UNITED NATIONS says: Underpopulation is a Problem

* Two ongoing trends are both striking and critical: “population decline” and “population aging”.

* 86 countries are experiencing the new phenomenon called “below replacement fertility” whereby populations are no longer having enough children to replace them.

* The problem is not the number of people. In fact, the boons in science and technology have been made possible precisely because of the greater number of people.

* The most important basic resource is human resource.

* “There is no evidence whatsoever that slower rates of population growth encourage economic growth of economic welfare; on the contrary, the developing countries with higher rates of population growth have had higher average rates of per-capita-output growth in the period since 1950. “ (Jacqueline Kasun)

* “The most important benefit of population size and growth is the increase it brings to the stock of useful knowledge. Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. Progress is limited largely by the availability of trained workers. The main fuel to speed the world’s progress is the stock of human knowledge. And the ultimate resource is skilled, spirited, hopeful people, exerting their wills and imaginations to provide for themselves and their families.” (Julian Simon)

* In place of the population explosion, a new set of demographic trends – each historically unprecedented in its own right – is poised to reshape, and recast, the worlds population profile over the coming quarter century. Three of these emerging tendencies deserve special mention. The first is the spread of “subreplacement” fertility regimens, that is, patterns of childbearing that would eventually result, all else being equal, in indefinite population decline. The second is the aging of the worlds population, a process that will be both rapid and extreme for many societies over the coming quarter century. The final tendency, perhaps the least appreciated of the three, is the eruption of intense and prolonged mortality crises, including brutal peacetime reversals in health conditions for countries that have already achieved relatively high levels of life expectancy.

* For all the anxiety that the population explosion has engendered, it is hardly clear that humanity will be better served by the dominant demographic forces of the post-population-explosion era. Nobody in the world will be untouched by these trends, which will have profound impact on employment rates, social safety nets, migration patterns, language, and education policies. In particular, the impact of acute and extended morality setbacks is ominous. Universal and progressive peacetime improvements in health conditions were all but taken for granted in the demographic era that is now concluding; they no longer can be today, or in the era that lies ahead.

(Nicholas Eberstadt “The Population Implosion. “Foreign Policy vol. 123 (March/April 2001).

THE PHILIPPINES: FALLING TOTAL FERTILITY RATE

* The recent legislative initiatives of Congress mandate the setting up of a huge Bureaucracy that will absorb the budget that is meant to be spent on the development women. It is an enabling act that mandates government at all levels to implement a coercive family planning program – distribution of chemical contraceptives, promotion of barrier methods as well as sterilization. Is it really worthwhile spending this money for something that is, by people’s own choice, already going on the decline? Don’t we have better things to spend our money on? The Philippines really needs family planning like we need a toothache! Providing women with improved access to development opportunities is one of the most important causes for bringing down fertility. This belies the family planning propaganda that smaller families will bring about development. In fact development causes fertility to go down not the other way around!
- Rosa Linda Valenzona, “RP Needs a Family Planning Like it Needs A Toothache” (HLI Press Conference, 2004)

Some of the 48 countries below replacement level as of 1995:

Now, what can be done to foster economic development in third world countries? According to Dr. Brian Clowes, author and researcher for Human Life International (www.hli.org), such a program would:
* “Provide basic health care and prenatal care to women and children, thereby dramatically reducing infant mortality rates:
* build road systems and bridges to remote areas, thus promoting regional economic self-sufficiency;
* help break down artificial economic barriers, such as family-run utility monopolies and overly complicated procedures for securing permits in order to start small businesses, thereby stimulating healthy competition;
* improve agricultural production with rural electrification mechanization and adequate grain storage, thereby improving nutrition;
* provide clean running water to villages, reducing endemic diseases; and
* provide basic education to those who are not receiving it” (The Facts of Life, 1997, p.311-312)


Population Control Program is a Failed Program because….
* A sterilization procedure does not place food on a poor woman’s table. It is not a sufficient condition to get out of poverty;
* Much less is it a necessary condition.
* The only outcome that can surely be attributed to the population control program is fertility reduction. – Rosa Linda Valenzona


The problem is not overpopulation but….
* Unjust socio-political and economic structures.
* Unequal distribution of wealth.
* Western multinational rob poorer nations of their vulnerable natural resources.
* Local dictatorial regions exploit and impoverish their own populations.
* Graft, corruption and greed.


source:: The Sights and Soul of Life
Images of Life and Love that Matter!
by: Marlon Castillo Ramirez
Pages 43-49
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