England Considers Limiting Family, Population Size

In the United Kingdom, a nonpartisan group called Optimum Population Trust (OPT) has announced a strong recommendation for parents in the UK to limit family size.

This announcement followed the publication on World Population Day of a report written by Prof. John Guillebaud that says "the planet faces the biggest generation of young people in history"--tomorrow's parents. Detractors say the recommendation was precipitated by an increase in the UK Total Fertility Rate (TFR: statistic measuring average number of children each woman has over her lifetime), which is up to 1.87 for 2006 from 1.8 in 2005.

This seems an insignificant increase particularly in light of the Replacement-level Fertility rate of 2.11. So why is the Optimum Population Trust concerned, or as opponents suggest, hysterical? And why is the opponent religious group World Congress of Families (WCF) so irate over OPTs recommendation of limited families as to call population-planners "totalitarians" and radicals intent on forcing the UK to "commit demographic suicide"?

Never mind for a moment that the UK sits on a tiny island with land drastically limited by its bounding oceans.... Any current increase to TFR will create a population balloon 50 to 60 years down the road that will continue until the TFR shows the reduction implemented in preceding years--if a reduction is implemented. In a place limited in land and resources, with therefore limited food production capacity, that insignificant increase from 1.8 to 1.87 in an already crowded population potentially portends of affects that will be seen as significant when children look at the offerings on the dinner table.

This relates to the calculation of the human ecological footprint, which comprises, according to concept developers at the University of British Columbia, the land and other resources needed to fulfill basic human needs and extra demands: food, clothing, shelter, transportation, waste management, toxin absorption.
As of 2006, the ecological footprint of an average American was 12.6 acres per person per day; one doesn't expect it to be less in 2007. Compare this to the ecological footprint of an average Indian at 1 acre per person per day. The total US footprint is 1 1/2 times greater than our total land area. That excess is met by drawing on other countries, which can be good if it increases their economy or it can be bad when it depletes and degrades resources or when it over-burdens land and oceans in the effort to absorb toxic wastes.

Returning to the uproar in the UK, the average ecological footprint of a UK citizen is comparable to that of an American, so any increase in TFR, even of .07, extends the draw upon other countries. This may not sound bad but when you remember that the TFR of developing countries is anywhere between 5.8 and 2.8, with the average in 2003 being 3.1, you begin to wonder where those extra resources including land and ocean to absorb the toxins is going to come from.

So if populations are increasing in developing countries--and they are because, remember, even if the TFR goes down, a ballooning effect occurs 50 to 60 in the future--and the developed countries need to draw on their purchasable and non-purchasable resources, what happens to the people in the developing countries?

Look for example at India. Surveys by India's National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) show that children in developing countries experience a high prevalence of malnourishment. But that's not all. More than half of school-age children suffer from growth stunting. Stunting indicates long duration chronic malnutrition. But on the bright side, only about 15 percent of school children suffer from wasting, which reflects acute or current malnutrition.

In a discussion of ill-advised coercive population control measures no longer enforced in Cairo, M. Wheeler made the following points:
"The opponents of population control should consider the following questions. (1) 'Is it the case that populations growing out of control are the alternative to population control? (2) Must society accept the cumulative consequences of millions of individual decisions, each made on a purely private assessment of net benefits, without seeking to influence the collective outcome?' Agreement with such a position would be consistent with one of three logical premises: (1) There are no consequences for the wider society flowing from each individual's decisions on fertility. (2) There are no negative consequences, or only trivial ones, such that the overall balance is positive. (3) Whatever the consequences, individual choice is the supreme value of society, overriding all others."

With some facts at hand to consider--facts that extend beyond the concerns of our own backyards and Town Halls--we may find ourselves better equipped and able to answer Mr. Wheeler's questions and address his posited premises.

The World Congress of Families, the opponents of OPT, object to population control measures because they see such measures as "a skewed perspective [which] is the result of viewing children as a burden...." The fourth Congress was held in Warsaw during May of 2007 where 3,400 delegates from 54 countries affirmed "Joyful responsibility for every child...versus fear of the child expressed in the contraceptive mentality."

Optimum Population Trust was founded in 1991 and is an "educational charity, think-tank and campaign group that promotes sustainable levels of population for the UK and the planet."

Optimum Population Trust News Release, "Compulsory Limits on Births 'May Become Unavoidable' -- OPT Report." URL: http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.media.html

Larry Jacobs and Don Feder, Press Release, "World Congress of Families Appalled by UK Group That Wants to Limit Family Size." World Congress of Families. URL: http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/299413688.html