I am very bothered when people make the argument that people are the problem with the world. Their argument is basically, “If there were no people on the planet, there would be no people to destroy the planet.”
When I was on the debate team in college, this argument would end with “So we should kill everyone on the planet to prevent its destruction and then the aliens can have it and do something better with it.”
I kid you not. (I even lost to this argument once because I couldn’t prove aliens don’t exist.)
Overpopulation Is Used To Justify Population Control
In pro-abortion circles the end of the argument is usually “So women should have more abortions/abortion needs to be widely available, then we’ll have fewer people and won’t destroy the planet.” (Think of the Discovery Channel protester who wanted the channel to “stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”)
Those of us with a Christian worldview recognize that God created the world for us, so the idea of getting rid of ourselves to save the world is ludicrous.
But when you really delve into the myth of overpopulation, you see that it’s just a ploy to justify abortion. Abortion, after all, has at its roots the notion that certain people don’t deserve to live.
Overpopulation Fears Are Rooted in Racism
Fears of overpopulation are often closely linked to racist motivations–a fear that Caucasians will no longer be the majority race. (The name Margaret Sanger should instantly pop in your head at the mere mention of racism and abortion.)
As Michel Schooyans from Human Life International writes,
According to this ideology [of demographic security], the greatest menace is threatening the aging and even shrinking North comes from the poor but much more populous South. This leads to the imperious necessity to contain, that is to say keep in check, the demographic growth of the South using all possible means.
Moreover, the countries that do have high fertility rates are almost entirely African nations.
A United Nations press release [pdf] stresses the “urgency” of needing to reduce fertility because “if fertility were to remain constant…the population of the less developed regions would increase to 9.8 billion in 2050 instead of the 7.9 billion projected by assuming that fertility declines.”
The UN does not explain why an increase in population in “less developed regions” is bad. They simply assume that readers of the report will agree with them that population growth (that is, people) is bad.
This reader of the report, for one, does not agree. “People are bad.” What a disgusting assumption.
Decrease Consumption By Killing Yourself and Your Unborn Child
The Population Research Institute addressed the idea that there aren’t enough resources to continue to support everyone in a short video they produced. They observed that the problem is about lack of access to the food (because of war, bad distribution, or poverty), not about the number of people.
But those of us in developed nations are consuming tons of resources, quite possibly more than we need.
Frankly, I admit it: I consume resources.
One way to prevent me from using these resources is to kill myself. If I’m dead, I won’t be eating, or drinking, or breathing.
If I’m not brave enough to kill myself, I could always kill my unborn baby. I’m saving the planet from his nasty habits like eating and drinking water. That way, my abortion becomes noble–it’s for a greater good!
Unfortunately, my “noble” actions won’t keep others—my hypothetical friend Bob, for example—from continuing to use resources wastefully.
Unchecked, Bob will continue to squander vast quantities of resources and my sacrifices will be completely negated. We’ll have to keep encouraging more and more people to kill themselves, their unborn children, and whoever else they can get their hands on (through euthanasia, assisted suicide, and so on) to allow Bob to continue to waste as much as he wants. He’s entitled to have a nice life, after all. (This is all said tongue-in-cheek.)
Decrease Consumption, Don’t Decrease People
A more logical solution is to become more responsible consumers. If we are more responsible with what we use, there will be plenty left for future generations.
In fact, some have argued that big families are far more resource efficient in their consumption—they’ve already learned how to make a little go a long way, to reuse everything they can, and to be happy with not getting every new electronic toy that comes out.
It seems more logical to me that we learn to decrease consumption, rather than mandating suicide, abortion, or euthanasia. This will be a more effective solution in the long term.
And it’s a lot more respectful of human rights and human dignity.
