In 1926, Durga Dass Kapur wrote from Amritsar, India, to the population control zealot Marie Stopes: “I very acutely realise that all the misery, pain, indebtedness, gloominess, sickness, dirt, prostitution, war, underfeeding, poverty, child mortality, heartburning, misunderstanding, etc. are deliberately traceable to overbreeding.”
Not much has changed since Durga’s letter to Marie. The fertility of poor women continues to be blamed for every world problem. Vivid images are conjured up of a teeming mass of people (primarily colored ones) gobbling up the world’s precious food and resources, leading us to inevitable destruction. The spectre of untrammeled copulation, of the poor “breeding like rabbits” is recycled ad infinitum.
But empirical evidence documenting the negative net impact of population growth on economic development is either fragile or non-existent. There is, however, a solid body of evidence opposing conventional wisdom about the effects of population growth. Economists, social scientists and statisticians question the supposed link between population growth and poverty.
In Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: the Global Politics of Population Control and Contraceptive Choice, Betsy Hartmann says the debate has been dominated by “Malthusian alarmists” such as Paul Erlich whose message enjoys such credibility because, apart from good headlines, it “draws on deep undercurrents of parochialism, racism and elitism in Western society.”
Donald P. Warwick, Institute fellow at the Harvard Institute for International Development, writes: “Social science research in the field of population has now become almost exclusively harnessed to serve the narrowly conceived short-term interests of programs that embody the existing orthodoxy in international population policy…It disdains work that may be critical of existing programs…It seeks and, with the power of the purse, enforces predictability, control and subservience.”
Is this the approach Australia should take in determining its policy base for population control spending? Should Australia’s precious aid money be diverted from cooperation, development, and poverty alleviation programs to population control programs on the basis of untested assumptions?
Unfortunately, many commentators have preferred to engage in sectarianism rather than examine this central question. The 1993–94 budget for overseas aid is miserly. Apart from one year, it is the lowest ratio for official development aid to GNP for 20 years. From this miserly amount, $30 million is earmarked for population control programs reaching a total of $130 million over four years — a five-fold increase.
The present unhealthy fixation on population control is economically and socially naive and dangerous. It diverts attention from the real economic development and health measures required. There is enough food to feed the world, but people don’t necessarily get it. The main problem is not one of scarcity but of land ownership and distribution of resources.
In many Third World societies, having a large number of children is an insurance policy against the future. High infant mortality rates are the major cause of high birth rates. Studies demonstrate that where infant mortality declines, where education and health care are improved and the real causes of poverty eliminated, there is a natural decline in the birth rates.
Those who profess concern about human rights and women’s well-being should be disturbed by population control programs which see women as the bull’s eye of their targets. Professor Roger Short admits such programs are about controlling women. He asserts that the key to controlling population is to control the woman’s corpus luteum. Target-driven population control programs often become coercive to meet their goals.
Feminist groups have rightly condemned population control programs which run roughshod over women’s health and which fail to address the real causes of poverty. “A Question of Control” is an account of the proceedings of a conference held by Health Action International, a network of more than 100 groups in 60 countries, which discussed the women’s perspective on the development of contraceptive technology. A constant theme of the conference was that “governments that aim to reduce population growth by imposing targets…and by introducing incentives and disincentives to encourage use often fail to fully acknowledge women’s reproductive rights.”
“Norplant Under Her Skin” by the Women’s and Pharmaceuticals Project (Netherlands), is full of population-control horror stories. Sticks and carrots, including bribes, threats, punishment and force, are used to get couples to submit to anti-natalist measures.
Writes Hartmann: “In many countries, the World Bank has urged governments to make population control a higher priority than basic health care. It has also pressured them to relax prescriptive guidelines for contraceptives and aggressively push those considered ‘most effective’ in the absence of adequate screening and treatment for side effects, which can be serious and even life-threatening.”
How can those who claim to be for “freedom of choice” congratulate China and hail it as a “great example of a successful family program.” How can we in Australia continue to pump money into the program through the United Nations Population Fund and through direct grants totaling $7 million this year? How could we supply ultrasound machines to a country that uses them to kill baby girls through sex-selection abortions? Why have the international population control bodies backed a brutal regime against its own people?
Population control and freedom of choice are at odds. The central question is: who is making the choices? The Couple? The government? The United Nations Population Fund? International Planned Parenthood? The World Bank? We must strive for authentic socio-economic development based on social justice and respect for human rights. If we are serious about human rights, we must start asking critical questions.
Senator Brian Harradine is a member of the human rights subcommittee of the joint committee of foreign affairs, defense and trade in the Australian Parliament.
