to eliminate the eugenic planners themselves. One
Sanger quote; contraception can be used to “eliminate the Negro
population”-the very reason they place their facilities in the middle of
poor populations.[ag23]
The irony is that the Planned Parenthooders are to some extent the
equivalent of modern day Shakers, although with less pure virtues. As noted
above, those families wanting either 1 child or no children eliminate
themselves from society in just a few generations. In the USA 17.4% of baby
boomer women with one child account for just 9.2% of their generations
children. The 10% with 4 or more children account for 25% of their
generation’s children.[pc6]
As the problems of decreased fertility rates grow larger on the horizon it
may be this group with family oriented ideals that helps us to return to our
natural desire to procreate (Gen 1:27). We may begin to realize how
unnatural and anti-life contraception, sterilization, and abortion really
are-bizarrely called planned parenthood and reproductive health care? They
should be more accurately called planned barren-hood and anti-reproductive
anti-health care. After all, medical health is defined by Merriam-Webster's Medical
Dictionary (www) as
“the condition of an organism or one of its parts in which it performs its vital functions normally or properly.” Sterilizing,
aborting, or giving a woman chemicals to interrupt the natural conception
and reproduction process does not seem to fit that definition.
Conclusion
While we may do stupid things, man is not stupid. When there are not enough
people around to do the work that needs to be done we are likely to say,
“Maybe I miscalculated; perhaps the gift of life is truly a gift, maybe even
a beautiful gift.” Hopefully we are smart enough to now look at the numbers
and foresee that we may have generated a problem with our anti-procreative
concepts and actions. Humans have helped to wonderfully bring about a global
increase in life expectancy in the 20th century from 46 years in 1950-1955
to 65 years in 2000-2005. It may be for our salvation literally as a
species, if we are wise enough to quit using unnatural means to force the
world to conform to our very human desires. The solutions to maintaining a
healthy world can surely be found by using the natural order of life we were
gifted. Not by my will but by “thy will be done!”
Note: See Reference Pages (Population Control) on this subject to view specific references cited above.