Like compact fluorescent lightbulbs, family planning is one of the cheapest, simplest, most effective ways we can build a brighter future. Population problems contribute to many of the world's other problems, such as starvation, pollution, and war. By attacking the population problem, we can help curb other problems that cause human suffering. As Vice President Al Gore succinctly put it, "No goal is more crucial to healing the global environment than stabilizing human population."
Taking the initial steps toward solving the population problem is fairly cheap and easy. To slow the rate of population growth we don't need coercive programs, government restrictions, or sweeping religious conversions. All we need to do is make voluntary family planning programs widely available, which we could do for as little as ten billion dollars per year. But we need to act soon-present family planning services fall far short of reaching the existing demand for them. The U.N. has reportedly calculated that if all women who said they wanted no more children were able to stop childbearing, the number of births would be reduced by 27 percent in Africa, 33 percent in Asia, and 35 percent in Latin America. Universal access to contraceptives and family planning services would have a dramatic impact on population growth. If we could achieve this by the turn of the century, it is estimated that the number of contraceptive users in developing countries would rise from 45 percent today to about 75 percent.
The first step in solving the population problem is to meet existing demand for family planning. Government programs like the ones in India and China are gradually becoming more wide-spread, less regimented, and better suited to people's wants and needs. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and Pathfinder International provide advice and leadership to world governments, and bring family planning services to people not served by their governments. Unfortunately, international family planning organizations like Planned Parenthood don't have anywhere near the funding needed to reach all the people who need their services. According to Zero Population Growth, the United States and other industrialized nations combined spend less money annually to help deliver family planning services to the developing world than U.S. consumers spend each year on Halloween costumes. Step one is to provide adequate levels of funding to international family planning efforts. We don't need to wait for world leaders to do that-you and I can do that directly, simply by sending our money.
"Family planning is a controversial subject in some countries. In the '60s and '70s, it was very difficult to discuss, but if you discuss it in health terms, family planning is generally not controversial because it is so important for the health of women and the survival of children.
"...the world population crisis which was identified in the '60s really can be essentially overcome if sufficient resources are made available over the next two decades. I think the next two decades are critical: the '90s and the first decade of the next century. And resources are key."
-- Steven Sinding, Population Adviser at the World Bank and former Director of the Office of Population at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
The second step in solving the population problem is to increase awareness of the problem. For example, here in the United States many people mistakenly perceive overpopulation as a third-world problem. In fact, the U.S. already has far more people than it sustainably supports, but the population is still rising, the topsoil is eroding, and the wilderness is being mined, logged, and paved. In a sense, our own reproductive choices are even more important than those of people in developing nations, because the reproductive choices of Americans have a disproportionate impact on the global system-for example, the average American consumes the same amount of energy as 3 Japanese, 6 Mexicans, 13 Chinese, 35 Indians, 153 Bangladeshis, or 499 Ethiopians. Clearly we need to do our share here at home to fight the population problem.
"Limiting human numbers will not alone end warfare, environmental deterioration, poverty, racism, religious prejudice, or sexism; it will just buy us the opportunity to do so."
-- Paul and Anne Ehrlich, The Population Explosion
| Exercise | Don't have more than one or two kids. Encourage others not to have more than one or two kids. |
The Bottom Line
We need to fund international family planning efforts, and you
and I can take personal responsibility for doing so. You and I
can also make responsible reproductive choices ourselves.
