Through advances in agriculture (use of new strains of crops, use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc.), productivity of food crops has been increased miraculously, so that the population disaster that was predicted at the end of the eighteenth century has been staved off. But for how long can population growth continue without bringing on catastrophe? Short-term and local droughts and famines are already causing starvation in many places on Earth. And millions more are malnourished.
And the ability of the world to feed its booming population is by no means the only reason to be concerned about the growth in numbers of humans. More people means more demand not only for food but also for water, timber, fiber, and fuel. Destruction of rain forests to produce timber and to make new farmland accelerates global warming because it means fewer trees to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
The larger share of population growth has been in less-developed countries. But as living standards increase, these populaces have greater expectation of eating a Western-style, meat-heavy diet (and along with that, consuming more energy and producing more greenhouse gases). And the production of animals for meat uses more grain—several times as much, depending on the animal—than if that grain were consumed directly by people.
What needs to be done is to control fertility. The modern world can offer a number of tools for preventing pregnancy. But Republicans in Congress have shown opposition to (1) funding of birth control pills by health insurance, as will be provided by the recent health-care reform law when its provisions go into effect; and (2) funding of family planning in other countries by the US, directly and via the United Nations.
One columnist for The Washington Times was quoted in The Reporter, a publication of Population Connection:
Free birth control. . . is about consolidating the sexual revolution. The post-1960s left has been at war with Christianity. Its aim is to erect a utopian socialist state—one built on the rubble of Judeo-Christian civilization. In fact, liberals want to create a world without God and sexual permissiveness is their battering ram. Promoting widespread contraception is essential to forging a pagan society based on consequence-free sex.
So we learn from this that birth control is not only anti-Christian but anti-God. He uses the accusations "socialist," atheist, and even "pagan." It's hard to believe that even one person believes this.
For many such extreme conservatives and Religious Far-Right types, any ideas of stewardship of the planet—recycling and conserving resources, protection of wildlife habitat, avoiding overfishing, and so forth—are at best unnecessary because of their views that (1) the Bible says that God gave Adam the right to use (and presumably exploit to any degree whatsoever) the Earth and all its creatures; (2) we don't need to be so concerned about Earth because this is all a transient and transitory existence and we should focus on the next world.
Another reason is one I have suggested earlier: they are simply anti-sex and believe (this has been, as I see it, a strain in Christianity since very early times and, pending anyone correcting me on this, I ascribe it to St. Paul) that any sex is evil, and sex—and only in certain positions—is less bad only if performed within monogamous, heterosexual marriage.
Unfortunately this is not a new trend in American social and political life, and there were in fact laws making contraception illegal that were enacted in 1873 and overturned by the US Supreme Court only in 1965. Like Prohibition, these have been instances where an extreme strain of moralizing has been successful in passing laws that affect us all.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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