Overpopulation: Should Having a Child Require a Permit?
The world faces one of its most potentially disastrous crises ever: overpopulation. The rate of growth is staggering, the severe consequences of this growth at times unimaginable. The roots of the problem lie mainly with two phenomenons: lowering mortality rates, and rising and even stable birth rates. Population grows at an exponential rate, and with these two roots of population growth compounded together, the problem becomes even more immense. If the current trend isn’t altered, the human race is surely on a track of self-destruction. Famine, water shortages, uncontrollable global warming, specie extinction, energy crises, more traffic, are only a few of the consequences of overpopulation. From these consequences more problems arise: crime from frustration of traffic and famine, war from water shortages, more famine from specie extinction, poverty, the list of possibilities go on forever as well as the constant lingering of devastating worldwide surprise. It is safe to say that overpopulation is a gigantic danger to all the nation-states in the world.
Permits are used to protect the general public from danger and to regulate action. Thus, permits for having a child can be used to protect the general public from overpopulation, as well as regulate their actions to prevent overpopulation. But this isn’t the best solution for the problem; in fact it should only be used as a last resort. There are too many evils associated with regulating something as precious as life, but if the problem of overpopulation was so severe, it should definitely be considered as an option. All options should be tried and considered, such as family planning education, birth tax, and incentives. If those don’t provide viable solutions, then permits should be used. Permits help by lowering increasing birth rates, regulating the average age of the population, punishing those with large families, and by catalyzing a paradigm shift in the population’s attitude towards family size and its impact on the overall global situation. The dangers of using permits for reproduction is the possibility for unequal permit assignment, social objection, and a large increase in illegitimate child births and infanticide.
The current projection for the world population at 2050 is 10 billion, an increase of over 80 percent from the current population of 6 billion (Graham, p.139). Some countries are taking drastic measure to reduce their population growth, such as Thailand and Taiwan, but some countries are growing still at a very alarming rate, such as Nigeria, India, and Pakistan (Brown, p.15). All members of the global community will have to work in unison towards the same goal of population stability for the severe problem to be solved. The addition of almost twice as many people to the world is a drastic danger to the global community, especially nations ridden with poverty or already overcrowded. There is of course the potential for lethal environmental damage from so many people, especially with the heavy reliance on fossil fuels and new super-harmful weapons such as nuclear and biological weapons.
If birth permits are to be used, they should be used on a national basis, for every nation has different magnitudes of overpopulation. For instance, India and China, who make up %50 of the world’s population, have a very different situation to face than Australia or Sweden (Graham, p.144). India and China have been trying to regulate their populations, either by taxing, incentives, or contraceptive education. But they still face a severe population crisis. If birth permits were used, the paradigm of large families could be altered, thus creating a paradigm shift. For India this would be especially helpful. Paul Kurtz describes his experience with the Indian family paradigm in his article, “India’s Population Time Bomb: A Neohumanist Response”:
Our taxi-cab driver during the Congress, a friendly Muslim, related to us that he had six children, and that they lived in a room 10′ x 10′, yet he wished to have still more children! Unfortunately, many families still do not have adequate contraceptive information or the means to practice birth control. Obviously, some people might like to have smaller families, but they don’t know it’s possible, particularly if they are illiterate.
Birth permits would make for a strong message against large families, and could possibly change the attitudes of the Indian population about having many children, even if it is rather forceful.
Birth permits also can practically reduce the rate of population growth. If permits are assigned to families, and each family is only permitted to have one, or two children, then the population, due to incidental and other kind of deaths, would decrease at a very fast rate. Of course the actual application of birth permits would be very complex and diverse depending on the different nations using them.
Another reason to use birth permits is to control the average age of the population. If the population can only acquire a birth permit at the age of 25-35 years old, then the average age of a nation could effectively be controlled. This is especially helpful to very rich nations with high life expectancies, who are facing a welfare crisis for the economically inactive elderly (Smith, p.24). Thus, birth permits can benefit all nations globally, from the United States of America to China.
While birth permits do have advantages to controlling population, there are many reasons why they should only be considered as a last resort. One of the main reasons why they shouldn’t be used is because of the social objections to having the gift of life being controlled by the government. At the Cairo conference in 1994 any type of coercion was adamantly rejected. These rights, stated the programme, rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals “to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children”âÂ?¦couples and individuals have the right to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion, and violence (Graham, p.141)
Human rights have and keep on evolving around the world, thus strictly controlling reproductive rights will be more difficult in the future. In this way, a good can also be an evil at the same time, although the advancement of human rights shouldn’t prevented in order to stabilize the population. Birth permits should be voted on by the nations who will use them, that way they wouldn’t necessarily be forced upon the population.
The coercion that naturally derives from state control of procreation creates a large potential for unequal treatment of the population regarding permit assignment. A certain criteria would probably be designed to determine permit distribution. This criterion could discriminate against the impoverished, ethnic minorities, mentally challenged, and certain religions. There’s also the potential for corruption to give the rich the right to have more children illegally, while everyone else limited to the state regulations.
The social impact of the birth permit on children is also very dangerous. An example of this danger is with China and India. The punishment for having more children is heavy taxation or even worse in these countries (Graham, p.146-147). Birth permits catalyze more sexual discrimination and pressure families into committing infanticide. Very wealthy nations aren’t immune from this effect either. Abortion rates in the U.S. would skyrocket. The cost of these extra abortions could be immense, as well as the social costs from increased abortions. Anti-abortion activists would be more apt to cause unrest with demonstrations and riots.
Having a child is very different from owning and driving a car, or using a gun. But like cars or guns, overpopulation is a severe worldwide problem that needs to be addressed and soon. It is a problem that effects all nations at a high magnitude. Impoverished India will have to deal with uncontrollable population growth and poverty; the rich United States of America will have overcrowded mega-cities and a huge elderly population needing economic support. We all will have to consider the use of birth permits as the problem gets worse. Hopefully permits will never have to be issued; the evils arising from such a plan are strikingly frightening. But drastic measures will have to be taken to prevent the human race from self-destructing. The hopeful answer: end our global ignorance before it’s too late and live in the future. We all share the same earth, and we all destroy the same earth.
Bibliography:
1. Lester R. Brown, State of the World 2000; Worldwatch Institue, 2000.
2. Kennedy Graham, The Planetary Interest; Kennedy Graham, 1999.
3. Paul Kurtz, “India’s Population Time Bomb: A Neohumanist Response”; Council for Secular Humanism, 2000; http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/kurtz_19_2.html
4. Dan Smith, The State of the World Atlas, Dan Smith, 1999.
