Feb 02 2009
Is It Time for Population Control?
We have all heard about the irresponsible woman who just had octuplets. Few people find anything precious in this story, especially when it was revealed she is a 33 year old single mother of 14 children under the age of 8. She and her children will be living off taxpayer’s money probably for at least 18 years. To help with that, she reportedly wants Oprah to give her $2 million dollars.
To me, it seems likely that this woman has psychological problems and she should never have received one embryo implant, much less eight. Embryo implants are for people who are having problems with getting pregnant, not single mothers with six children. Even the least judgmental person would admit that in this case, the system has failed us all. I wonder who paid for the implants, and who will pay for the medical care of these children? This was unethical from start to finish. Doctors are not supposed to facilitate and encourage irresponsible parenting among the psychologically unwell. The ethical question is: Is it part of “human rights” to have 14 children, the last 8 through an artificial process?
As the world barrels quickly towards 9 billion people, (the limit some people say the earth can support) environmentally-aware people are getting worried. The planet simply can’t grow enough food for that many people and still sustain large cities and deforestation and the oceans dying, etc. If everything on earth were utopian and we had no forests and farmlands being appropriated to grow fuel for cars, it might be a different story. But it’s no secret that mankind has not been a good caretaker of our home. It’s the only home we have, and we’ve been treating it like a hostel, inviting in more and more people until it’s bursting at the seams. The environmentally aware are now suggesting a world-wide two-child limit per couple — but what if the ‘couple’ is a single mother? From the Times Online:
Two children should be limit, says green guru
Sarah-Kate Templeton, Health Editor
COUPLES who have more than two children are being “irresponsible” by creating an unbearable burden on the environment, the government’s green adviser has warned.
Jonathon Porritt, who chairs the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, says curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population.
A report by the commission, to be published next month, will say that governments must reduce population growth through better family planning. . . .
“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”
The Optimum Population Trust, a campaign group of which Porritt is a patron, says each baby born in Britain will, during his or her lifetime, burn carbon roughly equivalent to 2½ acres of old-growth oak woodland - an area the size of Trafalgar Square.
. . . . Porritt, who has two children, intends to persuade environmental pressure groups to make population a focus of campaigning.
“Many organisations think it is not part of their business. My mission with the Friends of the Earth and the Greenpeaces of this world is to say: ‘You are betraying the interests of your members by refusing to address population issues and you are doing it for the wrong reasons because you think it is too controversial,” he said.
Porritt, a former chairman of the Green party, says the government must improve family planning, even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion.
He said: “We still have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Europe and we still have relatively high levels of pregnancies going to birth, often among women who are not convinced they want to become mothers.
We know two things: 1) Growing population is already a problem. 2) Food is already short in many areas of the world and 3) Population has to be a part of discussions on climate change in the future. My opinion: Women with several children need to stop getting fertility treatments and they also have to stop having litters of babies. In fact, I’ll go one farther: Fertility treatments should stop. I think that if women can’t get pregnant, nature is telling them something: ADOPT! There are plenty of children to love in this world who are already born.
It’s not of paramount importance that every person on earth reproduce. In fact, given the climate crisis, the opposite is true. It is now everyone’s business how much each of us pollutes and even how many children people have, as much as that seems to infringe on people’s human rights.
I’m also aware that in Saudi Arabia, and many other male-dominated countries, it’s not terribly uncommon for a man to have over 20 children. In other countries, it’s not uncommon for women to have many children to increase their own perceived value. This is why family planning, reproduction information and birth control information has to be spread around the world far and wide, before it’s too late.
