Aristotle and Plato believed that the appropriate size for a city was one that was small enough to allow direct citizen participation, but large enough to protect itself from hostile neighbors. Aristotle also stated that if a population grew too large that poverty would occur and "poverty is the cause of sedition and evil" (http://aristotlethefreelibrary.com/A-Treatise-on-Government/2-6). One man even compared exreme population growth to a cancer. Paul R. Ehrlich published The Population Bomb in 1968 and in this stated that a population explosion needs to be solved with "compulsory birth regulation... (through) the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size" (The Population Bomb). Although this idea sounds incredibly extreme and like some George Orwell might dream up in my opinion, his beliefs were accepted (not carried out) in some countries. Is our situation so dire that we really need to tell families how many children they can produce?
There are so many sides to this argument. There is the optimistic side that believes that more people mean the possibility of more workers, more innovations, and more discoveries. Christians argue that people are concentrating on only the economic and environmental implications of over population instead of addressing the loss of future lives. They believe that God creates each child and His will protects them and his followers from consequences relating tho their birth. The realists argue that the world is indeed running out of resources. The population of the world has grown by about 80 million people a year in the past decade (information from http://iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gkh1/chap1.htm) and will seemingly continue at this pace until 2015. With that kind of growth, our food, resources, energy, and living space will become limited. That being said, people argue about what to do? Do we sit back and chance it? Do we limit our use of resources? Or does each country establish its own plan to control population growth?
The United States has its own population control plan. The Title X Family Planning program has $238 million for family planning. The majority of this money is to go to Family Planning clinics to educate people on what having children and a family is like. This method, as opposed to China’s “one-child policy” seems to be a better fit. It does not dictate how many children you are allowed to have, but rather shows you the importance of family size.
In my opinion, there are really two sides to this issue. One being do you think that it is our job as people of this world to prevent over-population so that we and the generations to come do not struggle with a lack of resources? The other is do you believe that it is our job as humans to allow children to be born because the next Einstein may be among them or the doctor who will cure cancer? Do we owe it to these children to allow their lives to affect ours? I personally believe that while we need to watch our use of resources and we must be smart about reproduction, the prevention of children is not the solution. Having children is something we incur on ourselves and we need to be ready to accept that responsibility. However, it is a tough issue with good points on either side and hopefully our government and we ourselves will address this issue in the upcoming years.
More links for information:
http://www.quodlibet.net/cook-population.shtml
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gkh1/chap1.htm
Both sides of this situation have valid arguments. I realize that resources may become limited, but at the same time, potentially brilliant beings are prevented from being born by population control. Yes, humans do need resources to survive, but at the same time, high-tech devices are being invented daily. One hundred years down the row, our future descendants may be laughing at how ignorant we were thinking we would ever run out. Population control could also crush the dreams of many. There are women who have ambitions of having large families, and with population control, especially in China, this dream is not achievable. Another downside to it is that abortion is in a way condoned. If you are only allowed X amount of children, what happens when you exceed the limit? Is that when abortion becomes acceptable? I think that limits should not be set to how many children one family can produce. There are many couples who don't even plan on having children at all which may, one day, cause a balance to occur.
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