Optimum Population Trust
NEWS RELEASE
July 11 2007
COMPULSORY LIMITS ON BIRTHS “MAY BECOME UNAVOIDABLE”
- OPT REPORT
Governments may be forced to introduce compulsory
limits to family size if urgent action is not taken
to restrain population growth through voluntary
family planning, according to a report published
today, World Population Day (Wednesday, July 11).
One-child policies, such as that now operating in
China, are generally counter-productive and liable to
discount human rights, the report says. But “in
extreme situations, where states or regions may be
almost uninhabitable through environmental damage,
[they] may become unavoidable.”
The report, Youthquake, published by the Optimum
Population Trust and written by Prof. John
Guillebaud, a leading authority on family planning,
points out that voluntary population stabilisation
programmes, centring on education, awareness and
removing the barriers to women’s control of their own
fertility, have a proven record of success. A
voluntary “two-child” population policy in Iran, for
example, succeeded in halving fertility in eight
years, as fast a rate of decrease as that of China,
whose much-criticised one-child policy began in 1980.
However, worldwide there is still a “vast unmet need”
for contraception. About 50 million of the roughly
190 million pregnancies worldwide each year end in
abortions, half of the 380 women who become pregnant
each minute did not plan to do so and at least 35 per
cent of the estimated 550,000 women who die each year
through abortions or childbirth are being killed by
pregnancies they would have avoided if contraception
had been available.
The report says the planet faces the biggest
generation of young people in history – a
“youthquake” with major social implications, “not
least the creation of a huge cohort of young urban
males who, through frustration and unemployment…seek
an outlet in violence.”
A combination of high population and rising
consumption levels means that humanity is currently
outstripping the biological capacity of the Earth by
25 per cent each year. By 2050, when global
population is projected to be 9.2 billion – an
increase of 2.5 billion on today’s 6.7 billion -
humans will be using the biocapacity of two Earths.
“Given that another habitable planet is not
available, might humanity have to suffer the kind of
death-dictated control to achieve stabilisation, or
reduction by a “population crash” – a massive cull
through violence, disease, starvation or natural
disasters – which biology dictates for all other
species when their numbers exceed the limits of their
environment’s carrying capacity?
“Without action, longages of humans – the prime cause
of all shortages of resources – may cause parts of
the planet to become uninhabitable, with governments
pushed towards coercive population control measures
as a regrettable but lesser evil than unprecedented
conflict and suffering.”
The report adds: “The continued inadequate resourcing
of the voluntary approach [to population
stabilisation] is arguably the best way to ensure
that many more future governments will be forced, as
they will then see it, through population pressure,
to legislate for coercive birth control.”
Commenting on the report, Professor Guillebaud said:
“No one is in favour of governments dictating family
size but we need to act quickly to prevent it.
Worldwide as this century progresses, those who
continue to place obstacles in the way of women who
want to control their fertility will have only
themselves to blame, as more and more regimes bring
in coercive measures. Despite the catastrophic
current increase of an extra 1.5 million humans per
week, there is still a slim chance that such measures
can be avoided.”
Among other conclusions are:
*Every country, including the UK, needs a national
population policy.
* A “stop at two children” (“replacement” level) or
“have one child less” guideline for couples in the UK
should be introduced by the Government, backed by
schools, the media and environmental groups.
* New guidelines should be introduced for the
portrayal of fertility issues by the media, aimed at
countering the glamorisation of sex and stressing the
responsibilities and frequent “sheer drudgery” of
motherhood. Story-lines could demonstrate how teenage
motherhood blights educational and earning prospects.
* A major new study is needed in the UK of the
“perverse incentives” that lead some teenage girls to
become pregnant. Britain’s record on teenage
pregnancy is the worst in Europe while the
performance of the NHS in this area has been
“disastrous” and a “calamity.”
*Economic and political pressures to increase the
birth rate are “hopelessly simplistic” and should be
resisted. “Far from panicking about ‘baby shortages’,
almost every country can welcome fertility rates at
or slightly below replacement level.”
NOTES
The full report is available on the OPT’s website at
www.optimumpopulation.org/Youthquake.pdf .
John Guillebaud is emeritus professor of family
planning and reproductive health at University
College, London, and co-chair of the Optimum
Population Trust.
Optimum Population Trust, 12 Meadowgate, Urmston,
Manchester M41 9LB, UK
Tel: 07976-370 221 email:
info@optimumpopulation.org
CHINA SAYS ONE-CHILD POLICY HELPS PROTECT CLIMATE
Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Thu Aug 30, 5:27 PM ET
VIENNA (Reuters)
China says its one-child policy has helped the fight
against global warming by avoiding 300 million
births, the equivalent of the population of the
United States.
See Full Report on