[John] Holdren (with the Ehrlichs) notes [in their 1977 book Ecoscience] the existence of “moral objections to some proposals...especially to any kind of compulsion.” But his approach is completely amoral. He implies that compulsory population control is less preferable, because of some people's objections, but he argues repeatedly that it is sometimes necessary, and necessity trumps all ethical objections.
He writes:
Several coercive proposals deserve discussion, mainly because some countries may ultimately have to resort to them unless current trends in birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means. Some involuntary measures could be less repressive or discriminatory, in fact, than some of the socioeconomic measures suggested.
Holdren refers approvingly, for example, to Indira Gandhi's government for its then-recent attempt at a compulsory sterilization program:
India in the mid-1970s not only entertained the idea of compulsory sterilization, but moved toward implementing it...This decision was greeted with dismay abroad, but Indira Gandhi's government felt it had little other choice. There is too little time left to experiment further with educational programs and hope that social change will generate a spontaneous fertility decline, and most of the Indian population is too poor for direct economic pressures (especially penalties) to be effective.
When necessary, then, compulsory sterilization is justified. This attitude suffuses the following passage, in which the possibility of putting a “sterilant” into a population's drinking water is seriously discussed. Holdren and his co-authors do not recommend this particular method, but their objections to it are merely practical and health-related, not moral or stemming from any concern for human freedom:
Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the oposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock...Again, there is no sign of such an agent on the horizon. And the risk of serious, unforeseen side effects would, in our opinion, militate against the use of any such agent, even though this plan has the advantage of avoiding the need for socioeconomic pressures that might tend to discriminate against particular groups or penalize children.
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1 comments:
That Obie is creating a parallel government not elected by the people or answerable to them or anyone accept Obie; is scarey.
35 positions (+ some waiting in the wings) with new salaries paid for by our tax dollars with no forseeable benefit to the average Joe. Does simply everything have to be managed??
A soft coup, Executive Branch expansion a big corporate oligarchecy (sp), a transnational, global "One World Order" regime --at what point will it be too late to reel in the power grabbers while we still have some semblance of America in tact?? I'm getting itchy.
Ellen*
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