Population & Compassion

At a conference today I was talking to a speaker. He said the economy is slowly going to get better simply because the population is continuing to grow. He said the foreclosed property is beginning to get sucked up and new construction is emerging again. According to the speaker, we'll see a long span of growth followed by another sharp recession. My only response was, "I hope I retire before that happens."

Really, right now I am just hoping to stay employed until I can grab on the government safety net. At least I'll be able to buy food, and I'll have Medicare! I know the Big Hand that's providing these things is slowly going bankrupt, but maybe I can eat from Uncle Sam's trough just long enough to meet the Grim Reaper.

I do know the current world economic system is totally unsustainable, and sooner or later the entire thing will come crashing down. My hope is that humanity will enjoy a soft landing, but more likely we'll see a lot of starvation and extreme violence. All the while, we'll still get to switch on our TVs and see pastors with bad haircuts, who will be waving Bibles and muttering something about Armageddon.

Population

Back in 1997 I had this crazy idea that I would try to save the world. I did some research and felt that slowing the human population explosion was the best way to help the Earth. So, for years I became a tireless population activist. Last year, for instance, I tabled at a population event and gave three slide shows. On average, I do one population event per quarter.

But you know what? I don't worry about it any more. I know that humans are a fragile species and it won't take much to hinder our reproduction. Fresh water and oil are already a scarcity, and we need both to support the 7 billion of us. Plus, more people means more demand for essential items, which creates higher prices and scarcity. As prices go up, the general cost of living goes up, and kids must stay at home longer. Plus, in a super-expensive world, young couples wait longer to have children, or they don't reproduce at all.

Add to this the past-due acceptance of women as equals. As women are treated with more respect and given more equality around the world, they have more options than motherhood. Many will choose careers, while others will still prefer to be stay-at-home moms, but ultimately, there are less babies.

Compassion

Population sustainability is an emotional and controversial issue. I've come to think of it as a beautiful humanitarian effort. As an activist, all I advocate for is universal access to contraception. This simply means that poor women who WANT to have no children, have FEWER children, or who want to SPACE their children farther apart, can have the power to do so. Contraception gives a woman freedom and the ability to choose her destiny. But this freedom threatens the old world order. Many men prefer that women stay subservient, and they use religion or tradition to keep women "barefoot and pregnant," as they say. Religious groups scream that contraception kills babies, but remain silent on all the trillions of potential babies killed every day by, yep, the masturbators. What the religionists are really doing is practicing "womb control" on women.

For years, I've fought the religionist in the United States and their elected officials in Washington. I've gone to our nation's capital several times to lobby. Republication politicians seem to feel that their constituents are so dumb that they'll confuse "contraception" with "abortion," and, thus, they fight against domestic and international family planning. After years of banging my head against the right wing wall, I got tired and gave up. YOU WIN, GUYS!

Cynicism

So, by around 2003, after 6 years of activism work, I was slowly getting jaded and sinking into cynicism. I wanted to say, "Okay, I told you so, see for yourself what happens." However, in my heart I know that cynicism is just an excuse to give up. It's easy to be a jaded cynic, but what I really need to do is keep ramming my head into the conservative wall until little cracks develop. If anything, I owe it to the millions of women in the world who cannot afford or cannot easily access contraception. I also owe it to the world, which is rapidly being polluted and stripped of resources and tree cover.

One of the biggest myths, hell, I mean LIES, is that contraception is bad. To the contrary, it saves the lives of women who are at near exhaustion from having children in rapid succession. The pills or shots are simply giving the woman a rest and a break. Despite the misinformation coming from Rome or Redstate.com, contraception is not "population control" and it is not "abortion." Rather, it is an act of humanity. It is using technology to give women freedom, power, and more control over their destiny. I think this is only fair, moral, and just.

Photo credit: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center / Foter.com / CC BY-NC