Tackling "Population Control" Dangers Head-On
by Laurie Mazur
March 27, 2009 - 3:58pm (Print)
I agree wholeheartedly with Alanna about the difficulty -- and importance -- of getting out of our defensive crouch and setting a proactive agenda. At the same time, we already have an agenda for women's health and rights -- the ICPD Program of Action -- that remains unfinished. The goals of the ICPD remain as urgent as they were 15 years ago when the document was hammered out in Cairo.
The reasons why the ICPD agenda remains unfinished would fill quite a few blog posts. But I do think we have new opportunities to reinvigorate support for that agenda. Today, there is a remarkable alignment of interests among those working for women's rights and health, youth empowerment, global justice and environmental protection. The ICPD agenda is central to all of those concerns -- and there is much to be gained by building new alliances with these movements.
I know this is fraught; many of us in the women's rights and health movement are understandably wary of those who approach reproductive health with other motivations. There is a real danger, for example, that concerns about population growth and the environment could take us back to the days of "population control." That is a danger we must tackle head-on, but it should not deter us from making alliances with environmentalists and others. The greatest danger right now is of not going forward and accomplishing the critically important goals set forth in the ICPD.
This post is part of the After the Gag Rule salon hosted by RH Reality Check and UN Dispatch.
The "Pill" became commercially available in 1960. It's a tragedy that our leaders in the U.S. & the U.N. didn't have the courage & vision to establish a replacement population policy- no more than 2 births per family to retain any public benefits like education, health care, etc. or go to the highest income tax bracket. When the 2nd child is born, a free vasectomy should be offered. If we had had such a policy since 1961, U.S. population would have topped out about 200 million & the world about 3.5 or 4 billion instead of 306 million for the U.S. & 6.7 billion for the Earth today. Global warming would only be a remote concern, there wouldn't be resource shortages- like droughts, food shortages, peak oil, fisheries depletion, endangered species, etc. We wouldn't have overcrowded ghettos, cities, roads, schools, hospitals, parks, beaches & wilderness!
