UN Continues Population Control Push With “World Population Day”
7/10/15
The United Nations is continuing to push population control despite the fact that the world population continues to decline. From the Population Research Institute:
On July 11th, the United Nations will celebrate its 26th World Population Day. The point of this annual exercise is to raise money to promote abortion, sterilization and contraception among poor and vulnerable women by alarming us about the dangers of global population growth.
The problem with this narrative is that, in many regions of the world, the population is declining, not growing. About half the world’s population lives in “low-fertility” countries, where women have fewer than 2.1 children on average over their lifetimes. Low-fertility countries now include all of Europe (except Iceland), the Americas (17 countries), and most of Asia (19 countries). The list of low-fertility countries include China, the United States, Brazil, the Russian Federation, Japan and Viet Nam.
In other words, growth rates have dramatically declined from the late 1960s when the global population grew at a rate of 2.1% each year. That rate is now about 1% a year. The UN’s low variant projection (historically the most accurate) indicates that it will peak at around 8.3 billion in 2050. Even the medium variant projection shows population growth slowing to 0.1% by the century’s end, and turning negative beyond 2100. In either case, the population of the world will never double again.
As these numbers suggest, fertility rates have dipped to all-time lows. The U.N.’s medium variant projection estimates that women are now averaging 2.45 children over their reproductive lifetime, while the low variant pegs this at only 2.05. The global average was 4.97 just 60 years ago. Under either variant, this number will be well under replacement by century’s end. After all, global replacement fertility—the rate needed to replace the current generation and prevent population decline—is 2.23 children per woman over her reproductive lifetime.
Many developed nations are already suffering from the effects of population decline. Populations in many areas are rapidly aging as younger cohorts are becoming smaller. Social safety nets are being strained to the breaking point as fewer workers are struggling to support increasing numbers of elderly.
Read the whole thing here. Sadly, the UN continues to promote population control despite the many human rights abuses that run through such programs. For example, PRI’s Anne Morse recently spoke at the UN in April about the horrific “sterlization camps” that have injured and killed women in India:
Last November, 83 women were sterilized in a matter of hours at a sterilization camp in the east Indian state of Chhattisgarh. At least a dozen women died from the unhygienic conditions, and the large number of deaths in one sterilization camp garnered international media attention. While sterilization camps rarely claim a dozen lives at a time, women are routinely maimed and killed in sterilization camps in India. In the four months since news of the Chhattisgarh camp broke, sterilization camps and their horrors steadily continue.
India’s “family planning” system is more about controlling reproduction than planning families. Throughout the country, states set yearly and quarterly targets for sterilization “acceptors” and sterilization camps. With the emphasis set on targets, sterilizations are treated as a substitute for holistic healthcare. Women—often the poor, marginalized, and illiterate—pay the price.
According to official government statistics, Morse stated, “[o]n average, three women die every week from botched sterilizations.”
PRI has posted a number of reports and articles on the sterilization camps, including detailing how American tax dollars are being used to fund them.
As Morse noted,
India’s system of sterilization camps is deliberate and pervasive. India’s systematic sterilization of women en masse, without informed consent, and in dangerous conditions demands our attention.
In just five short years, India will be home to the largest population of women of reproductive age in the world. Anyone concerned with women’s rights—or indeed human rights—cannot continue to ignore India’s systematic sterilization camps. Any country or organization which funds or co-implements sterilization camps in India has the moral obligation to cease funding until India enacts genuine reform in their public health sector. To continue funding of sterilization camps is to incur responsibility for the human rights abuses.
~~~
Learn More (and share with others):
Stop Forced Sterilizations in India
“Unmet Need” and Pushing Contraceptives on Women in the Developing World
She Shouldn’t Have to Choose Between Barrenness and Death
Debunking the Myths of Overpopulation
