: Nikhil, my dear chap,
: : 3. You must implicitly acept that population must stop growing at some point in the future, right? which means that average birthrates much recah 2.2? please tell me yes. You canm't really think that population can growq indefinitely? if nothing else, the size of the earth and its finite resources limit us. But not to worry, by the time we get to that stage, we'll have run out of food, water and oxygen long ago.
: Populations increase and decrease for reasons not yet fully understood by man. Some populations have become extinct over time. Some have flourished. Perhaps your misunderstanding of populations comes from a strictly academic viewpoint. If you go out into the real world you will find that, even in India, large populations get by. Perhaps not as well as the academics would like them to, but certainly that's no reason for conducting wholesale slaughter in the abortuary. Remember, Malthus predicted that in 25 year's time the earth's population would grow so large that it would be unable to sustain itself. He made that prediction in 1796. I could hardly find a group of doomsdayers who have been so consistantly wrong.
Sorry about that. As I was saying, I've been to India multiple times, I have plenty of friends from large families, and I think I know a fair amount about the subject. Most people in every country in teh world, whenm goiven a choic and the ability to use birth control, choose to have many fewer children. Birth rates ahve dropped precipitously in India, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Costa Rica, and dozens of other countries. It is a fact that most people in the developing world have mroe children than they woudl like or acn effectively care for, and they wouldn't appreciate you or me telling them with a smile that they are better people because of it.
Actually, if you look at the scientific consensus, most scientists (who should know what tehy are talking about) woudl agree that the warnings about the clash of a growing population with finite resourecs have come true on most fronts. The world starvation problem today is of unpaallelled magnitude. More and more of the world is rendered unfit for ciultivation through erosion, which puts us in the unenviable position of tryoing to grwo more with less. Air quality si declining. for teh first time ever we are running out of fresh water. metal supplies are dwindling, and peopel are being forced to recycle old scrap metal, a process which inevitaby talkes a lareg input of energy. Etc., etc.
To look at the fact taht food prices are low is utterly irrelevant to teh questkion of whetehr starvation is a major problem. As is well know, the capitalist market doesn't reflect the need for food, or cor any product; it only tells you how many peopel can pay for teh commodity. Typically, there are millions of peopel who need food, but are denied it because food distribution is controlled by a capitalist market. Since they are destitute, tehy don't have money to put on the line to buy food, and so the marlket does not allocate food to them. Non-socialist governments frequently fail to intervene, and thsu tehy starve. This was what happened in teh notoriious Bengal famine of 1943, and in most famines sinec then. So although we do at teh rpoesent tiem ahve enough food to feed everyone, 840 million people will not get fed under a capitalist system. That said, the problem of feeding people would obvoiously be much lessened if popuylation was lessened.
Also, prices rarely reflect shortages or oversupplies. To giev one example. Swordfish stocks off the Massachusetts caost, whree I live, have been dwindling for years, while prices have a;lso been falling., thsi is because the fishermen, seeing tehir catches of adults dwindle, merely shift to using younger and younger fish- thus reducing the breeding population and hastening the decline. the more they decline, teh younger onbes are caught, and so on in a viciosu circle. Because capitalist markets are not artional, prices can often fall even as a resource is hading towards extinction.
To summarize:
1> Abortion is not the murder of a human life. But even if it is, 2> abortion is not necessary to reduce population, birth controil vcan do the trick.
3> birth control is desired uyrgently by people throughout the developing world, and we haqve no right to deny it to them.
4> population cannot grow indefinitely. Either we control our numbers, or war, disease and famine will do the trick for us- of course, by that time, we'll probably be living on a ruined, wasted world...
5) resourec drainages and environmental degradation testify eloquently to teh afct that populations grwoth is unsustainable.
6) although we do have enough food to feed everyone at teh moment, many are still not being fed, due to the capitalist distributionsystem, and 6) prices do not reflect ral shortages.
None.
