Re: population vs. technology/consumption

WSN,

Just to clarify, there is a big difference between individuals choosing
the size of their families or even deciding whether to have families, on
the one hand, and advocating population control, on the other hand. I am
in favor of voluntary contraception, sterilization, and abortion. These
are individual freedoms that should be secured. I do not however favor
programs and projects that seek to encourage people to use contraception,
be sterilized, or have abortions. Furthermore practices that in effect
amount to a program of population reduction should be uncovered and
eliminated (in my view such practices ought to be criminalized). There are
ways of providing people with information about birth control without
encouraging them to use the technology. By the same token, I do not
support measures which encourage people not to use contraception,
sterilization, or abortion. But we must inform people about possible
eugenic policies or effects. For example, African American women living in
the southern United States should be concerned that their rate of surgical
sterilization is 3-4 times higher than it is for whites. We ought to all
be concerned about that. There is huge difference between population
control and birth control. 

Andrew Austin
Knoxville, TN