Planet earth is doomed. That is the clear message coming from the population control zealots. These anti-natalists are certain that if we do not immediately take radical steps to curb population growth we will all perish. Of course we have been hearing this gloom and doom ideology for decades now.
The most recent case of chicken little thinking comes from Melbourne University professor of reproductive biology Roger Short. He told an international healthcare conference in Sydney today that the world is overpopulating itself to a catastrophic future of terrorism and climatic disaster.
He says that human activity is outstripping the natural world’s ability to cope because of exploding and uncontrolled population growth. According to press accounts, “He is calling for a vast increase in the availability and use of contraception to slow the birthrate worldwide, and says only one country – China, through its one-child policy – has shown the way to future stability and sustainable environmental and economic growth.”
His praise of the Chinese policy is ironic for many reasons, including the fact that the conference he is speaking at is the 25th “Foetus as a Patient” international congress, which focuses on the care of pregnant women and their babies.
Care of pregnant women and their babies is exactly what is not taking place in China. For three decades China’s notorious one-child policy has been all about coercion, brutality and eugenics. And it has resulted in millions of dead babies and brutalised mothers.
Steven Mosher, who has lived in China and witnessed first-hand the terrible practices of China’s population reduction programs argues that this is the last nation that should be held up as any sort of example – except perhaps as a bad example.
China has been coercing women into forced abortions and forced sterilisations in unprecedented numbers. Basic human rights are being systematically violated along the way. The horror stories coming out of China are as grievous as they are revolting. Yet Western intellectuals keep insisting that China is the model to emulate.
But as Mosher warns, “This message – that anything goes in the name of population control – is underscored each time the controllers extol China’s one-child policy.” It simply legitimises some very illegitimate and immoral practices.
Not to be outdone however, on the same day that professor Short was lifting up China and its coercive population controllers, another anti-natalist group was lobbying the Rudd government. Marie Stopes International Australia issued a press release today urging the Rudd government to change current AusAID Family Planning Guidelines, which prevent government monies going to abortion services overseas.
Both the former US Bush government and former Howard government in Australia banned such funding. But pro-abortion Obama has already reversed the policy in the US, and population controllers are pressuring the Rudd government to do the same. I have written about this elsewhere: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2009/02/05/population-control-pharaoh-and-herod-are-alive-and-well/
In that piece I not only discussed the foreign aid funding issue, but noted a leading eugenicist and population controller, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). She was the founder of Planned Parenthood International.
Sanger had a counterpart in the UK, Marie Stopes (1880-1958). Both women had much in common, as did their respective organisations, MSI and PPI. Both advocated abortion, sterilisation, and eugenics, and both helped prepare some of the ideological ground for the rise of the Nazis.
Indeed. Stopes was quite infatuated with Hitler. Gerard Warner, writing late last year, picks up the story: “‘Dear Herr Hitler, Love is the greatest thing in the world: so will you accept from me these (poems) that you may allow the young people of your nation to have them?’ These gushing words from an ardent fan (she was lucky Unity Mitford did not scratch her eyes out) were written in August 1939, just a month before this country went to war with Nazi Germany, by Marie Stopes, the ‘woman of distinction’ who will ornament our 50p stamps from October.”
He continues, “Sending the Fuhrer a book of her sentimental poems was an appropriate gesture. This keen advocate of eugenics and subverter of family life had a long career of activity in the politics of human reproduction. In 1919 she urged the National Birth Rate Commission to support mandatory sterilisation of parents who were diseased, prone to drunkenness or of bad character. In 1920, in her book Radiant Motherhood, she demanded ‘the sterilisation of those totally unfit for parenthood be made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory’. Her 1921 slogan was: “’Joyful and Deliberate Motherhood, A Safe Light in our Racial Darkness’.”
“In 1935 she was present at the International Congress for Population Science in Berlin, held under the auspices of the Third Reich. On her death she bequeathed her clinic and much of her fortune to the Eugenics Society. Today, Marie Stopes International has nearly 500 centres in 38 countries, performing more than half a million sterilisations a year, and is a major abortion provider.”
Warner concludes, “Considering the hysteria nowadays attaching to issues of race, at first sight it seems extraordinary that Stopes should have earned commemoration on a stamp. To the PC establishment, however, even racist peccadilloes can be ignored to honour a pioneer who helped promote the anti-life culture and relieve women of the intolerable trauma of giving birth to a child with a cleft palate. Eugenic abortion accounts for an increasing proportion of the 7 million ‘terminations’ in Britain since 1967. Poor old Josef Mengele was not eligible for a stamp, being a dead, white male. Perhaps in 2009… ”
Sanger, Stopes, Short – birds of a feather flock together. Sure, Short would undoubtedly distance himself from eugenics and the Nazis. But given his praise for China’s coercive population control policies, perhaps he is not all that different from Sanger and Stopes after all.
Regardless of difference of opinion over means, all three share an anti-natalist fatalism. They are convinced that we are over-populated, and radical measures must be taken immediately to deal with the problem. The result is always the same: more death and depersonalisation, all in the name of humanity.
I heard Roger Short interviewed on ABC 774 this morning, and of course he is a proclaimer of the climate change gospel. My concern is that it is developed world citizens – the rich, the affluent (morally effluent?) who make these comments and seem to aim them always at the Developing World. Being a medical practitioner Short should have been aware of the death rate from diarrhoea and gastroenteritis in the developing world. I think a figure of 15,000 people per day was a mortality rate that I read when I was undertaking post graduate public heath studies.
As Christians we have the duty to meet this challenge head on and to confront the cultural imperialism of the Sangers, Stopes and the Shorts.
Wayne Pelling
Even if the most insanely extreme predictions from the sky-is-falling climate-change crowd were true, how does this compare with the fact that we as humans must first live with ourselves? Do I have more to fear from the sea rising and warmer temperatures, or those who place very little value on human life?
If the oceans rose by even 100 metres in a decade the human race would survive with probably very few casualties, but no so lucky would be those poor saps who (for whatever reason) would not qualify for continued existence on this planet by decree of our friendly Gaia worshippers.
“Ummm, what’s that needle for, Doctor?”
later…
“Oh yes, he was very depressed. Apparently he owned beachfront property.”
Mark Rabich
I think it bizarre, and sickening, that BHO, and many other world leaders(?), think along these lines, while simultaneously encouraging the belief that they have the interests of their countrymen, and the rest of the world, at heart. Surely this must represent the epitome of cynicism.
Dunstan Hartley
Thanks, Bill.
Even more bizarre and sickening is the fact that erstwhile evangelicals get on this bandwagon and marry “Christian environmentalism” to this message. One in particular comes to mind, but I won’t mention names as that would prejudice my position and could be construed as libel. However, I work for him in a distance theological education operation based in NSW. His view is that the populations mandates of Gen.1:28 and 9:1 no longer apply, due to population growth outstripping resources. Australia is overpopulated already, he argues. Since the Christian is mandated to care for the environment, and that environment will be mutilated and its resources depleted by overpopulation we must act in the interests of environmental care. As to the sources of these ideas, he referred me to various ZPG websites and organisations promoting the ideas of Thomas Malthus, and turned out to be virulently anti-Christian.
BTW, I read an article recently in a TEAR-Fund newsletter arguing the same line, and linked in with ‘global-warming’ gloom-and-doom. So these Malthusian ideas are making their inroads into professedly “evangelical” thinking, especially in the “social justice” circles.
Now, back to my friend: he nowhere indicates when and where God rescinded His population mandates, so it seems to me gratuitous to argue from “care for the environment” premises against those decrees. Could you comment further, Bill?
Murray Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
Yes quite right. As the 20 articles on population issues on my website demonstrate, there clearly is no population explosion. The real problem is a population implosion. A birth dearth is the biggest problem in the West, and developing nations are seeing their fertility rates levelling off and starting to fall as well.
The command to be fruitful and multiply is nowhere cancelled in the rest of Scripture. Some of these evangelicals try to argue that “changing circumstances” mean that we no longer can follow that command. One might as well argue that we need not follow the Ten Commandments due to “changing circumstances”. Of course some ‘believers’ have tried to make that case as well!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill,
This is to confirm that one spillover from the Chinese one-child policy is the catastrophic death of millions of unwanted baby girls. In addition, children of either sex born with congenital diseases are often abandoned or intentionally killed shortly after birth.
During my two years teaching English at a university in Nanjing between 2002 and 2004, my students told me numerous stories of babies being abandoned at birth because they were either female or because they were mentally or physically handicapped. One of my female students told me that in her hometown, the main hospital was located next to a river. She said it was not uncommon to see corpses of babies in the river – babies abandoned by their parents as they left the hospital because they were unwanted.
While I was in Nanjing, two European women discovered a baby boy on the side of a road who had been abandoned by his mother. A note was attached, with 30 Yuan in cash pinned to it, explaining that the boy had a heart condition and was not expected to live. The two women who found him took him home, had him medically examined, and confirmed that he did indeed have a very serious heart condition. However, with the right surgery, they discovered that the condition could be remedied.
They set up an organisation called “Hopeful Hearts” to raise money to enable the boy, and others like him, to have life-giving heart surgery to correct their abnormalities. Unfortunately, the baby died before the women could raise the money for his treatment.
However, before I left China, at least six other children had received such operations through “Hopeful Hearts.” The surgery was conducted by a team of Chinese and overseas specialists, and three of the children had been accepted for adoption by overseas parents while I was there. The other children were also hoping to be adopted and were being cared for in an orphanage run by the Amity Foundation which arranges their adoptions. The work goes on!
Somebody should ask these Malthusian ‘evangelicals’ who say that the population mandates no longer apply because of ‘changing circumstances’, why the mandate to care for the environment hasn’t also been rescinded? After all, it’s people who are made in the image of God, not the plants. Surely God ranks people above trees.
Ewan McDonald.
Some years ago a certain Federal Minister considered the application of a Chinese woman who was pregnant and who was seeking political asylum. He rejected her application. She then applied on grounds of humanity to be permitted to stay until the birth of her child. Her application was again rejected and this Minister had her returned to China when she was 8 months pregnant. Sure enough upon her arrival she was compulsory aborted as she already had another child. So who are the barbarians?
John FG McMahon
John Heasman,
Your comment has been copied and sent to another 20 or more people including a few Federal politicians. Possibly other contributors here may care to consider sending e-mails to help out Mr Heasman.
John FG McMahon
You would have to ask whether it is feasible to keep on supporting Christian organisations that push the “climate change gospel”. Perhaps Murray you could consider supporting Mr Heasman’s Hopeful Hearts rather than TEAR Fund, as you noted this intrusion of a Malthusian position. I have always thought unChristian-into Christian organisation’s such as TEAR Fund is a form of syncretism. Given the hype around climate change TEAR could be accused of cultural relativism and of not preaching the Gospel.
Wayne Pelling
Bill, they will never face the facts, will they?
I understand that the world’s entire population could stand shoulder to shoulder within the area of Victoria, and at arms length within the area of NSW.
And as for resources (read: food) the main problem there is political and economic. There is enough food produced annually to feed the population generously, even by Western “standards”.
John Angelico
Dear Wayne,
I don’t as a matter of fact support TEAR-Fund, nor have I ever (to my recollection). It’s just that a recent publication of theirs came to my notice last week, and the article I mentioned was drawn to my attention.
I agree entirely that several Christian organisations no longer stand for Gospel truth, and are led by the spirit of the age, not by the Holy Spirit. Such an organisation is clearly, in my view, the Evangelical Alliance and its subsidiaries. It is EINO: Evangelical In Name Only.
Murray Adamthwaite
I am wondering if any of you have watched the recent show on ABC (or was it SBS?) called “Baby Boom to Bust”. In the show they have talked about China and the problems now arising due to their one child policy.
In China the aging population is beginning to out-number the young. The show reported on how the aged are going to have to work longer to support themselves because there are not enough young people to carry the burden. Health care costs are rising due to the growing aged population and yet there are not enough young people to pay the taxes needed to keep the system stay afloat.
Even worse than the above, is the situation that an elderly couple must face if their only child dies before they do. Suddenly their only provider is gone, what do they do now?
Of course these problems are nothing compared to the millions of lives being taken because they are second born.
How truly foolish it is for a government, or group, to think they can control a population and all the variables surrounding it. So very arrogant.
I heard Roger Short interviewed on ABC 774 this morning, and of course he is a proclaimer of the climate change gospel. My concern is that it is developed world citizens – the rich, the affluent (morally effluent?) who make these comments and seem to aim them always at the Developing World. Being a medical practitioner Short should have been aware of the death rate from diarrhoea and gastroenteritis in the developing world. I think a figure of 15,000 people per day was a mortality rate that I read when I was undertaking post graduate public heath studies.
As Christians we have the duty to meet this challenge head on and to confront the cultural imperialism of the Sangers, Stopes and the Shorts.
Wayne Pelling
Even if the most insanely extreme predictions from the sky-is-falling climate-change crowd were true, how does this compare with the fact that we as humans must first live with ourselves? Do I have more to fear from the sea rising and warmer temperatures, or those who place very little value on human life?
If the oceans rose by even 100 metres in a decade the human race would survive with probably very few casualties, but no so lucky would be those poor saps who (for whatever reason) would not qualify for continued existence on this planet by decree of our friendly Gaia worshippers.
“Ummm, what’s that needle for, Doctor?”
later…
“Oh yes, he was very depressed. Apparently he owned beachfront property.”
Mark Rabich
I think it bizarre, and sickening, that BHO, and many other world leaders(?), think along these lines, while simultaneously encouraging the belief that they have the interests of their countrymen, and the rest of the world, at heart. Surely this must represent the epitome of cynicism.
Dunstan Hartley
Thanks, Bill.
Even more bizarre and sickening is the fact that erstwhile evangelicals get on this bandwagon and marry “Christian environmentalism” to this message. One in particular comes to mind, but I won’t mention names as that would prejudice my position and could be construed as libel. However, I work for him in a distance theological education operation based in NSW. His view is that the populations mandates of Gen.1:28 and 9:1 no longer apply, due to population growth outstripping resources. Australia is overpopulated already, he argues. Since the Christian is mandated to care for the environment, and that environment will be mutilated and its resources depleted by overpopulation we must act in the interests of environmental care. As to the sources of these ideas, he referred me to various ZPG websites and organisations promoting the ideas of Thomas Malthus, and turned out to be virulently anti-Christian.
BTW, I read an article recently in a TEAR-Fund newsletter arguing the same line, and linked in with ‘global-warming’ gloom-and-doom. So these Malthusian ideas are making their inroads into professedly “evangelical” thinking, especially in the “social justice” circles.
Now, back to my friend: he nowhere indicates when and where God rescinded His population mandates, so it seems to me gratuitous to argue from “care for the environment” premises against those decrees. Could you comment further, Bill?
Murray Adamthwaite
Thanks Murray
Yes quite right. As the 20 articles on population issues on my website demonstrate, there clearly is no population explosion. The real problem is a population implosion. A birth dearth is the biggest problem in the West, and developing nations are seeing their fertility rates levelling off and starting to fall as well.
The command to be fruitful and multiply is nowhere cancelled in the rest of Scripture. Some of these evangelicals try to argue that “changing circumstances” mean that we no longer can follow that command. One might as well argue that we need not follow the Ten Commandments due to “changing circumstances”. Of course some ‘believers’ have tried to make that case as well!
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill,
This is to confirm that one spillover from the Chinese one-child policy is the catastrophic death of millions of unwanted baby girls. In addition, children of either sex born with congenital diseases are often abandoned or intentionally killed shortly after birth.
During my two years teaching English at a university in Nanjing between 2002 and 2004, my students told me numerous stories of babies being abandoned at birth because they were either female or because they were mentally or physically handicapped. One of my female students told me that in her hometown, the main hospital was located next to a river. She said it was not uncommon to see corpses of babies in the river – babies abandoned by their parents as they left the hospital because they were unwanted.
While I was in Nanjing, two European women discovered a baby boy on the side of a road who had been abandoned by his mother. A note was attached, with 30 Yuan in cash pinned to it, explaining that the boy had a heart condition and was not expected to live. The two women who found him took him home, had him medically examined, and confirmed that he did indeed have a very serious heart condition. However, with the right surgery, they discovered that the condition could be remedied.
They set up an organisation called “Hopeful Hearts” to raise money to enable the boy, and others like him, to have life-giving heart surgery to correct their abnormalities. Unfortunately, the baby died before the women could raise the money for his treatment.
However, before I left China, at least six other children had received such operations through “Hopeful Hearts.” The surgery was conducted by a team of Chinese and overseas specialists, and three of the children had been accepted for adoption by overseas parents while I was there. The other children were also hoping to be adopted and were being cared for in an orphanage run by the Amity Foundation which arranges their adoptions. The work goes on!
Any of your readers interested in this work may contact the organisation at http://hopefulhearts.info/navigatie/home.htm
Many thanks Bill for your ongoing articles,
John Heasman
Re Murray’s and Bill’s comments:
Somebody should ask these Malthusian ‘evangelicals’ who say that the population mandates no longer apply because of ‘changing circumstances’, why the mandate to care for the environment hasn’t also been rescinded? After all, it’s people who are made in the image of God, not the plants. Surely God ranks people above trees.
Ewan McDonald.
Some years ago a certain Federal Minister considered the application of a Chinese woman who was pregnant and who was seeking political asylum. He rejected her application. She then applied on grounds of humanity to be permitted to stay until the birth of her child. Her application was again rejected and this Minister had her returned to China when she was 8 months pregnant. Sure enough upon her arrival she was compulsory aborted as she already had another child. So who are the barbarians?
John FG McMahon
John Heasman,
Your comment has been copied and sent to another 20 or more people including a few Federal politicians. Possibly other contributors here may care to consider sending e-mails to help out Mr Heasman.
John FG McMahon
You would have to ask whether it is feasible to keep on supporting Christian organisations that push the “climate change gospel”. Perhaps Murray you could consider supporting Mr Heasman’s Hopeful Hearts rather than TEAR Fund, as you noted this intrusion of a Malthusian position. I have always thought unChristian-into Christian organisation’s such as TEAR Fund is a form of syncretism. Given the hype around climate change TEAR could be accused of cultural relativism and of not preaching the Gospel.
Wayne Pelling
Bill, they will never face the facts, will they?
I understand that the world’s entire population could stand shoulder to shoulder within the area of Victoria, and at arms length within the area of NSW.
And as for resources (read: food) the main problem there is political and economic. There is enough food produced annually to feed the population generously, even by Western “standards”.
John Angelico
Dear Wayne,
I don’t as a matter of fact support TEAR-Fund, nor have I ever (to my recollection). It’s just that a recent publication of theirs came to my notice last week, and the article I mentioned was drawn to my attention.
I agree entirely that several Christian organisations no longer stand for Gospel truth, and are led by the spirit of the age, not by the Holy Spirit. Such an organisation is clearly, in my view, the Evangelical Alliance and its subsidiaries. It is EINO: Evangelical In Name Only.
Murray Adamthwaite
I am wondering if any of you have watched the recent show on ABC (or was it SBS?) called “Baby Boom to Bust”. In the show they have talked about China and the problems now arising due to their one child policy.
In China the aging population is beginning to out-number the young. The show reported on how the aged are going to have to work longer to support themselves because there are not enough young people to carry the burden. Health care costs are rising due to the growing aged population and yet there are not enough young people to pay the taxes needed to keep the system stay afloat.
Even worse than the above, is the situation that an elderly couple must face if their only child dies before they do. Suddenly their only provider is gone, what do they do now?
Of course these problems are nothing compared to the millions of lives being taken because they are second born.
How truly foolish it is for a government, or group, to think they can control a population and all the variables surrounding it. So very arrogant.
Megan Fisher