by Valentine 135 Replies latest jw friends
Since when did 'population' have anything to do with consumation of resources?
NEWSFLASH: The LOW population, developed countries (ie. USA, Britain and the like) are the ones burning through all the resources, driving 1/2 a mile to the shops and turning our 'air-con' up, not the densley populated shantey towns of India and Africa.
Using the earths resources has NOTHING to do with population but has EVERYTHING to do with decadence and wastefulness.
Ok, what were we talking about again??
Oh, and a fetus isn't a baby or a human ... just the potential to become one.
Okay, just to get things started, let me express my mandatory insults here (hey isn’t this the way we are supposed to express our opinions?) and say to all those Pro-life and anti-abortion people: @*>%!!!!
Now that we have settled that, perhaps all of you might be interested in reading something you don’t even want to think about, and that is the coming time ahead when abortions will not only be much more common then they are now, but essential for our survival. In fact, if there wasn’t as many abortions as there already are, the odds are good that the world would be a much more miserable place to live than it is now.
People who bellyache about all the murdered unborn almost always fail to realize the full extent of the synergistically coupled population/enviornmental problem. I’m just going to give you a brief refresher here and then show you that unless we push abortion more world wide, how we are all going to suffer from the consequences.
The following information is taken from the February, 2002 issue of Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/2002/0202issue/0202wilson.html
On or about October 12, 1999, the world population reached six billion. It has continued to climb at an annual rate of 1.4 percent, adding 200,000 people each day or the equivalent of the population of a large city each week. The rate, though beginning to slow, is still basically exponential: the more people, the faster the growth, thence still more people sooner and an even faster growth, and so on upward toward astronomical numbers unless the trend is reversed and growth rate is reduced to zero or less. This exponentiation means that people born in 1950 were the first to see the human population double in their lifetime, from 2.5 billion to over six billion now. During the 20th century more people were added to the world than in all of previous human history. In 1800 there had been about one billion and in 1900, still only 1.6 billion.Later in the article…The pattern of human population growth in the 20th century was more bacterial than primate. When Homo sapiens passed the six-billion mark we had already exceeded by perhaps as much as 100 times the biomass of any large animal species that ever existed on the land. We and the rest of life cannot afford another 100 years like that.
By the end of the century some relief was in sight. In most parts of the world--North and South America, Europe, Australia, and most of Asia--people had begun gingerly to tap the brake pedal. The worldwide average number of children per woman fell from 4.3 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000. The number required to attain zero population growth--that is, the number that balances the birth and death rates and holds the standing population size constant--is 2.1 (the extra one tenth compensates for infant and child mortality). When the number of children per woman stays above 2.1 even slightly, the population still expands exponentially. This means that although the population climbs less and less steeply as the number approaches 2.1, humanity will still, in theory, eventually come to weigh as much as Earth and, if given enough time, will exceed the mass of the visible universe. This fantasy is a mathematician's way of saying that anything above zero population growth cannot be sustained. If, on the other hand, the average number of children drops below 2.1, the population enters negative exponential growth and starts to decline. To speak of 2.1 in exact terms as the breakpoint is of course an oversimplification. Advances in medicine and public health can lower the breakpoint toward the minimal, perfect number of 2.0 (no infant or childhood deaths), while famine, epidemics, and war, by boosting mortality, can raise it well above 2.1. But worldwide, over an extended period of time, local differences and statistical fluctuations wash one another out and the iron demographic laws grind on. They transmit to us always the same essential message, that to breed in excess is to overload the planet.
The encouragement of population control by developing countries comes not a moment too soon. The environmental fate of the world lies ultimately in their hands. They now account for virtually all global population growth, and their drive toward higher per capita consumption will be relentless.A good portion of this article from this point forward is directed towards the China problem. China now has 1.2 billion people or one fifth of the world total. If it were not for the strict population control already in place in China, which includes abortions on demand, we would see an incredible explosion of people if it was not in place, and it would have caused not only environmental catastrophe and mass starvation in China, but would have pushed China into more instability and remember they have nukes and ICBM’s as well! What is really scary is that even with the tough regulations and the encouragement of abortion in China, is that time is running out for them. There are already too many people for the resources they have and things are going to get a lot uglier in the future.The consequences of their reproductive prowess are multiple and deep. The people of the developing countries are already far younger than those in the industrial countries and destined to become more so. The streets of Lagos, Manaus, Karachi, and other cities in the developing world are a sea of children. To an observer fresh from Europe or North America, the crowds give the feel of a gigantic school just let out. In at least 68 of the countries, more than 40 percent of the population is under 15 years of age.
A country poor to start with and composed largely of young children and adolescents is strained to provide even minimal health services and education for its people. Its superabundance of cheap, unskilled labor can be turned to some economic advantage but unfortunately also provides cannon fodder for ethnic strife and war. As the populations continue to explode and water and arable land grow scarcer, the industrial countries will feel their pressure in the form of many more desperate immigrants and the risk of spreading international terrorism.
Because of the dangers resulting from overpopulation, I feel abortion must become even more common and available regardless of any person’s personal viewpoint or religious scruples. Yes, birth control methods are certainly better than abortion but get real, all these are available in the USA and we still see lots of abortions don’t we? So, we got billions of people who are going to have sex regardless of your or my wishes about it and there are going to be hundreds of millions of abortions done as a consequence.
If you are a pro-life person, I suggest you pack up your bags and move to one of these developing countries that have the sea of hungry and resentful children in them and preach your message there. Reality has a way of slapping your dogma in the face when you stick your ass out in the real world.
Skipper
I'm sorry, this notion that it's the population exploding developing countries that are using all the resources is just a convenient, 'get-out' clause for the good ole US-of-A.
Thousands of peasants working in fields DO NOT consume the resources that people in the west do - we want everything packed in plastic boxes that we can throw away and I can't imagine how many it takes to equal something like a Shuttle launch so we can ll use our mobile phones and watch our satellite TV ...
I can't remember the exact figure but I believe that the USA accounts for 25% of resource useage / pollution or more despite having a much smaller percentage of the world population.
Simon,
No one is denying the wastefulness of the USA's use of resources, but the point is that overpopulation is the single greatest cause of environmental degradation. The population explosion is a worldwide problem, not just a US or developing country problem. Banning/restricting abortion will magnify that problem by increasing population further.
just to clarify on dungbeetle's post, the abortion pill and the morning after pill are TWO different things :)
Here's the REAL crux of the matter....
If *you* don't want to raise your own child, God Knows *I* don't want you to have it. The rest of Society will just end up footing the bill for your little felon.
And Harmony great point about adoption. When I was single and pregnant (and working full time with health insurance coverage) I got questioned by well-intentioned people who wanted to know if I was going to get an abortion. I would set them up with, "Well, I'd like to keep the baby but I can't afford to. Could you offer some assistance?" This was the most fun I had the whole first two months of my pregnancy--I went to Family Planning Clinic until my first visit with my new OB.
The general answer I got was something akin to "There's always welfare." (Obviously they hadn't heard the *working full time* part) [8>] So I began to just as rudely respond with, "I see your devotion to Pro-life as a bunch of empty rhetoric. Mind your own business, arsehole."
Lisa
Loves Her Kids Class
Howdy larc,
I agree with you and Simon, if a person puts up an entire thread - that person should stay around for the pros & cons - and be willing to address some of them. I've seen several do that around here - either start threads or contribute really abrasive insults - and then say the equivelent to: "well, I don't want to discuss this anymore. Contact me by e-mail." In other words - "I'm going to trash you - and then I'm running." Personnally, I think Simon's being shittier than you......and I knew that man had it in him! Way too polite for his own good. Strangely, (until now) he hasn't been accused of being "shitty." And I love my king - just noticing.......
As for abortion? I believe it has to be part of a whole plan to address the problem of unwanted/throw-away kids - and the world economy. Lord, the list is almost endless:
Sex education beginning when sexual thoughts do - grade school. Explicit and straight forward. I believe JanH said Norway does this.
Abortion on demand.
Contraceptives which are easy to use, free, & work afterwards. And heavily encouraged.
Make parents responsible for their children - including slappin' deadbeat dads around aggressively - more so than presently done.
Heavy penalties for persons who keep having children & don't care for them with at least the financial, medical, basics. Or rewards for those who do. I believe China does this?
If necessary, sterilizing adults who habitually don't take care of their kids. (I know - men scream at that thought - as last year, one man who had 8 kids he didn't take care of was brought to court to stop him from reproducing until he paid for them. The men on this forum thought that was outrageous! And the court was not seeking to sterilize him - just stop reproducing more kids)
And I believe in euthenasia (sp?) for old people. How is that defined? I believe when institutionalized and out of their minds qualifies. They, at that point, do nothing but drain.
I'm not deadset on any of this - as these are not black/white issues. But the babyboomers are massive - and I'm one of them. Even if we weren't in an affluent country - we would most likely cause a massive drain.
My son's live-in girlfriend got an abortion. Early in her pregnancy, he proposed to her. She refused. He then said he would sign legal papers to raise his child by himself. She said she wasn't ready to deliver a baby, (and most likely didn't trust him.) She had an abortion. It devastated their relationship and my son, and obviously his first child. Btw, both of them are white, college graduates, & had good jobs with law firm in Atlanta, Ga. She comes from a high income background.
waiting
ps: I'm sure I've not stated many other important parts to this problem - what have I left out?
The main problem with much of the anti-choice/pro-choice debate, as with much of the evolution/creation debate and the theist/atheist debate, is the vastly different opinions by people on the opposite sides of the debate.
I am not saying that evolutionists are automatically pro-choice and creationists are automatically anti-choice, or that athiests are automatically pro-choice and theists are automatically anti-choice. I do realise that there are people with other combinations of opinion!
I just think the gap in opinion and even in the way of thinking is the same.
Basically, some arguements raised by many in the anti-choice lobby are hogwash to many pro-choicers. They don't believe in god, in souls, in divine sparks, or any other such stuff.
Likewise, many anti-choicers think the arguements used by pro-choicers are equally invalid.
An anti-choicer can see a divinely mandated spark of life that should be cherished from its very instant of creation.
A pro-choicer can see as unimportant blob of cells that only become vaugely human towards the end of the first trimester, and even then, for all it's visual similarity in structure, is smaller and less developed in terms of brain and nervous system development than a pet rat.
They can both be completely convinced as to their rightness, and from within their paradigm, or way of thinking, they are both right.
Essentially, there is no way they can agree; the over-riding priority of freedom of choice that might be viewed as the core of the issue by the pro-choicer, is seen as unimportant compared to the sanctity of god-given life that might be seen as the core issue by an anti-choicer.
How can the debate be resolved if this is the case?
Well, it can't be.
For example, in the 'States, there are more women who might not vote for a government that reversed Roe than there are anti-choicers who might not vote for a government that didn't reverse Roe. That's as moral as politics gets ladies and gentlemen. Even if there was a reversal, it would be temporary; the next elections would be a guaranteed shoo-in to the party promising to restore freedom of choice. Only a mass reversal of secularisation would change this, and that is unlikely to happen.
Thus, for all the passion it generates, the abortion debate in the developed world is essentially over, even if you personally consider it wrong. The Western world is essentially a representative democratic society where the opinion of the majority holds sway, even if the minority think it wicked and evil.
The developing world has less freedom; they have demographic pressures and social issues which will make abortion more or less an essential to their economic prosperity and development, no matter what the local morals are, and those that currently do not allow abortion will change overtime - also in part due to the increasing power women will have in the develioping world as educational standards rise and patriarchal assumptions are challanged.
Thus there is no resolution to this debate; probably, in time, as with other beliefs held by religionists that moderated over the course of the 20th C (think of the attitude towards pre-marital and extra-marital sex), the beliefs regarding abortion will similarly moderate, as religon adjusts to society, rather than being left behind by society.
There will be certain 'break points'; the selection of the next pope being one; all of a sudden, 500M people could be given the moral freedom to choose whether to use condoms, get divorce freely, or have abortions.
But, no matter how opsetting it is (and although I am a pro-choicer I don;t dispute the genuineness of the feelings held by anti-choicers), the debate is not over, but may as well be.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
"NITS BECOME LICE!!!" I LOVE ABORTIONS!!!!!!
