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November 10, 2011
Population
Control MICHELE BARNABY Social Sciences Instructor
TRAVIS IRION Guest Columnist
Although world population reached 7 billion on Oct. 31, the need for a world population control policy, or a policy to control or reduce the current world population, is not necessary. Most nation states already have a population policy that sets aside federal funds for family planning. Strict population policies, like China’s one-child policy, are not needed today. What seems to be more important and more successful is economic development. As economic development takes place, people choose to limit (or control) family size, and this makes sense. In rural societies, children are needed to help out on the farm, take care of younger children, and care for the older generation—children are assets. In urban societies, children are no longer needed to help out, are expensive, and a liability. As the world develops economically from primarily rural societies to primarily urban societies, couples choose to have smaller families. Where vigorous population policies do exist, they have tended to be successful at reducing population growth, but unsuccessful at meeting societal needs. Many negative outcomes are associated with these types of policies. China’s growth rate declined immediately after the installation of its policy in 1976. Today their natural growth rate is lower than the US’s. China could abolish its population policy and would not see an increase in family size or a change in its continued declining growth rate because China is now an economically developed nation. The negative consequences of this policy are still apparent. In China, the law states how large your family can be. If you ignore the law, the penalties can be quite strict from paying fines to losing certain privileges. Also, China’s culture favors males over females, resulting in an abnormal sex ratio at birth. Today, China has many more grown men than women. Other negative social problems have been associated with the strictly policed policy. Outside of China, vigorous population policies don’t always work as well, either. India has had a less stern population policy since 1952 with somewhat unorthodox approaches, such as focusing on providing incentives to voluntarily become sterilized. This has resulted in distrust among people in certain regions toward “help” from the government regarding family planning. A strict population policy today could cause a severe population decline if it worked as well as China’s. A declining world population would have negative results as well. Some regions already see population declines. Europeans no longer reproduce themselves. This has resulted in an aging population where more people are no longer part of the work force. Aging populations put financial stress on governments, can result in declining GNPs, and can even affect military policies. Europe relies on immigrants to make up for the hole in their work force. In Japan the declining population is so problematic and extreme that the Japanese have introduced policies to keep the elderly in the work force and even policies to assist in increasing the birth rate. Population worldwide continues to grow, but eventually, and probably not too far in the future, we will see more regions with a stable or even a declining population. Focusing on economic development allows people to move to a condition where conscious family size is a priority. Government “control” is not wanted or needed.
Did you know you can fit the entire world’s population into an area the size of Texas? And this would give each person about 1,069 square feet to live on, leaving the rest of the world uninhabited. Although this would not be ideal, this shows there is no land crisis in relation to population. As for food, American-grown food alone provides about 3,800 calories per American each day. That is 1,800 calories more per day than the recommended 2,000-calorie diet. Here is the kicker, 1,100 of those calories on average are wasted. This is not including the amount of foreign food consumed each day in the United States. The facts show that the U.S. produces enough food alone to sustain its own population. With no land crisis and no food crisis, this leads to the conclusion that there is no need for government regulation of population size. The real issue is with our culture of materialism. There is no self-control to Americans’ greed and indulgence. The government cannot legislate self-control for Americans. As much as governments have tried in the past, laws will not change people’s ways. In fact they may only serve to reinforce them. Try telling an American to eat only 2,000 calories per day! The real crisis is overconsumption, not overpopulation. The solution to this problem lies with America and its need to step back up to the plate and educate its population properly. Churches, private charities and health classes in school should be leading this campaign. There is a fundamental moral factor to this issue, too. Self-control would invariably feed more people and satisfy the needs of the hungry not only in America but the rest of the world. Again, this requires a total cultural reorientation, which is not something that the government has any lasting effect on. If anything, government is an expression of culture, especially our democracy in America. Thus, government is not the solution. Besides all this, the populationcontrol advocates’ solutions are patently illegal. Many support forced contraception, abortion, or sterilization and child limits. This would fly in the face of several fundamental rights that all Americans hold dear: religious liberty, privacy and family rights. To enact such laws, the government would need a legitimate reason to interfere and regulate public life. In America, the Supreme Court has ruled that for the government to make forays into reproductive rights, it must have a compelling interest, which is more than legitimate. The case that made that most clear is Roe v. Wade. Let’s see how many population control advocates would go for repealing that case!
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Michele Barnaby is a social sciences instructor at Pittsburg State University.
Travis Irion is a student at Pittsburg State University.
readers write back
No offense here, and it’s awesome that people are helping out, but it seems like some people are really really trying to make themselves out to be heroes in all of this. The first error I see is that people are making ridiculous claims as to what they did during the tornado. I personally would like to see another article about the guy that actually worked there, especially being that one of the home makeover houses is for another firefighter. If he goes to school here full time, then I think someone should run something about him, since I’m sure he’s helping out on makeover too. You guys should cover the real stories, not the people tooting their own horns Response to “Learning to teach” published 4/14/11 Restricting the presidential terms to two came in after Truman. The conservatives came back in power and passed that amendment to prevent having another FDR. Harry Truman is reputed to have said he’d have liked to be a “fly on the wall” when the conservatives noted they could have run Eisenhower for a third term.
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Collegio Online Response to “Extreme Home Makeover comes to Joplin,” published 4/14/11
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Response to “A registration nation: birth certificate required” published 4/14/11
could be previously registered and are now unable to exercise their right to vote.
Voter ID laws in those 30 some states have been enacted by conservatives to enhance their electability. Voter fraud was a manufactured issue. Instead of enhancing the electorate it will restrict it. The writer was at the county clerk’s office and asked, “I have my voter registration card you send out, can that be used at the polling place?” The answer was no, a photo ID would be required in the future.
Instead of “Jim Crowisms” we now have, with states’ legislative approval, “James Crowisms.” This has been nothing more than a successful effort to restrict the vote. It has come from a conservative effort in the legislatures in the various states affected. They knew President Obama’s partial winning vote margin came from minority voters, many of whom didn’t have government ID for one reason or another.
In many places in our country voters don’t have or sometimes need photo government ID of various types. Many in urban areas do not drive, college students who may not yet have drivers licenses and seniors in homes of various types use public transportation. Taking the trouble to get a government ID could be a hindrance. Many of these voters
Voter ID laws presently are just more sophisticated poll taxes (now you may have to pay for a birth certificate/ID and other background information which may be a great deal of trouble) and or “literacy tests” (that you can speak or understand English?).
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