This article is adapted from a January 29, 2005, address given by His Excellency Bishop Bonivento at the Family Life International Symposium, held in his diocese of Vanimo, Papua New Guinea. PNG is an island nation near Australia. PRI President Steve Mosher spoke at the symposium, which was co-sponsored by PRI.
In recent months, starting in September-October 2004, PNG’s national media reported several appeals made by politicians and other people residing in our country to curb the number of births in PNG. The reason expressed was that overpopulation is the cause of poverty in Papua New Guinea. Consequently, in their opinion, PNG must have a strong policy in favor of birth control.
Since in Papua New Guinea there is already widespread use of contraceptives such as pills, Depo-Provera, and tubal ligations, it is natural to ask: What kind of contraceptive is lacking in Papua New Guinea? The answer is quite obvious: the goal is legal abortion, because abortion is the only “contraceptive” method not allowed in Papua New Guinea. Under the influence of some international agencies, or in any case under the influence of a Western mentality, some people want PNG to be in line with those more developed countries which have legalized abortion, thinking that such a law would bring freedom and more development to our country.
However, these people are not informing PNG of the bad consequences of birth control and of’ legal abortion. Those bad consequences are apparent to everybody in the Western countries, and nobody can deny them. Therefore, it is compulsory to help the public understand what is at stake when somebody says that more population means more poverty.
Basic Facts
First of all we have to mention some basic and historical facts, which disprove the statement “more population means more poverty? Firstly we have the examples of many countries, which are much better off now with big populations, than when they were fewer in number. For instance:
- In India in 1964, there were 500 million people and a great famine. Now in 2005, with more than one billion people, India is self-sufficient for food.
- In 1922, Italy had a population of 27 million people and was one of the nations with a great migration out of the country for lack of food and jobs. In 2005 with a population of 57 million, it is in need of more population in order to keep up with the pace of its development. The same applies to the whole of Western Europe.
- China in 1950, at the time of the Communist revolution, had a population of more or less 600 million people and was heavily underdeveloped. Now with a population of 1.3 billion, China is a superpower.
Secondly, statistically speaking, right now there is more than enough food for everybody on earth. The problem of famine is not lack of food, but the uneven distribution of the food available and the unfairness of the international trade system. No one can say that the earth cannot produce enough food, as long we have Western countries throwing away and smashing their crops in order to keep their prices high, and as long as some countries are paying farmers to keep their land idle, as it is happening in Europe.
Thirdly, a lot of grave problems are caused by the decrease of population in the world. We will develop this point later on.
The Europeans and the Americans are not talking of overpopulation in their countries, which arc desperately in need of increasing their birthrates.
On the contrary the Europeans and the Americans prefer to talk about overpopulation in the less developed countries, because it is advantageous to them to keep them weak and not to have the less developed countries as competitors in managing raw materials. On the other hand, it is very easy in the less developed countries to attribute to overpopulation all the mistakes caused by social injustice, corruption, and loss of moral values.
A good amount of the information that we receive in Papua New Guinea is gravely biased, and covering up some hidden interests. I give an example.
People and Their Discontents
On November 8, 2004, an article written by Mr. Christopher Taylor appeared in the Post Courier with the title “Importance of population control.” In this article, Mr. Taylor maintains that poverty is caused by population growth, and therefore contraception must be imposed.
In my opinion this article is a typical example of how the problem of population is often approached. The solutions proposed are coming from unilateral considerations, without any deep historical, geographical and sociological analysis. Scientifically speaking, that kind of conclusion is always dangerous.
Mr. Taylor is referring only to the experience of our neighboring countries in order to prove that curbing the population is the guarantee for a better living. The article does not specify which countries the author is talking about; so it is not possible to respond with precision. We know for sure that Singapore is in dire need of population and that Australia needs immigration.
The article forgets to cite those countries which, despite doubling their population, achieved an incredible economic growth. As we said before, this is the case with India, which was affected by a terrible shortage of food 40 years ago, when its population was not more than 500 million. Now it is a country exporting food and developing rapidly even though the population is more than a billion. It is also the ease with China, which is a superpower now even though its population doubled. It is the same with Korea, with Italy and with other countries.
The article does not mention the bad experiences of all those countries which endorsed a strong contraception policy, and now they are facing the problem of underpopulation, and especially the problem of an aging population, and therefore they are obliged to open their borders to millions and millions of foreign workers in order to sustain their development. It is the case of all Europe, but in a special way of Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Russia. The latter is sinking in terms of population, gravely jeopardizing its development. Russia is not considered a superpower any more.
There is no mention at all of the efforts made by nations affected by depopulation in order to increase their child birthrate: for instance, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, and Singapore are committed to restrict the law in favor of abortion, or to give incentives to parents in order to have more children.
The author is not taking into any consideration the threat to the population and to the economy of PNG posed by HIV/AIDS. AIDS is already decimating our population. Strong contraception and abortion would add tragedy to tragedy.
The article does not give any consideration to moral and spiritual values, which are basic for development. For instance, it does not mention how international trade injustice and internal corruption are causing poor development in PNG and how values such as transparency, honesty, justice, solidarity, education, and family values could strengthen our development.
Demographers’ Warnings
I quote only some of the most recent warnings coming from the demographers and the scientific world.
On September 27, 2004, Michael Meyer wrote in Newsweek International an article entitled “Birth Rate.” He said: “Everyone knows there are too many people in the world. Just last week the United Nations warned that many of the world’s cities are becoming hopelessly overcrowded .… Yet this is not the full story. To the contrary, in fact. Across the globe, people are having fewer and fewer children. Fertility rates have dropped by half since 1972, from six children per woman to 2.9. And demographers say they’re still falling, faster than ever. The world’s population will continue to grow-from today’s 6.4 billion to around 9 billion in 2050. But after that, it will go sharply into decline. Indeed, a phenomenon that we are destined to learn much more about-depopulation — has already begun in a number of countries.”
On February 28, 2003, we had a warning issued by the UN about below-replacement fertility levels. For the first time, the United Nations Population Division foresaw that future fertility levels in most developing countries will likely fall below 2.1 children per woman, the level needed to ensure the long — term replacement of the population. By 2050, the UN document says, “three out of every four countries in the less developed regions will be experiencing below-replacement fertility, with all developed countries far below replacement level as well.”
Populations will decline in 33 countries by 2050, according to the report, with countries such as Italy projected to be 22% smaller and the Russian Federation nearly 50% smaller.
The deeper reductions in fertility will have as a consequence a faster aging of the population of developing countries, and this aging will stress social security systems. Globally, the number of older persons (60 years or over) will nearly triple, increasing from 606 million in 2000 to nearly 1.9 billion by 2050.
Another Warning
Another warning came from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) on August 19, 2004 saying the United States will grow, the rest of the world will shrink.
The PRB claims that almost all of the more developed world will face serious and sustained population decline over the next five decades except for the United States, where an above-replacement fertility rate and immigration will account for continued population growth.
However there is a UN agency which disagrees with all these predictions: It is the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund). In 2004, it issued a report that predicts that the world’s population will increase by almost 40% by 2050, to 8.9 billion inhabitants. So far nothing new. It is the interpretation of those figures which distances UNFPA from so many others.
In fact UNFPA says that such a demographic increase is an obstacle for development and for the environment, without saying that after that there will be a dangerous decline that will have disastrous consequences.
Why such an evidently contradictory evaluation? Because the warnings of the other UN agencies and of the demographers are jeopardizing UNFPA’s effort to curb the population with any means, including legal abortion. UNFPA is the agency supporting the Chinese one-child policy, which includes forced abortion for women having a second child.
Unfortunately we have to add that UNFPA is deeply influencing our educational curriculum in PNG. If we are not on the alert and if we do not counteract this influence, our children will gravely suffer for a wrong education given in our school system.
Now the real solution of the population growth is not to impose on families a limited number of children, or worse to promote legal abortion. The current international experience says that we will damage the future of our country in doing so. The real solution lies in eliminating international injustice, the negative aspects of modern trade globalization, and also national injustice.
For the good of PNG, it is much better if our politicians and our government concentrate their attention on these issues, rather than listening to some international agencies whose main goal is not our good, but only the curbing of our population under the disguise of development. Diminishing the population does not mean eliminating poverty, but cutting our own throat and compromising our future.
