Stanek weekend question: Can the earth ever be too full of people?
In Genesis 1:28 God commanded Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.”
After the flood, when all humans had been wiped off the face of the earth except Noah and his family, God commanded he and his sons in Genesis 9:1: “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.”
Do you think the day can come or is here that the earth can be full – or too full – of humans?
Do you, therefore, believe worldwide population control is necessary? Do you believe personal population (birth) control is necessary, a responsibility?
[Photo, via the New York Times, is of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama speaking to a huge crowd of 75,000 in Portland, Oregon in May 2008]
Aug.20, 2011 10:47 am |
Weekend question |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
We do not have an overpopulation problem, we have a challenge to become more selfless and grow in our ability to share. There is enough of a food supply to feed every human being 3600 calories a day. Yet, many go hungry due to political inequities and oppression. Fill the earth. Yes! Our family practices Natural Family Planning and will welcome as many children as our family is entrusted to care for and nurture. And there will be plenty of resources for us, all.
That’s right, Matthew!
Not only that, but we have the ability to reach out to and settle on other planets. We have neglected our space program and focused instead on our materialism and selfishness.
Momentum is growing for one-way missions to Mars and it’s past due for us to start building a moon base. When God said to Abraham that his descendants would be as many as the stars, he didn’t add any disclaimers about “well, multiply until the population control nutters tell you to stop..” Go humans!
Of course it can. Many would argue that we’re rapidly approaching that tipping point already. Unlike the lower animals, the human has no natural predator and so it’s an inevitability that eventually a point will be reached where there are not enough material resources–food, water, nonrenewable energy, arable land and living space–for everyone to co-exist. The result will be endless, ubiquitous war, severe environmental degradation, and the radical reduction of living standards across the board, in addition to whatever state-sponsored drastic measures may be implemented to deal with the situation at that time. Voluntary population control now is the only safe, humane way to prevent future catastrophes.
I highly recommend checking out this documentary:
http://www.theneweconomicreality.com/index.html
It discusses this question and how the perception that we are over-populating the world has lead to lower fertility rates. Our culture promotes smaller families, fewer children and less focus on families and more focus on the environment. If this trend persists, we will not have enough children to become our future… to fill the positions of workers in our society. It is a fascinating look at how this secular propaganda about over-population is actually harming our society.
“Can the earth ever be too full of people?”
No.
But we could have too many progressive humanists or Jew hating terrorists.
================================
The liberals are asking us to give Obama time.
We agree…and think 25 to life would be appropriate.
–Jay Leno
America needs Obama-care like
Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask.
–Jay Leno
Q: Have you heard about McDonald’s’
new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like
and the guy behind you has to pay for it.
–Conan O’Brien
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call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser.
–Jay Leno
Q: What’s the difference between
Obama’s cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers,
and threats to society.
The other is for housing prisoners.
–David Letterman
Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat
in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink,
who would be saved?
A: America !
–Jimmy Fallon
Q: What’s the difference between
Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers.
–Jimmy Kimmel
Q: What was the most positive result of
the “Cash for Clunkers” program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper
stickers off the road.
–David Letterman
“Not only that, but we have the ability to reach out to and settle on other planets.”
I suggest we set those ‘other planets’ aside to be settled by the folks who think this one is already too crowded.
But they only get a one way ticket.
“Unlike the lower animals, the human has no natural predator”…
There are many predators in the animal kingdom who will prey on humans: bears, wolves, lions, tigers, orcas, sharks, piranhas, crocodiles, aligators.
If anaconda found an unprotected infant it has the demonstrated capacity to eat it.
A more accurate statement would be: Unlike the majority of the animal kingdom, humans prey on their own offspring.
Don’t abortionists count as a ‘predator’?
This really depends on what we mean by ‘over populated’. If by this we mean a population that is headed towards some sort of apocalyptic tipping point, where we have too much trash, too much pollution, not enough resources, and millions dying of hunger, than you could argue that we have been over populated for a couple centuries now.
If by over-population, you mean living in a culture that thinks its absurd to add a family member, when you could have added a big-screen TV, then we’re certainly over populated. My goodness, especially those poor people – they are really over-populated and need to stop reproducing! (note: sarcasm)
But, if you are talking about a population that acts with a consideration for its environment, that constantly innovates new technologies, recycles, endlessly cares for its poor and its hungry, and values life over everything else, how could we possibly ever be over-populated?
Of course we could have too many people – there’s limited amount of space on earth, so mathematically, you could have so many people that they were literally stacked on top of each other, which, I suppose is doable, but would be pretty uncomfortable (especially in humid places).
I think the questions at the bottom are better than the question that leads the story.
I think that governments who have economy policies and legal policies that are against healthy birth rates and immigration rates will end up with real problems. The population in Japan for instance looks like it is going to collapse, which isn’t good.
Personally, I would find it dumb for somebody to say “we’re not having kids because the population is too crowded in the earth”. I think it is fine to say “we’re not having more kids because economically, we can’t swing it”.
But, if you are talking about a population that acts with a consideration for its environment, that constantly innovates new technologies, recycles, endlessly cares for its poor and its hungry, and values life over everything else, how could we possibly ever be over-populated?
Alex, good post, and you’re right – it depends on what we define as “overpopulation” in the first place. Your “if,” above, is a big one. We continue to innovate, and we’re recycling more than ever – due to economics, mainly, rather than a “save the planet” feeling.
“Endlessly caring for the poor and the hungry” – how are we doing on that? I think it’s human nature that there will always be lots of them.
As for considering the environment and not polluting it, I don’t see much change in the long-term, comprehensive trend. Sure, things are better than they’d have been were we making no efforts at all, but the overall deforestation, dumping nasty stuff in the oceans, adding “greenhouse gases” to the air, etc., proceed along.
Rather than an “if,” I say let’s look at what is happening and what’s likely to continue. I don’t think we are really “overpopulated” in an objective way since population pressure isn’t yet enough to reduce our numbers by itself.
As time goes by, population pressure is mattering to more and more people, though. I don’t know if a true tipping point will occur or not, if something will happen to really change the equation and make most people think, “Wow, we screwed up and now there are just too many of us.”
In the real-world “nuts and bolts” of it, energy, food, raw materials, etc., have been getting more expensive and harder to acquire for most of us. We can hypothesize about producing more, but in the end there will be so much produced, and after that it’s the size of the demand that matters, which goes directly to how many people there are.
I think we are more likely to destroy the earth than overpopulate it.
I think people should have the amount of kids that they want. This aging population isn’t going to be good.
Ken: I suggest we set those ‘other planets’ aside to be settled by the folks who think this one is already too crowded.
But they only get a one way ticket.
Geez…. what a grouch. ;)
I highly recommend checking out this documentary:
http://www.theneweconomicreality.com/index.html
It discusses this question and how the perception that we are over-populating the world has lead to lower fertility rates. Our culture promotes smaller families, fewer children and less focus on families and more focus on the environment. If this trend persists, we will not have enough children to become our future… to fill the positions of workers in our society. It is a fascinating look at how this secular propaganda about over-population is actually harming our society.
Laura, in watching the trailer for the film at that site, you can see that the population growth really has gone exponential in the last 100 years, and the narrator mentions that (she says the past 250 years, but I think it’s since the Industrial revolution that technology has enabled us to support so many more people and grow so fast). That kind of thing never continues for very long, no matter what, in the long run of history.
Recently, we’ve had both a decline in fertility, again as mentioned, but also in mortality. I don’t think there is any “putting the genie back in the bottle” as far as those are concerned.
Any economic system that is dependent on ever-increasing support at the bottom, like a pyramid shape, is doomed to fail in the first place. Yeah – “if we only had more babies” – might make a difference in the short-term, in years or decades, but it’s still assuming that the “Ponzi scheme” is the “right” way.
It’s also forgetting that the population, alone, is far from the total deal. Let us imagine that the “more people” is fact. Are there jobs for them? Will they produce enough wealth to not only support themselves, but to improve the system as a whole. We cannot take that for granted.
we will not have enough children to become our future… to fill the positions of workers in our society
Look at the unemployment rate. Do you really think that “more people” fixes that?
The film mentions “90 countries and territories” that have sub-replacement birth rates, but it doesn’t mention all the other countries in the world, nor focus on the fact that world population continues to grow fast, with billions more people to be added.
Still, there will indeed come a time when world population growth ceases. I submit that by then our feelings of being “overpopulated” may have increased so much that it will be a welcome thing.
If the Democrats could figure out how to get the multitudes voting for them, Planned Parenthood would be outlawed.
The answer is yes, and no.
Mathematically and Biologically, populations do not keep increasing without limits, nor do they tend to ever surpass the carrying capacity of their environment. With humans there are several variables that come into play. Let’s consider some of these by temporarily doing away with contraception and abortion as considerations (don’t worry proaborts, we’ll bring them back at the end of the comments).
Food Supply. Thomas Malthus got it wrong about populations outstripping food supplies (populations increase exponentially, while food only increases arithmetically) and there being mass starvation, etc. Populations naturally level off as they approach the limits of their environment.
Predator/Prey Interactions. As prey animals increase in number, they provide a robust food source for predators, whose population will rise as a result. As predator populations increase, the amount of prey animals consumed increases and prey numbers begin to drop. When prey animals drop in number, the predator numbers fall, relieving the pressure on the prey animals, whose populations begin to rebound. Thus another cycle begins.
Humans being at the top of the food chain have no predators on land to threaten us. However, we prey on one another through abortion (Planned Parenthood), forced contraception (China), wars, etc.
Disease. As populations increase in number, crowding increases. Along with crowding comes the increased opportunity for the spread of infectious disease. Tuberculosis is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which is a long, slender cell that is especially designed to be airborne. As a result, it spreads rapidly in crowded urban environments. 10-20% of the exposed population will come down with TB, which has infected 1 out of every 3 people on the planet (Over 2 Billion people). To make matters worse, our homeless shelters in the 1980’s and early 90’s in New York City became ground zero for multi-drug resistant TB (MDRTB). We are rapidly running out of treatment options, and the next 20 years don’t look too promising. That’s just TB.
Malaria. Consider the following 2002 report from the American Council on Science and Health:
Today, the Senate is poised to enact an international treaty (the so-called POPs treaty) banning all use of DDT, despite the millions of people who have already died as a result of the U.S. EPA’s ban on the chemical.
Thirty years ago, on June 14, l972, the Environmental Protection Agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, rebuffed the advice of his scientific advisors and announced a ban on virtually all domestic uses of the pesticide DDT. This was done despite the fact that DDT had earlier been hailed as a “miracle” chemical that repelled and killed mosquitoes that carry malaria, a disease that can be fatal to humans.
Ruckelshaus (who later worked with the Environmental Defense Fund, the very activist organization that had urged the ban) cited health concerns in defending his decision. He reported that DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichlorethane) killed many beneficial insects, birds, and aquatic animals — not just malarial mosquitoes — and that it “presents a carcinogenic risk” to humans, based on laboratory studies showing increased cancer risk in mice fed extremely high doses. The scientific community was outspoken in opposing such a ban, noting that there was no evidence that DDT posed a hazard to human health. Yet the ban still took effect.
Now, thirty years later, it is vividly apparent that DDT was not hazardous to human health and that the banning of its domestic use led to its diminished production in the United States — and less availability of DDT for the developing world. The results were disastrous: at least 1-2 million people continue to die from malaria each year, 30-60 million or more lives needlessly lost.
Get the rest here:
http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsid.442/healthissue_detail.asp
So, without DDT, we see how malaria keeps the population in check.
Now, pro-lifers, go make a cup of coffee while I talk with the Obama supporters for a minute. No, really, GO!
Okay, Obama supporters, now that it’s just us, let me confide something in you. The man is a genius! His healthcare plan is the best thing for reducing the population and each of our dreaded carbon footprints. Healthcare rationing and death panels are the way to go.
Seriously, because the truth of the matter is that access to healthcare does not make a healthier population. It makes a larger, more chronically ill population. What else could possibly explain the rise in life expectancy from 49.2 years in 1900 to 77.3 in 2003?
See the table in:
http://aging.senate.gov/crs/aging1.pdf
Consider how many fewer people we would have if we stopped doing coronary bypass surgery, all heart medications, medicines for diabetes, etc…
Mother nature actually smiles on Obama as a favorite son. There is no need for grandparents. We reproduce, raise the offspring to adulthood and then drop dead. Ask any spawning salmon. They just lay eggs and then die. But seriously, the life expectancy in 1900 validates mother nature’s design. If people have children in their 20’s, then there is really no need to keep them around after age 55. They’re a drain on the environment, suck up resources, increase crowding and competition for resources, etc.
Add to that Obama’s rabid, fulminating support of abortion, which has eliminated 1.8 billion sets of carbon footprints since 1960, and well…
He’s a Social-Darwinian, Malthusian darling, and the real root of the problem is silly emotional extravagances such as Christian anthropology and notions of human freedom and dignity. Worst of all is the concept of personhood. That stupidity was okay when there was only 1 billion people on the planet, but times have changed. Just please don’t let on that I said so.
Jill won’t let me moderate anymore if she finds out.
Let’s consider the Democrat/Socialist/Liberal-sponsored contributions:
The ban on DDT, the unsupervised homeless shelters have been a boon for malaria and TB.
Planned Parenthood’s insistence on the efficacy of condoms, which even CDC admits don’t do much at all, has accelerated the spread of disease.
Worldwide abortion (1.8 BILLION in 50 years).
Government Healthcare which denies treatments (Check out Canada and England).
We have no shortage of predator/prey relationships within our own species.
No, we’ll never be overpopulated so long as mother nature has the Democrats firmly ensconced and dictating policy to the third world.
Joan
Google demographic transition and population equilibrium and this will give you a better idea of the checks and balances that exist in regards to population. The real problem is not the human species the problem is when government limits the capacity of individuals to reach their full potential. I believe that within the human spirit lies the answers to just about any challenge that we can face as a species so when government is able to see this as they should then there is a balance when government becomes sick or those who lead have ideas that science does not confirm that their own egos if not held in check do more damage than people could ever do.
Gerard, nice post. Especially the first part. ;)
Mathematically and Biologically, populations do not keep increasing without limits, nor do they tend to ever surpass the carrying capacity of their environment.
Yeah, no doubt. Really, all wealth is taken out of the ground or grown in/on it. I guess we could say that “intellectual property” is a form of wealth, but I don’t see that as having much if any bearing on the population.
Long before we would ever get to the “carrying capacity” point, I think that people’s perception would change drastically. While there are a relative few, now, who think “there are too many people,” they don’t represent much of a political force.
Personally, I’ve really noticed food and fuel prices being “high” lately. There’s certainly been something going on over the past decade. And sure, there are short-term fluctuations that don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things – fuel has actually been declining in price a little, lately, for an example.
We’ll have a couple billion more people in a few decades. I don’t know that that, alone will prompt a “wow – we have got to reduce the population” feeling. I suspect that combined with resource considerations, it might.
What do things cost, versus 50 or 60 years ago? Some things are cheaper now as far as how many average working hours it takes to pay for them. Some things are more expensive. I don’t think the exact, raw number of people on earth will determine things. Going forward, food, clean water, energy, etc. *are* going to be problematic and, IMO increasingly costly.
Don’t know where the “tipping point” is as far as when we would, in general, think “this is too many people,” but it’s out there somewhere.
The real problem is not the human species the problem is when government limits the capacity of individuals to reach their full potential.
Myrtle, what is somebody’s “full potential”? We can always say that I/we/they could have done or been more of this or that. That’s human nature, just as is having governments that do, as you say, impact us in various ways.
I don’t think what you said really contradicts what Joan was saying. Water alone – this is already a huge and ongoing problem in many parts of the world, and we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Over-population??? I guess the “over-population” crowd thinks that the elderly live forever, and that people don’t die because of disease or starvation….????
Ahh…if only…
And there will be plenty of resources for us, all.
Matthew, you can say that, but there are not nearly enough resources, now, for all on earth to live as the average American does. In my lifetime alone, we’ve gone from 3 billion people to where we are now – March of next year we hit 7 billion. This simply cannot go on forever, nor for much longer, really, when we talk of decades and centuries.
Joan said that humans have no natural predators. I second ken’s argument that humans prey on their own… and themselves (where else do you see self-destructive habits like those of humans or suicide?). Not only that, but one of the biggest threats to humans is the physically smallest predator. People are terrified of germs, and there is good sense in a healthy degree of caution. All around the world people are dying of parasites and bacterias and viruses. Despite the popular idea that man is the dominant force on earth, leaving a trail of destruction through all other life forms, in reality we’re just as vulnerable as any other, and we know it.
EGV, if you write one more post with which I agree, I’ll need to see my vision specialist to double-check my laptop-screen reading ability, or my general practitioner to see if I’m hallucinating! This is uncanny…
Ken love the jokes!
Doug
An example of allowing people to reach there full potential is not limiting the amount that farmers produce. It’s instead of investing in killing people (preborn) you invest in education and things that allow people to reach their full potential. If you don’t think that my argument is contrary to Joans than I suggest you google the same terms I asked her to google. I’m very sorry if your not able to see the potential that lies within the human spirit. That your unable to see the extreme progress that has been made throughout time. But those are real facts something you should be happy about. Real facts though are not very flattering to an individuals ego because often they require us to look outside of ourselves. Time has proven Malthus wrong. Just as time will prove the present population alarmists wrong.
Let’s have some fun.
Could we take the 6 billion people on the planet and fit them all into the State of Texas?
Texas has a land mass of 268,580 square miles. That translates into 7,487,580,672,000 square feet {27,878,400 square feet per square mile x 268,580 square miles}
Now divide the square feet of Texas by 6,000,000,000 people and we get 1,247.9 square feet of Texas per person alive today.
Now, if a family of five were to live together, that would mean they would have 6,239.7 square feet of space for their homestead. That’s a little more than a 60′ x 100′ lot.
That means that every person in the world would fit into the state of Texas, leaving the entire rest of the planet’s surface uninhabited, if that offers a perspective.
If Texas would be a little snug, then Alaska has 663,267 square miles, translating into a more spacious 3,081 square feet per person, if you don’t mind the cold.
Gerard, another good one is fitting everybody into Jacksonville, Florida. (The whole of Duval Country is the city, so it’s got an unusual advantage, there.) I forget – it’s something like everybody ends up with 6 square feet.
Although – there’s a lot of water and waterways involved, so some get wet.
Hey Doug,
Depending on the location, I’ll take 6 sq ft of waterfront!
I would venture anyone who thinks the world is too crowded has likely lived a narrow life experience driving in rush hour traffic on the Atlantic coast or in California and never traveled through “Flyover Country”. I challenge anyone to spend just one winter in the beauty of western North Dakota and think overpopulation is a problem.
Dr. Nadal
Thanks for the facts! I think you mentioned that you and your wife have a son with autism. I read something the other day that might be of interest to you both. They’ve been using piano therapy for individuals with autism and have found that it helps. Hope this helps.
An example of allowing people to reach there full potential is not limiting the amount that farmers produce.
Myrtle, that is a good point. Agreed on it, and in the end subsidies, etc. – things that are aimed at “higher prices” – are one place we can consciously/politically choose differently.
____
If you don’t think that my argument is contrary to Joans than I suggest you google the same terms I asked her to google.
“demographic transition and population equilibrium” – those don’t mean that Joan is wrong. I fully agree that such things operate, but the things Joan described can happen before them, or at the same time. I think it would be well before we reached population equilibrium (caused by disease, resource supply, etc., things somewhat “external” to us) that we’d get a real internal feeling of “too many people.”
____
I’m very sorry if you’re not able to see the potential that lies within the human spirit.
Well, that’s pretty philosophical, Myrtle. I see the potential, and it’s for movement in directions that we’d say were “bad” as well as “good.” In the meantime, there is each person’s situation on earth, and at some point population pressure would have most people saying, “this is no good.” I don’t know where that point is, and I’m not even saying we are going to get to it – in part because I think what Joan said is true – that there will be more war, reduction of living standards, etc. That may serve to restrain population, itself.
____
That you’re unable to see the extreme progress that has been made throughout time. But those are real facts something you should be happy about. Real facts though are not very flattering to an individuals ego because often they require us to look outside of ourselves.
I see the progress and am generally happy about it. I don’t want to “go back” 50 years or 100 or 1000. The real facts are that population pressure does operate and that there will be a finite amount of resources, and that it makes a huge difference how people live and feel.
____
Time has proven Malthus wrong. Just as time will prove the present population alarmists wrong.
Well, we certainly don’t see that people are correct if they’re now saying, “We have too many on earth – we’re screwed!” In the future, who knows, though?
If Malthus said anything like, “we’ll all be starving by 1850,” then it would be certainly wrong. Doesn’t mean his principle was incorrect, though. He was basically saying that population can’t grow forever – that something will happen to prevent that. Be it war, famine, the earth’s not-unlimited ability to provide us with things – all of which Malthus talked about – “something’s gotta give.”
If there is a problem with “population alarmists,” I think that it’s because we can’t know if they’re right until the situation is very bad indeed.
Myrtle,
Thanks for this. Regina and I will check it out!
Another thought. If all of the population alarmists, those who push for third-world contraception and abortion, those opposed to DDT, etc were to end their own lives (as opposed to pushing death on others) would the sudden loss of these people ease the planet’s “overcrowding” substantially? If so, then they are morally bound by their own ideology to lead by example.
On the other hand, if their loss wouldn’t impact the world’s population much at all, then what we have is a self-appointed, imperious, elitist class prescribing death for the masses. Being the minority, they have been heard, and we now turn to the more humane adults (majority) among us and leave the little tyrants to their sandbox.
So which is it?
Eric: I would venture anyone who thinks the world is too crowded has likely lived a narrow life experience driving in rush hour traffic on the Atlantic coast or in California and never traveled through “Flyover Country”. I challenge anyone to spend just one winter in the beauty of western North Dakota and think overpopulation is a problem.
On the basis of raw space, I agree. If we divide the land area of the earth by the population, it works out that we average almost 1/100 of a square mile each, about 231,000 square feet per person as I figure it.
Gerard is sitting back on his nice waterfront property, but remember – there’s some poor bugger up on the top of Mount Everest….
It’s not a matter of how much space we have, or what we can “fit” in, though. Again, how do we define “overpopulation”? Personally, I think it’s the point at which most people think, “There are too many of us.”
Dr. Nadal
Never was to big on sandboxes so I would suggest they play games like Red Rover Red Rover or hide and seek or something that will help them to expend energy in a way that is good for them and in the process of inclusion with peers who have the capacity to chill a little maybe they will learn that the world is a much better place than they would have ever thought possible. And in doing so the elitists can see the beauty of others and others can see the beauty of the elitists and when one group tries to contain the other, hopefully, they will remember a time when they not only got along but actually enjoyed each others company. I think the real key for any hard core population elitists is to give them strategies that will help them to cope with whatever it is about people that they have trouble handling, strategies that don’t include death.
Tried to post a comment about this on the post from yesterday, but I think comments were disabled on there…
The Overpopulation Myth has been around for over a century now, beginning with Malthus in his Essay on the Principle of Population, which predicted mass famine across the globe to occur by 1890. When that didn’t happen, Paul Ehrlich predicted the same thing in his book The Population Bomb. The myth of overpopulation and limiting resources for the world population was completely debunked famously by Julian Simon (what was termed the “Simon-Ehrlich Wager”).
The fact is, it makes sense to us that there are a finite amount of resources, but we are increasing in population. Doesn’t that mean that at some point there will be not enough resources to sustain the population if we keep increasing? The problem with that assumption is that it is completely wrong on both assumptions – that is to say, it is not correct that (1) we have a finite amount of resources, (2) food problems are due to overpopulation, and (3) population is ever-increasing.
Resources are not finite. Let’s use food as an example, since it is a basic need for everyone. We produce more food on the same land now than we did before, and yield per hectare is increasing all the time. Additionally, we have more land now to use for food than we had before – that includes when you take into account deforestation, pollution, losing land to development, etc. Technology has allowed us to use land that was “unsuitable” in the past for farms and food of other sources. All the information we have available indicates that food as a resources is always growing.
Overpopulation does NOT cause us to be poor or hungry. Again, I’ll stick with food here for simplicity. The data from the WFP and FAO both indicate that we have plenty of food to sustain our current population. The problem really is with how we are distributing (or not) those resources. Limiting the population will do nothing to therefore stop famine or hunger or keep people from being poor in some “magical” way. Decreasing population will not change how resources are distributed.
Population is not necessarily increasing everywhere. Finally, population is not necessarily increasing everywhere. Japan is a classic example of a country where not enough children are being born to replace the previous generation. The best estimate based on facts is that an average of 2.1 children per household/couple is needed in a developed nation (that number grows to above 3 in developing nations) to replace the previous generation. Japan is somewhere less than 1.5 and actually NEEDS more population!
Bottom line: this is a myth. I’m really just adding to Dr. Nadal’s post there. If you want further information, a good site to check out is found here, with a lot of videos on the topic. It is simply not possible to support the conclusion that we are leading toward overpopulation other than… population is increasing. You need a lot more to prove “overpopulation” is occurring.
Gerard, I don’t think there are really that many people who truly push for third-world contraception and abortion on the basis of thinking “there are too many people,” or “there are too many of them.”
if their loss wouldn’t impact the world’s population much at all, then what we have is a self-appointed, imperious, elitist class prescribing death for the masses. Being the minority, they have been heard, and we now turn to the more humane adults (majority) among us and leave the little tyrants to their sandbox.
There are some, indeed, who really want all the “thems”/Muslims/Jews/Christians/Democrats/Republicans/people-who-put-anchovies-on-pizza, to die. They are certainly in a minority, a very small minority, I think.
I don’t agree on forcing women in China to have abortions, and I don’t agree with somebody saying, “There are too many people in Africa….”
As far as being “elitist,” though, it’s easy to miss our own tendencies, often. I take it that most of us posting at Jill’s site are fairly clean and cared-for, fully-fed, and probably have it vastly better than most of the world’s population.
The US, with less than 4.5% of the world’s population, was using 25% of world resources, and 40% of world energy, last I saw. It’s easy to think, “Hey, things aren’t bad at all….” Yet not everybody on earth could have it nearly so well as us.
If all people on earth were using energy like we do, there would have to be an 89% population reduction. Or, if we were using energy like the average person on earth outside the US, we would have to make do with 93% less. At what point do we start thinking there’s not enough for each person?
I was going to directly answer the unfounded criticism regarding “death panels” and massive rationing that would occur under the health care reform that has been passed – but I figure at this time, if somebody is still clueless that they are using the term “death panel”, and so clueless to think rationing hasn’t been happening for YEARS…then they are beyond reasonable debate. I can’t just leave all the statements though without showing the alternative, so here I go…
Hello…this is EX-GOP, playing the part of Gerard Nadal in the crazy form of his post at 2:27PM.
My compassionate friends who lean to the left, seriously, go get a cup of coffee right now. Have a little tofu and relax. This isn’t for you.
For those on the right, let me say that you have EXACTLY the party you are looking for if you are hoping to weed the population of undesirables!
Gone are those pesky days of “compassionate conservatism”, those days where we had to act like conservatives while still pretending to care about people. Now, we can claim we don’t have money and cut everything we want!
Health care rationing? You got it! If we get in charge, we’ll get rid of Medicare! And the fun thing is, we also want to get rid of regulation regarding plans, so we can leave the care of the elderly in the hands of those altruistic insurance companies. Gone will be the day when so much money is spent on the last years of life of a person! With a little fine print and quarterly profits to show, you can bet your rich behind that we’ll make sure those denied claims get out!
What, you think Medicaid will be around to pick up the slack? NO WAY! It is beautiful – give the money to states in block grants and send them on their way! Now the beauty is, handled by the federal government, Medicaid can run a deficit. It is an entitlement program that anybody meeting eligibility for (and keep in mind, there’s a lot of elderly and folks with special needs) gets automatic benefits for. States though have to balance their budget, so you can be sure that benefits will roll back, less people will qualify, and copays will rise. And when more people need it (economic downturns), states will have less money to fund it – causing quick roll-offs of people!
Yes, under the care of a GOP regime, the elderly and those with special needs will certainly get the terrible end of the stick. But hey, the rich should be entitled to that third yacht if they would like! And quite frankly, if those old people and those with special needs wanted good insurance, they would WORK HARDER! Follow the American dream!
Again, thanks for reading –
EX-GOP Gerard Nadal.
“Never was to big on sandboxes so I would suggest they play games like Red Rover”
Yes, sandboxes can be bad. Especially if you have cats.
Ex-GOP: Personally, I would find it dumb for somebody to say “we’re not having kids because the population is too crowded in the earth”. I think it is fine to say “we’re not having more kids because economically, we can’t swing it”.
Right on.
Ex-GOP,
The sarcasm works better when you list historical, scientific and medical facts as I have. It starts to fall apart when you start the shop-worn, “let’s scare the snot out of old folks” routine. Dems have been at it for years, ignoring the fact that the GOP has grown entitlement programs the whole time.
Really, if you want to ape me, you need to get some better material. Nice try, though.
Ex-GOP: “death panels”
:) One of the all-time greats. From the text of the bill: “The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary’s need for pain and symptom management, including the individual’s need for hospice care; counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.”
Now, is that really so bad? Counseling for care and end-of-life issues is necessarily some great “evil”?
Oh yeah – that text I quoted is from the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the one that passed with the votes of 42 Republican Senators and 204 Republican House members.
Doug:
“The US, with less than 4.5% of the world’s population, was using 25% of world resources, and 40% of world energy, last I saw. It’s easy to think, “Hey, things aren’t bad at all….” Yet not everybody on earth could have it nearly so well as us.”
The problem with these numbers is that they don’t take into account how much of that resource consumption is actually not for us. We feed a good part of the world with the food grown here. We supply wildly discounted pharmaceuticals to the third world by those companies that are manufacturing here. We give billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid annually from the money raised by this economy, and on…..
That gets conveniently overlooked when people look at the engine of the American economy and begin to complain about how much it takes to run that engine. All of our contributions need to be deducted from that total resource consumption.
The world has been crowded around our dinner table for decades, gorging themselves and then b*tching about how many groceries we buy and how much food we cook. Let’s get real.
Gerard, I don’t think there are really that many people who truly push for third-world contraception and abortion on the basis of thinking “there are too many people,” or “there are too many of them.”
The general population isn’t necessarily full of these people, but as for those in power? Think again. Not only that, but look at UNFPA and IPPF for starters.
An interesting note – this week a friend emailed me about a display at our local kids’ museum that has a bunch of dolls shoved into a display case with a sign on the front that talks about overpopulation, and I had seen this before and been pretty hacked off about it…
but the website they quote on the sign was atrocious. I checked it out yesterday and it is chock full of lovely, pro-abortion (yes, PRO-ABORTION, not pro-choice) articles on how God is A-OK with abortion and it’s great to curb overpopulation. This is a website quoted in a CHILDREN’S museum. Good grief.
My friend and I plan to contact the museum to see if they’re willing to display a more balanced viewpoint, and to certainly remove that website from their display, which is totally inappropriate for kids. it’s called indoctrination, folks, and it’s happening, whether you think so or not.
Gerard – ha, yes, when I think of you, “reason” and “fact” are the first things that fly into my mind!
EGV,
That’s why I provide links. Try it.
Your DDT article and a population aging table? Oh yes, that is all the links that you need in support of your theories.
Would you like some links on Ryan’s plan on Medicare and Medicaid? Is that what you are hoping for? Or are you over 55 so you don’t give a hoot about the consequences (shouldn’t that be our first sign? Hey seniors, this plan is SOOO good that we’re going to wait a decade before throwing it in because if anybody looked under the covers of this mess of a plan, I’d be shipped to a rocket and sent into orbit!)
Kel, what museum is this? I think we should all get in contact with them.
If I had a nickel for every pro-legal-abortion teenaged to mid-20-something kid I talked to on twitter/youtube/etc. who lived in a city and swallowed “overpopulation” nonsense/garbage hook, line, and sinker I wouldn’t have to go to work on Monday. This disturbs me.
Hey, EGV,
The links should stimulate people to dig deeper. I’m not writing a dissertation. Remember, it’s a blog.
The world has been crowded around our dinner table for decades, gorging themselves and then b*tching about how many groceries we buy and how much food we cook. Let’s get real.
Love this quote. Bravo, Doctor!
Wow. Glad I don’t have to wring my hands and lie worried in my bed at night. I didn’t create the Earth and I don’t create people. I can’t make my heart keep beating by focusing or worrying about it and I certainly don’t have to worry about too many people on this earth.
Psalms 24:1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell within.
For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
The earth existed long before I came along and will exist long after I am dead. God is the Creator of this world and all the people in it. He has it under control and doesn’t need Planned Parenthood and the 0 population folk’s help or advice.
:) Thanks, EGV… you’re back to normal. I was seriously expecting Rod Serling to step out from behind a bush, and say: “For your consideration: a liberal, Obama-supporting proponent of moral equivalence finds himself strangely altered… trapped within a mind not his own, forced to make what seem to him strange and bizarre statements, fully in alignment with the main beliefs of an erstwhile pro-lifer pseudo-named ‘Paladin’, who remains agog at this twist of cosmic happenstance… the twists and turns in the highway leading through… THE TWILIGHT ZONE.” [cue music]
Obamacare death panel – 15 unelected bureaucratic appointees who decide wether a citizen deserves expensive end-of-life medical treatments. An Independent Payment Advisory Board that tells doctors no, just give them pain meds instead.
“Gerard, I don’t think there are really that many people who truly push for third-world contraception and abortion on the basis of thinking “there are too many people,” or “there are too many of them.”
Kel: The general population isn’t necessarily full of these people, but as for those in power? Think again. Not only that, but look at UNFPA and IPPF for starters.
Kel, do you really think they are motivated by feelings that “there are too many people.”
EGV,
A taste of things to come:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/oregon_health_plan_covers_assisted_suicide_not_drugs_for_cancer_patient/
“The US, with less than 4.5% of the world’s population, was using 25% of world resources, and 40% of world energy, last I saw. It’s easy to think, “Hey, things aren’t bad at all….” Yet not everybody on earth could have it nearly so well as us.”
The problem with these numbers is that they don’t take into account how much of that resource consumption is actually not for us. We feed a good part of the world with the food grown here. We supply wildly discounted pharmaceuticals to the third world by those companies that are manufacturing here. We give billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid annually from the money raised by this economy, and on…..
That gets conveniently overlooked when people look at the engine of the American economy and begin to complain about how much it takes to run that engine. All of our contributions need to be deducted from that total resource consumption.
The world has been crowded around our dinner table for decades, gorging themselves and then b*tching about how many groceries we buy and how much food we cook. Let’s get real.
Gerard, valid points, but I wasn’t complaining nor talking about others complaining. My point is that US-style resource consumption is not possible for most of the world, even taking into account the stuff we send them.
Again, how do we define “overpopulation”? I think one good way is to say it will be at the point at where most of us *are* complaining. I’m fine with what is pretty much a free-market system, and in no way do I say that “we use too much stuff in the US.”
The cost of it is really going to go up, though. Now we’ve got billions of people in China, India, Brazil, the Russian Republics, etc., who are finally entering “the middle class” and they want roads, cars, washing machines, meat, etc. The competition for raw materials is changing drastically, and fast. This is right now, without considering a couple more billion people being added to the population in the next few decades.
Not saying “the end of the world is here,” but I do think we are headed for declines in our standard of living, whereas we’re used to it not only not going down, but going up.
Doug,
I think recycling is going to be THE industry moving forward. We don’t need to keep up the pace of mining raw materials if we pick up the pace on recycling.
I think it’s possible for the rest of the world to come up in their standard of living without negatively impacting the planet. The key is innovation and resourcefulness, free-market investment in science and technology. It isn’t in the mean and grubby resorting to abortion and forced contraception/sterilization, as some would have.
We look at the future and only imagine it’s realities with today’s technologies. Looking backward, we see how misleading such a vision is. As a scientist, I’m an eternal optimist. There are technologies that we haven’t even dreamed of yet, which will beget other technologies, which will beget still more, which will attenuate the concerns about a larger population.
Look back at the Wright Brothers’ first airplane and fast-forward to the Concorde Jet. How many generations of inventions and new technologies came about to span that divide?
The future will be as good as our regard for human nature, because invention requires that optimism for its funding and development.
Chemdork, nice post. Fully agreed – Malthus was wrong about mass famine by 1890.
Resources are not finite. Let’s use food as an example, since it is a basic need for everyone. We produce more food on the same land now than we did before, and yield per hectare is increasing all the time. Additionally, we have more land now to use for food than we had before – that includes when you take into account deforestation, pollution, losing land to development, etc. Technology has allowed us to use land that was “unsuitable” in the past for farms and food of other sources. All the information we have available indicates that food as a resources is always growing.
Well, resources are obviously not infinite. Yes, better technology can increase yields, but there will still be a finite amount of food made each year. One big problem we do have is energy costs. If we always had plenty of cheap energy, we could push against the technological limits to no end. That’s not the case, though. Energy affects just about everything, and when “X and Y” get expensive enough that we can’t afford enough of them, or afford them at all, then people’s perceptions change.
____
The problem really is with how we are distributing (or not) those resources. Limiting the population will do nothing to therefore stop famine or hunger or keep people from being poor in some “magical” way.
True – it’s a political/distribution thing. At the present time, anyway, everybody on earth could be fed.
____
Decreasing population will not change how resources are distributed.
This I really have to disagree with. Hey, if there were almost nobody on the other continents, the US could get 99% of the world’s oil, and it would be a lot cheaper here too.
Gerard, fully agreed that recycling is big and getting bigger. Some things we do pretty well on – lead automobile batteries in the US, for example, 99%+ are recycled. Overall, though, the US only re-uses about 1/3 of its trash. Will the world recycle enough to actually reduce the pace of mining, etc.? It’s at least a question, especially since there are more and more people all the time.
I think it’s possible for the rest of the world to come up in their standard of living without negatively impacting the planet. The key is innovation and resourcefulness, free-market investment in science and technology. It isn’t in the mean and grubby resorting to abortion and forced contraception/sterilization, as some would have.
I guess it’s still pretty much an academic argument over how much we’ve already hurt the planet, eh? We can argue about how bad the damage is, but there are demonstrable effects on the land, water and air now. As long as we don’t reach some “tipping point” where things really do get catastrophic, I don’t see it factoring into the “overpopulation or not” debate in a big way.
As for science and technology, if we had unlimited energy, especially non-polluting energy, the equation would be much altered to the good. In the real world, we do live in “interesting times,” I think. The difference in $1 and $4 fuel is enormous. If it were to go to $16, some people would be crushed by it. The supply and demand demographics have already provided for some such increases, and if anything I think it’s standard-of-living issues that will give rise to widespread feelings of “overpopulation.”
____
We look at the future and only imagine it’s realities with today’s technologies. Looking backward, we see how misleading such a vision is. As a scientist, I’m an eternal optimist. There are technologies that we haven’t even dreamed of yet, which will beget other technologies, which will beget still more, which will attenuate the concerns about a larger population.
Perhaps. And perhaps, since in large measure it’s human nature to have to learn the hard way, we’ll mess up things enough that it won’t even really be a matter of debate anymore. I admit I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does.
___
Look back at the Wright Brothers’ first airplane and fast-forward to the Concorde Jet. How many generations of inventions and new technologies came about to span that divide?
A lot, indeed.
The future will be as good as our regard for human nature, because invention requires that optimism for its funding and development.
That sounds pretty good, but will it work out that way? Things were more open-ended in the past, while now the realities of resource production and consumption are starting to hit home, and perhaps one day that will apply to pollution as well.
I don’t think we will have an environmental tipping point in the next few decades that will alter people’s perceptions fast. I think that resource issues – fuel, water, etc., and a declining standard of living might do it.
Um, excuse me, but since we have the whole universe to spread out in, resources ARE actually infinite.
Unless you believe in a flat universe where if we sail too far we’ll fall over the edge? ‘Cuz that myth was busted years ago.
ninek,
I believe that’s the meaning of life. This life is “boot camp”. We were “made a little lower than the angels”. “Even now we do not see all things under us” “But we shall see all things (everthing - the universe) under us”.
That’s the closest I can remember off the top of my head. I’ve never bought into the “strumming on harps in the clouds” view of the afterlife. I believe we’re eventually to “go forth and multiply” in the universe as we did on Earth.
It’s not about “space”- it’s about dying of our own waste. We make waste and there is nowhere for it to go.
Furthermore, we kill our self-sustaining natural resources so we could run out of air, water and fuel.
More people does = more waste and more strain on resources, but the bottom line is that our existing population will kill our resources and pollute. More people is fine if we learn how to live in a manner that protects the Earth.
Doug, are you asking if I believe that the UNFPA and the IPPF, specifically, are motivated for those reasons?
I think if we just stop and realize how quickly technology advances its easy to envision that when companies decide to start creating products that are earth friendly it will happen. And because of the rate at which new ideas are understood and built upon there will probably be a lot of good changes happening in a short amount of time.
Gerard – I hear you (on the Oregon article) – you put it in the hands of the states like Rick Perry want to do, like most of the GOP want to do, and that’s what you’ll get. Again, as I said earlier, when it is at the federal level, they can run deficits, whatever. At the state level, it becomes more of a financial decision. And this was a $48K a year drug to prolong life (in which she ended up on the drug, and lived one year).
Thanks for posting – I agree – it is a danger of putting more heath care decisions in the hands of the states. From another article on the subject:
“In 1994 Barbara’s state established the Oregon Health Plan to give its working poor access to basic healthcare while limiting costs by “prioritizing care.” In 1997 Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide to offer “death with dignity” to patients who chose to die without further medical treatment. In the end, the State secured the power to ration healthcare in order to control its financial risk, even if that meant replacing a patient’s chance to live with the choice of how to die. ”
http://www.physiciansforreform.org/index.php?id=30
truth – rather than just slash apart what you wrote on the IPAB, I think I’ll take a different approach.
You said “15 unelected bureaucratic appointees who decide wether a citizen deserves expensive end-of-life medical treatments.”
You specifically say a citizen, which I take to mean they are making choices on individual cases. Is that correct? What will be sent to the group – an application? A case file? Will the citizen go and talk directly with the board?
Thanks,
Doug,
Hm… okay, you make a good point here:
“Decreasing population will not change how resources are distributed.
This I really have to disagree with. Hey, if there were almost nobody on the other continents, the US could get 99% of the world’s oil, and it would be a lot cheaper here too.”
I guess I should revise that point to say that decreasing population will not result in allowing those without resources to now be able to obtain them. In fact, as you allude to, the opposite may actually occur instead. If you are having trouble feeding your family now, then when the family next door vacates their home, it does not mean that now there is more for you. :)
I don’t think we will ever have a problem with over population. I don’t believe we have this problem now, especially when you look at the vast areas of Russia, Canada and Europe that remain empty. These places are not uninhabitable.
Problems exist with the industrialized Western countries consuming inordinate amounts of resources while leaving areas like the African continent to wallow in poverty.
Many places where the population is currently starving also suffer from entrenched corruption and greed and have also experienced prolonged conflict. Wars impoverish countries. These countries are unable to produce food, goods to trade nor educate their citizens. It becomes a vicious cycle.
Another factor in rising food prices is the diversion of some foodstuffs into the energy sector. Corn, a major food staple in North America is increasingly being grown to produce ethanol.
I certainly agree with Dr. Nadal about DDT. My father was sprayed repeatedly with DDT during the Second World War. He’s 91 and doesn’t have cancer. He also smoked for 50 years. :)
The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.
Psalm 24:1
Deut 7:22 And the Lord your God will clear out those nations before you, little by little; you may not consume them quickly, lest the beasts of the field increase among you. AMP
The implication, which is stated clearly in some of the other translations, is the ‘ beasts of the field’ will become so numerous they will be a danger to humans.
Deut 8:18 But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get [6213, ásah] wealth [2428, chayil] that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. AMP
The Hebrew word `asah which is tranlated ‘get’ is defined and used these ways in the old testament:ásah,6213 to do or make, in the broadest sense and widest application (as follows): KJV – accomplish, advance, appoint, apt, be at, become, bear, bestow, bring forth, bruise, be busy, certainly, have the charge of, commit, deal (with), deck, displease, do, (ready) dress (-ed), (put in) execute (-ion), exercise, fashion, feast, [fighting-] man, finish, fit, fly, follow, fulfill, furnish, gather, get, go about, govern, grant, great, hinder, hold ([a feast]), indeed, be industrious, journey, keep, labour, maintain, make, be meet, observe, be occupied, offer, officer, pare, bring (come) to pass, perform, pracise, prepare, procure, provide, put, requite, sacrifice, serve, set, shew, sin, spend, surely, take, thoroughly, trim, very, vex, be [warr-] ior, work (-man), yield, use.
The Hebrew word chayil which is translated ‘wealth’ is defineda as: 2428, chayil probably a force, whether of men, means or other resources; an army, wealth, virtue, valor, strength: KJV – able, activity, (+)army, band of men (soldiers), company, (great) forces, goods, host, might, power, riches, strength, strong, substance, train, (+)valiant (-ly), valour, virtuous (-ly), war, worthy (-ily).
The acquiring of wealth is not exclusively the accumualtion of material things. It also includes love, peace, health, friendship. Included in the definition of wealth is the abiltiy to protect and increase it.
The humanist see every thing in finite terms. There is only so much land and only so much of that land is arable.
The dynamics of the ‘free market’ seems to frighten them because they do not understand it and they cannot control it any more than they can control the weather, so in their desperation, their machinations destroy it.
Capitalism comes ‘naturally’ to humans.
Socialism must be inculcated and re-inforced from generation to generation. [Thus the need to keep folk on the liberal plantation.]
Recently a formerly unknown tribe was discovered in the amazon rain forest in Brazil. If you could go there you would find them practising ‘capitalism’. They would be manufacturing tools and weapons and means of transportation, utilizing the resources available. There would be bartering and exchanging of food and materials.
Any semblance of socialism would be limited to the nuclear family, with the father and the mother providing for and training their children to be productive and self sustaining members of the tribe with the expectation that sooner, rather than later, they would be able to provide for their own families when that day comes.
I am sure, when the need arose the individual members of the tribe would work together to solve a common problem that was too large for any of them to tackle alone, but when it was solved they would return to caring for their individual families.
If you polled the tribal members I doubt you would find a soiltary ‘huamanist’ among them. They would all testify to belief in someone or something larger than the realms of space and time. If you challenged them to provide a basis for their belief I am confident they would be able to give real life examples of a superintending providence intervening to assist or protect them.
Rom 1:19-20 19 For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them. 20 For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], [Ps 19:1-4.] AMP
As the dynamics of the marketplace change, land which was previoulsy not economically feasable for agriculture will be acquired by men and women who see a probability of making a profit and who have the wealth to invest in new technologies to make it happen.
As the dynamics of the marketplance change, known energy resources which were not previously economically feasible to exploit will be developed and new technologies will be developed to discover new reserves and the natural processes which produce crude oil will continue to do so.
Someday the cost of a barrel of crude oil will rise so high another type of energy which was not economically feasable now will be to some enterprising entrepreneurs.
We will discover ways to produce water from the oceans and as a bi-product of energy production.
“I certainly agree with Dr. Nadal about DDT. My father was sprayed repeatedly with DDT during the Second World War. He’s 91 and doesn’t have cancer. He also smoked for 50 years.”
If you exerecise and eat right it does not guarantee that you will live longer.
It will only ensure that you die healthier.
Cause sooner or later, if you live long enough, something will kill you.
A doom and gloom prophet is arrested for being a public nuisance.
His message. ‘Repent, the world will end at 5pm.’
At 5:01pm the arresting officer shows the prophet his wristwatch and challenges him, ‘What do you say now?’
The prophet replies, ‘God answers prayers.’
You specifically say a citizen, which I take to mean they are making choices on individual cases. Is that correct? What will be sent to the group – an application? A case file? Will the citizen go and talk directly with the board?
Ex-RINO, The over 2000 pages of the Obamacare mandate, though colossal, only begins to touch on how it will effect us. The framework you are asking me to define has yet to be made into law because it is still being written behind closed doors by our department of Health and Human Services. But they seem to be basing it on the UK system which means that the individual will be completely insulated from their decisions and the board will be dealing directly with health exchange plan administrators instead. Basically, the rules for Obamacare are still being written by bureaucrats without even any congressional input/oversight. Does that answer your question?
Doug says: August 20, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Ken: I suggest we set those ‘other planets’ aside to be settled by the folks who think this one is already too crowded.
But they only get a one way ticket.
Geez…. what a grouch.
==================================================================
Doug,
If this space time realm is all there is.
If the end for humans is the same as a single celled amoeba.
If the earth is already overpopulated by BILLIONS of humans.
If there are humans who believe homicide is an acceptable, even desirable, method to de-populate the planet, then what is ‘grouchy’ about offering them a planet of their own on which to conduct their social experimentations?
Or
Instead of having to wait for transportation, they could dig a hole and jump in it and recycle themselves.
These ‘more than equals’ really should set an example and practice the gospel they preach with an evangelistic zeal by putting their bodies where their mouths are.
If all the humans on the plant can fit in one county in Florida, then the hole would not have to be that big.
But I will concede you are right on one thing.
I am a grouch.
That is also a reason why the Obama administration should get the challenges to the law to the SCOTUS for review ASAP. American people and businesses are spending billions of dollars trying to comply with health care mandates that a federal circuit court has deemed to be unconstitutional. The last thing our economy needs is this kind of waste and uncertainty.
Nope, the human population is self limiting, same as the rest of the animals.
The population controllers trust “mother nature” for controlling the rest of the animals, but not for humans.
People can regulate themselves with respect to reproductive output. The trouble is that the government steps in and pays them to do unnatural things. The governments also keep changing their minds as to what they want to pay for. How about they just get out of the funding and regulatory game altogether?
truth – no, it doesn’t answer my question. You stated quite factually “15 unelected bureaucratic appointees who decide wether a citizen deserves expensive end-of-life medical treatments.”
That is a pretty direct statement to make. I need some links – I need some information. You can’t say in one breath that 15 people are making individual decision on individual lives, and then in the next breath, say that the legislation isn’t even in place. One of your breaths would be lying. So which one is it?
Also, the President doesn’t pick the SCOTUS cases – they pick them, and they said early on they were going to let it play through the courts. Billions aren’t being spent, and we should be thankful that people with pre-existing conditions, for the first time, are not being denied coverage. Why are you so excited to kick them out of having insurance?
Pharmer – I agree with you – get government out of regulations!
I mean, which one do you want to get rid of first? Those pesky laws that says kids can’t go work in factories after school. I mean, 7 year old kids have the perfect size arms to reach into tiny holes in the machinery!
Or maybe we should let people and corporations (same thing if you ask Mitt Romney) dump whatever they want in the drinking water – that would be fabulous!
Ninek: Um, excuse me, but since we have the whole universe to spread out in, resources ARE actually infinite.
I guess you can say that, from one way of looking at it, but that’s just considering the “mass” that is extant. There is also the matter of how much energy it takes to get it, and when we look at getting away from the earth’s gravity, the equation is punitive.
If we went into it wholesale, efficiencies would improve. Still, the average cost of launching a Space Shuttle was about $500,000,000.00 and if we just look at the “energy cost,” it would be roughly $90,000.00. Now how in the world is it ever going to really make economic sense to go “out there”?
Additionally, and especially for any “conservatives” out there, the US gov’t is bankrupt, now, by any reasonable accounting. Who would pay for such things?
Doug, are you asking if I believe that the UNFPA and the IPPF, specifically, are motivated for those reasons?
Kel, yeah, and what, if anything, have you seem to make you think that? Do they really appear to be motivated by a feeling that “there are too many of them,” etc.?
I guess I should revise that point to say that decreasing population will not result in allowing those without resources to now be able to obtain them. In fact, as you allude to, the opposite may actually occur instead. If you are having trouble feeding your family now, then when the family next door vacates their home, it does not mean that now there is more for you.
Chemdork, if nothing else, it would matter what we’re talking about. I still don’t agree with you, especially on something like crude oil. That’s why I said, “if there were almost nobody on the other continents, the US could get 99% of the world’s oil, and it would be a lot cheaper here too.”
What we have now is incredibly-increased oil consumption in China, India, etc., over the past few years. Take those populations out of the equation, and there would be a huge over-supply of oil, for what the US uses, what North America uses, etc.
Have a relative few people on the other continents to operate the oil production and transportation facilities. That process consumes some energy, thus my saying the US would get 99% (rather than 100%) of the oil.
Angel: I don’t think we will ever have a problem with over population.
And until you do think that, then the earth won’t be “overpopulated” for you. I suggest that things are at work, now, that may change your opinion and/or that of many other people in just a few decades.
If this space time realm is all there is.
If the end for humans is the same as a single celled amoeba.
If the earth is already overpopulated by BILLIONS of humans.
If there are humans who believe homicide is an acceptable, even desirable, method to de-populate the planet, then what is ‘grouchy’ about offering them a planet of their own on which to conduct their social experimentations?
Ken, glad to see your response held humor in it. However, who do you really see saying the earth is now overpopulated by billions of humans?
Doug,
It is not just the lunatic fringe of the eviromentals wackos and psuedo ontellectuals who believe in this chicken little sky is falling bovine scatulation. Paul Ehrlichmen ‘ The Population Bomb’ and ‘The Population Expolsion is an accademician who enjoys/enjoyed [He may have already assumed room temperature and been recycled.].
http://www.redwoodforests.info/overpopulation.html
Unfortunately, we have passed the point where reducing births can solve this problem. Like it or not, believe it or not, we are facing a rapid decline in the human population. The question is no longer “Will a major population reduction occur?” The question is “When and how will it happen?”
Do you recall hearing about the people who were trapped in the top floors on the World Trade Center in New York on the morning or September 11, 2001? They had to choose between two deadly alternatives — burn to death or jump off the building and die when they hit the ground. Collectively humans are facing a similar, but slightly better choice – Reduce the human population or outside conditions and circumstances will do it for us.
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/globalcommunity/overpopulatedplanet.htm
“The Global Community proposes a world population of 500 million. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million. To achieve our goal will require from each and every one of us a stand on the rights and on belonging to the Global Community, the human family. If our population was to decrease as projected here then what other major global problems would be managed automatically?”
http://www.overpopulation.org/solutions.html
http://www.overpopulation.net/
http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/If-The-World-Was-Cosidered-Overpopulated-At-Three-Billion-What-Is-It-Now-Considered/498320
http://www.cosmosmith.com/human_population_crisis.htm
http://globalcommunitywebnet.com/globalcommunity/overpopulatedplanet.htm
Ex RINO, just look up Independent Payment Advisory Board. They are in charge of reducing costs by rationing care. I believe the framework for 15 members on this board is already in place but the rules on what they deem available to us is still being defined by HHS. In my research 15 is the only number I have come across for suggested members for this board. The libs have been so awestruck and enthralled by Obama that they don’t even see the repercussions of what they do. Do they realize that if Obamacare stayed law then each newly elected president could appoint different people to the IPAB and to HHS and the result would be an endless change to things that are covered or not covered by exchanges; with a panel of appointed bureaucrats having the final say. If your research is showing something other than a fifteen member panel then please link to it. But no worries yet, I am sure our benevolent leader will be granting waivers until at least after the election. I heard the Obamacare Medicare Advantage penalties(increased costs to seniors) were supposed to kick in in 2012 but Obama has already granted waivers on that till 2013 (after the election). The guy is scum.
Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation
America’s richest people meet to discuss ways of tackling a ‘disastrous’ environmental, social and industrial threat
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece
SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.
Stacy Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, said the summit was unprecedented. “We only learnt about it afterwards, by accident. Normally these people are happy to talk good causes, but this is different – maybe because they don’t want to be seen as a global cabal,” he said.
Taking their cue from Gates they agreed that overpopulation was a priority.
At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.
Ex-RINO, Obama has appointed Dr Berwick to head the IPAB. He is for using a formula that places a $$ value on annual life and uses those metrics to deny care. It won’t effect the wealthy though cause they can purchase better policies outside the exchanges or just pay their own medical bills when they need care.
Truthseeker,
Ex-RINO knows all about Dr. Berwick. Ex-RINO laughed at the notion of death panels because he believes that Berwick is going to review every case by himself. No panels necessary.
Medical Science Under Dictatorship
Author: Leo Alexander, M.D. (October 11, 1905 – July 20, 1985) medical investigator for Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and an aide to the chief counsel at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
Title: Medical Science Under Dictatorship
Larger Work: The New England Journal of Medicine
Pages: 39-47
Publisher & Date: Massachusetts Medical Society, July 14, 1949
Even before the Nazis took open charge in Germany, a propaganda barrage was directed against the traditional compassionate nineteenth-century attitudes toward the chronically ill, and for the adoption of a utilitarian, Hegelian point of view. Sterilization and euthanasia of persons with chronic mental illnesses was discussed at a meeting of Bavarian psychiatrists in 1931.[1] By 1936 extermination of the physically or socially unfit was so openly accepted that its practice was mentioned incidentally in an article published in an official German medical journal.[2]
Acceptance of this ideology was implanted even in the children. A widely used high school mathematics text, “Mathematics in the Service of National Political Education,”[3] includes problems stated in distorted terms of the cost of caring for and rehabilitating the chronically sick and crippled, the criminal and the insane.”
The first direct order for euthanasia was issued by Hitler on September 1, 1939, and an organization was set up to execute the program. Dr. Karl Brandt headed the medical section, and Phillip Bouhler the administrative section. All state institutions were required to report on patients who had been ill five years or more and who were unable to work, by filling out questionnaires giving name, race, marital status, nationality, next of kin, whether regularly visited and by whom, who bore financial responsibility and so forth. The decision regarding which patients should be killed was made entirely on the basis of this brief information by expert consultants, most of whom were professors of psychiatry in the key universities. These consultants never saw the patients themselves. The thoroughness of their scrutiny can be appraised by the work of on expert, who between November 14 and December 1, 1940, evaluated 2109 questionnaires. These questionnaires were collected by a “Realm’s Work Committee of Institutions for Cure and Care.”[4] A parallel organization devoted exclusively to the killing of children was known by the similarly euphemistic name of “Realm’s Committee for Scientific Approach to Severe Illness Due to Heredity and Constitution.” The “Charitable Transport Company for the Sick” transported patients to the killing centers, and the “Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care” was in charge of collecting the cost of the killings from the relatives, without, however, informing them what the charges were for; in the death certificates the cause of death was falsified.
======================================================
Okay truth – this is just getting ridiculous. The amount of false information you’ve put up is simply staggering:
– Nobody has been appointed to the IPAB at this point – it is a staggered appointment schedule that hasn’t begun
– They don’t review individual cases. I repeat, they don’t review individual cases
– The goal is to control Medicare costs. Right now, decisions on coverage are more in the hands of congress (you should research digital vs film mammograms). This would put more control for recommendations in the hands of medical experts. Would you rather have it in the hands of congress???
– Republicans complain that coverage decisions would be put in the hands of “unelected beaurocrats”, yet in voting to privatize medicare, all decisions would be put in the hands of insurance companies (whom, for the record, aren’t elected either).
– Before 2021, when Ryan would eliminate Medicare, he says there would be $389 billion in Medicare savings. So does he have an IPAB?
Gerard is right – I laughed at the notion of a panel where cases are brought before and they decide who lives and dies. It is an unfounded fear tactic.
The amount of false information you’ve put up is simply staggering:
Ex-RINO, you claim a ‘staggering’ amount ofmisinformation but only listed two points, both of which I respond to below.
– Nobody has been appointed to the IPAB at this point – it is a staggered appointment schedule that hasn’t begun
Ex-RINO, You had argued specifically with the number of appointees equaling 15. Any idea how many people will be on this staggered appointment schedule? Did you come across the number 15?
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– They don’t review individual cases. I repeat, they don’t review individual cases
Ex-RINO, I never said that citizens would have any individual hearings in front of the the IPAB. In fact, I said just the opposite. When I stated that the decisions of wether individual citizens get care or not would come down from the unelected bureaucratic HHS appointed IPAB board you went gaga and started talking about individual citizens getting hearings before the board. I said that according to the person Obama appointed to oversee Medicare/Medicaid rationing (Dr. Berwick) ”they seem to be basing it on the UK system which means that the individual will be completely insulated from their decisions and the board will be dealing directly with health exchange plan administrators instead.”
_________________
Ex-RINO, the rest of what you wrote does not seem to refer to any of the “staggering” amount of misinformation you say I gave you cause it is just you making comments and asking qustions.
– The goal is to control Medicare costs. Right now, decisions on coverage are more in the hands of congress (you should research digital vs film mammograms). This would put more control for recommendations in the hands of medical experts. Would you rather have it in the hands of congress???
– Republicans complain that coverage decisions would be put in the hands of “unelected beaurocrats”, yet in voting to privatize medicare, all decisions would be put in the hands of insurance companies (whom, for the record, aren’t elected either).
– Before 2021, when Ryan would eliminate Medicare, he says there would be $389 billion in Medicare savings. So does he have an IPAB?
These three above statements/questions do not appear to contain any references to any misinformation that I gave.
Now, to answer your new questions:
I’d rather have it in the hands of congress then in the hands of a board of unelected bureaucratic appointees and I am not sure specifically how Ryan’s plan saves the 389 billion dollars you are referring to. But I believe voting yes for Ryan’s plan would have kept our credit from being downgraded and likely boosted our economy into a recovery if we had passed it.
Truthseeker
What gives the federal government the right to be involved in health care to begin with? I thought according to the 10 amendment anything that they didn’t have a constitutional right to be involved in, should be handled by the states. I don’t believe in universal health care but I do believe all citizens who want health care coverage should have access to it. I think the way it should be handled is that the state should give private insurers who have a proven record of providing good consumer coverage the option to bid on state contracts to provide insurance for citizens of that particular state and their should be a cap on what consumers pay and the monthly premiums should be based on a sliding scale. And of course because the citizen is a consumer than the balance of power would be held by the individual and not the state, the insurer or the health care provider. So that health care would be just that health care. When the states award contracts they should also award contracts to more than one insurer so that the incentive would be to compete for the consumers business. It’s very simplistic but I think it would work so the state would not be controlling peoples health care but would instead be more of a vehicle for citizens to have access to quality health care. What are your thoughts?
I agree with you myrtle. The federal government should not be involved. If all the people who paid into Medicare/Medicaid could recoup their money with interest over the course of fifty years they would die not only with private health insurance but with millions of dollars. We are better off keeping the government as far away as possible. They stole our social security and medicaid contributions and used it to pay for worthless bureaucracies. Why would we want them to get even deeper into our lives?
“truth – no, it doesn’t answer my question. You stated quite factually “15 unelected bureaucratic appointees who decide wether a citizen deserves expensive end-of-life medical treatments.”
That is a pretty direct statement to make. I need some links – I need some information. You can’t say in one breath that 15 people are making individual decision on individual lives, and then in the next breath, say that the legislation isn’t even in place. One of your breaths would be lying. So which one is it?”
Ex-RINO, I found this bit of information for you. It is written by a current US senator and talks about the appointment of the “15” members of the IPAB board.
http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=3fe9e198-fe6c-4fb2-9777-88c69ff72356
Doug: Again, how do we define “overpopulation”? Personally, I think it’s the point at which most people think, “There are too many of us.”
Reiterating, I think “most people” ends up being the most vocal people with the loudest forums (ie the most media focus) the majority of whom live in large crowded cities.
Doug: It’s not a matter of how much space we have, or what we can “fit” in, though.
Well said — I agree that discussions like these need to include resources. However, as many commenters have stated above, the distribution of resources is the problem, not the amount of resources themselves.
Having worked with the World Food Programme (WFP) as a Civil-Military Cooperation officer in NATO, I am familiar with WFP, whose goals include not decreasing population but improving logistics. From the WFP site, “In purely quantitative terms, there is enough food available to feed the entire global population of 6.7 billion people.” http://www.wfp.org/hunger/causes
Unfortunately, we have passed the point where reducing births can solve this problem. Like it or not, believe it or not, we are facing a rapid decline in the human population. The question is no longer “Will a major population reduction occur?” The question is “When and how will it happen?”
Do you recall hearing about the people who were trapped in the top floors on the World Trade Center in New York on the morning or September 11, 2001? They had to choose between two deadly alternatives — burn to death or jump off the building and die when they hit the ground. Collectively humans are facing a similar, but slightly better choice – Reduce the human population or outside conditions and circumstances will do it for us.
Ken, I wonder how many people subscribe to that. I do think it is a question of “when,” as above, but that may be well into the future. Rather than some catatrosphic event or circumstances, I think that sooner than that, population pressure will manifest it self enough to make a lot of people feel that there are too many of us.
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“The Global Community proposes a world population of 500 million. It would take a thousand years to reach our goal of a population of 500 million. To achieve our goal will require from each and every one of us a stand on the rights and on belonging to the Global Community, the human family. If our population was to decrease as projected here then what other major global problems would be managed automatically?”
Well now that indeed is pretty hard-core.
I googled “Poll: do you think the world is overpopulated?” I saw only small-sample stuff, though. That said, within the small sample sizes, a significant number of people felt the world is already overpopulated, commonly 20 to 40%.
Eric: Reiterating, I think “most people” ends up being the most vocal people with the loudest forums (ie the most media focus) the majority of whom live in large crowded cities.
;) Agreed, Eric, one or a few “big mouths” does not a true majority make.
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“Doug: It’s not a matter of how much space we have, or what we can “fit” in, though.”
Well said — I agree that discussions like these need to include resources. However, as many commenters have stated above, the distribution of resources is the problem, not the amount of resources themselves.
For now – the raw amount of food in the world is not the problem, no. Granted that there are distribution/political problems, but I think it’s human nature that they’re going to be with us. At the present time roughly 20 million people die of malnutrition each year, I believe. Were we to encounter true food shortages, that number would increase a bunch.
As for some other resources, I think people are going to feel “squeezed” enough, perhaps, in the coming decades that the perceptions of many will change. With something like crude oil, which factors into the cost of just about everything, we’re also not just facing distribution problems. There, we really are getting to a point where production may not keep up with demand.
Of course, “demand” is not a fixed quantity, i.e. as price rises, demand falls. So we get rationing-by-price, itself not a fun deal for people.
At a conference in Long Beach, California, last February, he had made similar points. “Official projections say the world’s population will peak at 9.3 billion [up from 6.6 billion today] but with charitable initiatives, such as better reproductive healthcare, we think we can cap that at 8.3 billion,” Gates said then.
Ken, from some standpoints we’re already experienceing disastrous environmental effects, which certainly can extend to society, industry, etc. So, yeah, some people are concerned.
How would you define “overpopulation? I’m not predicting the world ending tomorrow or any time soon, really, in the scheme of our lifetimes, but what would it take for you to say “there are too many people”?
Doug: Of course, “demand” is not a fixed quantity, i.e. as price rises, demand falls. So we get rationing-by-price, itself not a fun deal for people.
Exactly Doug, prices are indeed a factor. One WFP talking point is that malnourished people often can’t afford to purchase food due to 1) their poverty and 2) high food prices. An interesting point about high prices is related to the question: If there’s enough food in the world for everyone, but some people are starving, where does the extra food go if it isn’t eaten? The answer is that it goes uneaten, ie thrown away, for example rotting in storage because commodities traders can’t get the price they desire, or by consumers who can afford to buy more food than they eat. The result is an artificially higher demand which drives up prices.
Add to this the problem of the US Government wanting to keep prices high for farmers by reducing food production. The 1983 initiation of Payment in Kind to farmers to reduce production (leaving fields unplanted) artificially elevated prices, helping some wealthy farmers but hurting smaller family farms, seed companies, pesticide and herbicide companies, and implement dealers, as well as driving up the price of food out of reach of those starving… serious examples of unintended consequences.
One could argue the best solution is to keep the government out of all of these decisions, letting the free market determine prices, to include food and alternative energies as crude oil will eventually decline; but I’ll leave that for another day.
Doug, are you asking if I believe that the UNFPA and the IPPF, specifically, are motivated for those reasons?
Kel, yeah, and what, if anything, have you seem to make you think that? Do they really appear to be motivated by a feeling that “there are too many of them,” etc.?
The UNFPA is pro-abortion and pro-sterilization. Especially for third world countries. Planned Parenthood is heavily involved in this as well. It’s pretty common knowledge and has been for a long time. The whole “there are too many of them” mentality seems obvious to me because their focus seems to be on the third world countries, as Western nations are in a demographic winter because we’ve “taken care” of our “overpopulation” through abortion.
Planned Parenthood was founded by eugenicists, and they’ve done a great job of “keeping in check” the Black population here in the US, as was Sanger’s goal in the beginning. There are plenty of Planned Parenthood directors, former directors, and supporters (some of whom I know personally) who are major population control advocates. Many even approve of China’s one-child policy and have voiced support for it. The most recent one I can think of was Norman Fleishman. I believe at the heart of UNFPA and IPPF lies the belief that certain populations need our “Western wisdom” in how to curb fertility, yes. I absolutely believe that.
Eric: If there’s enough food in the world for everyone, but some people are starving, where does the extra food go if it isn’t eaten? The answer is that it goes uneaten, ie thrown away, for example rotting in storage because commodities traders can’t get the price they desire, or by consumers who can afford to buy more food than they eat. The result is an artificially higher demand which drives up prices.
No doubt. Another thing I read is that since it takes so much more land and resources to make meat, via feeding a cow, for example, versus using the land to grow grain for human consumption, that if Americans, on average, would eat 10% less meat, that 100 million additional people could be fed.
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One could argue the best solution is to keep the government out of all of these decisions, letting the free market determine prices, to include food and alternative energies as crude oil will eventually decline; but I’ll leave that for another day.
I think of the oil market as pretty darn “free” with buyers and sellers both acting almost entirely-unfettered. On some other markets, and really – for Capitalism as a whole, I’m for things being free, but not without certain limits.
No doubt that Capitalism, for example, versus socialism, produces more overall wealth – people have more incentive that way. Yet with totally unbridled capitalism we get what we had in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s – a few super, titanically rich people, and almost all the rest being relative “serfs.” While in a way that is the most “natural” way, since capital tends to accumulate in the hands of the few, not the many, the perceived imbalance gave way to the rise of unions, etc. I am for “some” of that social-tinkering (though of course many people will always want things moved to one side or the other).
P.S. – I know everyone here keeps mentioning it, but I’ll do so again: watch Maafa 21 on YouTube.
To say the least, take propaganda like “Maafa 21” with a grain of salt.
http://tinyurl.com/3hyn3fv
“No doubt. Another thing I read is that since it takes so much more land and resources to make meat, via feeding a cow, for example, versus using the land to grow grain for human consumption, that if Americans, on average, would eat 10% less meat, that 100 million additional people could be fed.”
I keep telling everyone they should go vegetarian with me, but no one agrees. :)
Here’s a great article on the history of the UNFPA, USAID, and the IPPF: http://www.cgdev.org/doc/UNFPA-in-Context.pdf
It also notes how Richard Nixon pushed for the formation of the UNFPA in 1969, which is very interesting to me, because Nixon was racist.
Have you watched it, Doug? Seen the quotes and research in the movie?
Kel – it may well be that quite a few of the people involved in UNFPA, etc., personally think that population-control is a good thing. And that may well mean that the organization does operate as you say – I don’t know. I’d look at how voluntary it is – does the gov’t in the third-world country get “coerced” and is it left to the individuals themselves, or is there stuff akin to, “like it or not, you’re gettin’ sterilized.”?
I did watch Maafa 21, too. Even without the sneaky/sly disingenuous parts, for me it all comes back to the individual woman. Black women have more unwanted pregnancies, per capita. Is it surprising to have more abortions, per capita, then? Is it indicative of some great “plot” against them? Heck no, I say.
Good grief – is a black woman choosing to end a pregnancy because there is some “conspiracy” against her?
Kel – it may well be that quite a few of the people involved in UNFPA, etc., personally think that population-control is a good thing. And that may well mean that the organization does operate as you say – I don’t know. I’d look at how voluntary it is – does the gov’t in the third-world country get “coerced” and is it left to the individuals themselves, or is there stuff akin to, “like it or not, you’re gettin’ sterilized.”?
No, the government isn’t typically coerced. But you’re well aware that conditioning people to accept something can amount to coercion. Marketing and propaganda, my friend. The same goes for Black women in this country.
(On a not-so-extreme scale, and just as an example of what I see, take the breastfeeding vs. formula movement. How many people in this country alone have been conditioned to believe that formula is just as good as breastfeeding, and far more socially acceptable and “easy?” Regardless of the facts on breastfeeding, many, many women choose to feed their children substandard formula because of generations of conditioning.)
But you’re well aware that conditioning people to accept something can amount to coercion. Marketing and propaganda, my friend.
Kel, yes, that does operate.
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The same goes for Black women in this country.
The conditioning/coercion goes both ways. I’m for leaving it up to the woman herself.
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(On a not-so-extreme scale, and just as an example of what I see, take the breastfeeding vs. formula movement. How many people in this country alone have been conditioned to believe that formula is just as good as breastfeeding, and far more socially acceptable and “easy?” Regardless of the facts on breastfeeding, many, many women choose to feed their children substandard formula because of generations of conditioning.)
Good example, and yeah – I do see that. In some other countries it’s widely-believed that water, in addition to mom’s milk or formula, is also necessary (which is really not true for young babies), resulting in babies drinking nasty water with nasty organisms in it.
Yet on “Maafa 21,” they show a picture of Hitler and “Natural Allies.” Oh come on, now – it’s not like Hitler would be just having legal abortion clinics – he was anti-choice both ways, wanting abortions to be forbidden for some and compulsory for others.
The conditioning/coercion goes both ways. I’m for leaving it up to the woman herself.
The woman makes the final decision, but can we honestly say that there were people or organizations who did not sway her decision? The decision to kill is a very serious decision – one you can’t take back. If a program offered, say, free food and medicines to families who were willing to be sterilized, would you consider that coercion? How about giving up your fertility for a new car or a tv? Cash? Give up your fertility for the equivalent of a McDonald’s extra value meal? The UNFPA has their hand in pretty much all of these.
The woman makes the final decision, but can we honestly say that there were people or organizations who did not sway her decision?
All that she’s been exposed to sways her decisions. It’s in the context of all that is her.
___
The decision to kill is a very serious decision – one you can’t take back. If a program offered, say, free food and medicines to families who were willing to be sterilized, would you consider that coercion?
Could well be, yes. Now, for me – on the Happy Meal, fuhgeddabouddit.
But if it’s a nice enough car, I’ll give up my fertility.
But if it’s a nice enough car, I’ll give up my fertility.
Doug, A shining example of why the pro-abort crowd is doomed to extinction. They believe a car is worth more than their ability to have children. All it takes is a car to convince them future offspring are ‘unwanted’. If your wife agreed to it would you get your wife pregnant and abort at 21 weeks if somebody offered you a lamborghini to do it?
IMO the answer would be an emphatic no. My empathies definitely lay with the baby wether the killer would leave the baby alone and to die or stab it in the head with scissors. But I’d have to say the guy with the scissors (or the guy who protects the guy’s right to use those scissors on a 21 week old baby) would have to be deemed mentally deranged. The guy who leaves the baby to suffer and die (rather than comfort the baby) is also mentally deranged but not quite as psychpathic as somebody who would stab a baby like that in the head with a scissors. Our society can change what is legal with a vote but it can’t change the fact that up until 38 years ago it was considered murder by society. And society would never have allowed it to become legal. It was deemed that way by SCOTUS. And it took 35 years for them to call it murder again. In any year it is a heinous crime against humanity.
Jack
That’s their loss because by following a vegan diet you are doing so much good for your body.
Truthseeker
Presently both my son and I are on medicaid and he probably would not have made it had he not had his card so I’ve seen first hand the positives and negatives associated with it. I just don’t think our government could or should do this on a large scale. I think if they really think about it they can come up with something that benifits private insurers and something that is quality based and affordable for the health consumer. As well as something that does not stifle an individuals economic growth. And I don’t believe in taking from either program until they have something at least of equal value or greater value in place. I’m really not sure how medicare works but if it is something that citizens have payed into the system for they really have no right to interfere with medicare until they have something of equal value or something better to replace it.
“I googled “Poll: do you think the world is overpopulated?” I saw only small-sample stuff, though. That said, within the small sample sizes, a significant number of people felt the world is already overpopulated, commonly 20 to 40%.”
Doug,
You are a very intelligent man.
The more you search the web to evidence to refute what I have written about the ‘eilite’ of the ZPG mob, you will come across even more evidence that corroborates my assertion.
It’s not 99% percent of the 20 to 40 % percent who believe the planet is already over populated that concern me.
It is the .09 percent of the 20 to 40% who are the ‘intelligentsia’ and the billionaires who believe in them and who have the power and influence to shape public policy.
It was the tycoons who bankrolled a amoral eugenicist/biggot like Margaret Sanger (like venereal disease, she is a gift who keeps on giving in the form of whore houses like planned parenthood.)
Doug says: August 22, 2011 at 1:36 pm
1. Ken, from some standpoints we’re already experienceing disastrous environmental effects, which certainly can extend to society, industry, etc. So, yeah, some people are concerned.”
2. “How would you define “overpopulation? I’m not predicting the world ending tomorrow or any time soon, really, in the scheme of our lifetimes, but what would it take for you to say “there are too many people”?”
Doug,
1. You have accepted as fact the world is already overpopulated based on ‘your’ definition and you have jumped to the conclusion that “we’re already experienceing disastrous environmental effects”.
I am not even going to waste our time by asking for evidence because there is no way to prove or demonstrate that ‘overpopulation’ is the cause for what you perceive as the ’cause’ for ’disastrous environmental effects’.
When the ice age precipitated the extinction of the dynasaurs, the evolutionist tell us there were no humans present. [But there are those pesky human looking footprints right there next to the dynasaurs in the Paluxy River in Glen Rose Texas.]
If humans are simply the result of evolution, then we are as much an integral part of the ecosystem as every other living thing. We are not trespassers. Evolutionary chance will determine whether or not we survive as a species. None of the other species on the planet seem to concern themselves with their evrionmental impact. Why should humans? In evolutionary theology/philospy the word ‘human’ is elitist. We are just another mammal on the planet. We have no more value than a cow.
Humanist trying to save the planet are like theists trying to save their god.
Both propositions are absurd.
2. The world will be overpopulated when the only humans left on the planet will be those who believe the world is overpopulated.
“But if it’s a nice enough car, I’ll give up my fertility.”
“Doug, A shining example of why the pro-abort crowd is doomed to extinction. They believe a car is worth more than their ability to have children. All it takes is a car to convince them future offspring are ‘unwanted’. If your wife agreed to it would you get your wife pregnant and abort at 21 weeks if somebody offered you a lamborghini to do it”
Truthseeker, no one could ask for a better “straight man” than you. :)
I’m 52 and my wife has had a hysterectomy – not going to be any kids for me in the first place. The car would be something like a Maybach Exelero, and I’d just take the dang thing and sell it, walk off into the sunset with a few million Dollars. ;)
To be serious, I would not have done any such thing earlier in life when it would have mattered, and I would not advise anybody else to, either. The ability to have children can indeed be an incredibly precious thing.
Again – seriously – I’m not saying give up your fertility for a car, and certainly not for a doggone Happy Meal!
Truthseeker: Our society can change what is legal with a vote but it can’t change the fact that up until 38 years ago it was considered murder by society.
Geez, TS… No, it wasn’t “murder.” Abortion was illegal in many cases. But it was not treated as murder, and to be legal it only required the say-so of two doctors.
Ken: The more you search the web to evidence to refute what I have written about the ‘eilite’ of the ZPG mob, you will come across even more evidence that corroborates my assertion.
Ken, I really wasn’t trying to refute it, and I’m sorry that I didn’t make that clear – I was just looking for a snapshot as to “where we are” as far as people’s opinion about overpopulation or not. As to the ‘Global Community’ and their proposal for only 500 million people on earth – I do believe some people feel that way and that some of them are very wealthy and influential.
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It’s not 99% percent of the 20 to 40 % percent who believe the planet is already over populated that concern me.
It is the .09 percent of the 20 to 40% who are the ‘intelligentsia’ and the billionaires who believe in them and who have the power and influence to shape public policy.
I can see your point. Yet any such influence hasn’t reduced world population nor kept in from rising quite fast.
If we are to object to the “rich and powerful” behind the scenes, then :: cough cough :: ‘Republican Party’…. ;)
You have accepted as fact the world is already overpopulated based on ‘your’ definition and you have jumped to the conclusion that “we’re already experienceing disastrous environmental effects”.
Ken, I did say “from some standpoints we’re already experiencing disastrous environmental effects…” In no way am I just asserting my unsupported belief. Personally, while some parts of the world are very crowded, I don’t say that “there are too many people now,” overall.
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I am not even going to waste our time by asking for evidence because there is no way to prove or demonstrate that ‘overpopulation’ is the cause for what you perceive as the ’cause’ for ’disastrous environmental effects’.
Again, I’m not complaining about the number of people (well, except like maybe the number of clowns on the road in New Jersey). However, that doesn’t mean that we’re not putting the whammy on the planet. We demonstrably are changing the air, water, and land. Deforestation, the acidification of the oceans (roughly 30% more “acid” now), “dead zones” in rivers and oceans from pesticides and fertilizers, the increased carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere, and things like the Pacific Ocean Trash Gyre (also known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch or Pacific Trash Vortex), etc.
I am not saying the sky is falling nor that we will necessarily “kill the whole planet in X number of years.” However, we *are doing* the above stuff. As to “overpopulated” or not, I’ve asked several times about just how we define that word. Thus far, the environmental disasters have been regional – we haven’t had any catastrophic event around the world. In the long run, a big potential problem is if something like the atmosphere changes proves to be a worldwide disaster. And I’m not saying that it will, necessarily. We just don’t know what’s going to happen.
Some of this stuff is fascinating and amazing – the Pacific Trash Vortex is awesome, in its own way.
When the ice age precipitated the extinction of the dinosaurs, the evolutionist tell us there were no humans present. [But there are those pesky human looking footprints right there next to the dynasaurs in the Paluxy River in Glen Rose Texas.]
Wait a minute, Ken, how do we know that was what whacked the dinosaurs? On those footprints, kook websites notwithstanding, even most creationists have thrown in the towel in the last 25 years. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/paluxy/tsite.html = good article. To maintain that dinosaurs were living at the same time as “humans” is frankly just ludicrous. There were bipedal dinosaurs that walked around, that’s all.
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If humans are simply the result of evolution, then we are as much an integral part of the ecosystem as every other living thing. We are not trespassers. Evolutionary chance will determine whether or not we survive as a species. None of the other species on the planet seem to concern themselves with their evrionmental impact. Why should humans?
Good question. Agreed that we are not “trespassers” and that we are “part of the earth” and its ecosystem. So, why should we worry? Because we may end up having done something where there’s no doubt that we really, really screwed up. And again – granted that we don’t know what’s going to happen. How many species lost, how much changing of the land, water and air are we willing to accept?
I’m not saying that we should go around fearing the future. I don’t have proof of any one environmental deal that’s really going to be “the one.” Maybe “worry” really isn’t the right word. I do think that concern is valid, and that the discussion has a place.
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In evolutionary theology/philosophy the word ‘human’ is elitist. We are just another mammal on the planet. We have no more value than a cow.
Depends what you want. Cows make better ribeyes, IMO.
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Humanist trying to save the planet are like theists trying to save their god. Both propositions are absurd.
Perhaps. Or perhaps, like what I see as a human trait – having to “learn the hard way” – we won’t make meaningful change in one area or another until what must be done is very tough to take, or impossible.
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The world will be overpopulated when the only humans left on the planet will be those who believe the world is overpopulated.
Ha! Well yeah, that would certainly qualify per how I feel too. I submit that by that time, there would be darn few of us left anyway.
…from some standpoints we’re already experienceing disastrous environmental effects, which certainly can extend to society, industry, etc. So, yeah, some people are concerned.”
Doug, at risk of misrepresenting your words, are you saying we should be good stewards of the earth? If so, I do whole-heartedly agree.
Eric, yes – we should be “good stewards.” Exactly what that means and how we do it – I don’t know. I see the issue as one of trade-offs; do we accept higher costs, or higher levels of pollution? Do we start on some big project of “remediation” – which we’re not entirely sure is necessary – or do we not worry about it and save the money, resources, etc.?
I can’t prove that we “really have to worry.” I think there is a good probability that we should be concerned. I don’t think there is any doubt that we should be interested, if interest needed any justification anyway.
Since the industrial age began, we’ve changed things, and the changes are accumulating. In some areas the changes are increasing in speed and effect. Interesting times….
Geez, TS… No, it wasn’t “murder.” Abortion was illegal in many cases. But it was not treated as murder, and to be legal it only required the say-so of two doctors.
Lets see… Here comes the liberal mind/definition bending. pre- Roe V Wade it was illegal to kill humans in the womb. Murder is the illegal killing of humans. How can you deny that illegal abortion is not murder? It most definitely was murder.
Doug, I am glad to hear you say that you wouldn’t encourage your wife or anybody else to abort their baby for an economic incentive. But I don’t know that I believe you.
Doug – I enjoy reading your thoughts and agree we should be concerned if we are to be good stewards. I am in agreement that it is not always easy to determine what “good stewardship” entails. There are certainly stories of unbridled capitalism damaging the environment to make a profit, but those stories usually pale in comparison to communist economic initiatives, especially in Soviet-driven Warsaw Pact countries (ie no ethnic Russians). For example, in 1990, 65% of Poland’s river water was so polluted, it could not be used in industry because it corroded equipment, and more than 2/3 of their forests were damaged by acid rain. Neither unbridled capitalism nor Soviet-style communism seem to be good choices for stewardship. Bottom line, IMHO, is that factors such as economic systems impact the environment more than numbers of people.
Lets see… Here comes the liberal mind/definition bending. pre- Roe V Wade it was illegal to kill humans in the womb. Murder is the illegal killing of humans. How can you deny that illegal abortion is not murder? It most definitely was murder.
Wrong, Truthseeker. It was not “illegal to kill humans in the womb,” said in an qualified way like that. It was most certainly legal if two doctors agreed that abortion was called for. Pre-Roe, several states had it legal if the pregnancy was due to incest or rape, or if pregnancy could cause sufficient disability to the woman. Some states allowed abortions to a point in gestation for a few years before Roe, as most do now.
It’s not like it was, “this is murder unless two doctors say the abortion is okay.”
One of the main reason that anti-abortion laws came about was because doctors felt that midwives were encroaching on the docs’ rightful territory, hurting them financially. It was not as much directly a comment on the unborn, certainly not to the extent of deeming them persons nor of having killing the unborn as “murder.” In New Jersey, for example, while abortion was generally illegal, it was a misdemeanor, not a felony. As anti-abortion laws appeared in the various states, it was common for post-quickening abortions to be considered a felony, while prior to quickening it was a misdemeanor.
Was there ever a doctor charged with “murder” for doing an abortion, prior to Roe?
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Doug, I am glad to hear you say that you wouldn’t encourage your wife or anybody else to abort their baby for an economic incentive. But I don’t know that I believe you.
Truthseeker, I’ve always liked you, and you’re very earnest in your own way. We can’t hear voice inflection here, nor see gestures and “body language.” Sometimes it’s hard to tell how somebody means something.
I really would not say that it’s “worth it” to give up their fertility or have an abortion for money.
Bottom line, IMHO, is that factors such as economic systems impact the environment more than numbers of people.
Eric, certainly agree there. If “we” weren’t affecting the environment, then it wouldn’t matter how many of us there were, on that score. I’m not even trying to make a case that “2 billion more people will cause the death of the earth,” nor that it will necessarily make a significant detrimental impact – our “systems” are improving in some ways that might at least negate the raw impact of the additional people.
Long before the environment “forces itself” on us as a problem, I think that resource shortages will cause wars and much more other social upheaval than will global environmental conditions.
“I can see your point. Yet any such influence hasn’t reduced world population nor kept in from rising quite fast.”
Doug,
I do not believe you or anyone could argue that elective abortion has not reduced the world population. Though the world population continues to grow, there are obviously fewer people on the planet than there would have been.
The effects of ‘gendercide’ are just now becoming nocticable and it will take 20 years for that wave to peak and pass.
You have embraced the notion that the planet is already overcrowded and therefore any additonal humans is bad.
If the Enlish sparrow population is increasing at an equivalent rate is that bad as well? [I know. Only if park under the trees in which they have nested.]
O wow!
I just discovered another doble entendre ‘ken the birther’ as opposed to ‘ken the aborter’
Yes I was ken the aborter. Today I am Ken the Birther!
I have five live births reckoned to my account.
Technically, I did not birth any of them, but I was present for all five births and I was there, in the flesh, when all five were conceived.
I do not believe you or anyone could argue that elective abortion has not reduced the world population. Though the world population continues to grow, there are obviously fewer people on the planet than there would have been.
Ken, sure, of course – the population is less than what it would have been had there been no abortions.
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The effects of ‘gendercide’ are just now becoming nocticable and it will take 20 years for that wave to peak and pass.
No argument from me that “too many men for the women” is a bad thing.
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You have embraced the notion that the planet is already overcrowded and therefore any additional humans is bad.
I have not said that. It always depends on “too crowded for what?” I said to you, “Personally, while some parts of the world are very crowded, I don’t say that “there are too many people now,” overall.”
While I might speculate on what could happen, I’m fine with the world as it is now, pretty much.
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If the Enlish sparrow population is increasing at an equivalent rate is that bad as well? [I know. Only if park under the trees in which they have nested.]
Depends on whether you view the increased number of sparrows as a net positive or net negative.
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Today I am Ken the Birther!
I see that I was assuming the wrong thing – that you favored not granting citizenship to people on the sole basis of them being born within our borders, or – that you were still worked up about Obama’s birth.
I really would not say that it’s “worth it” to give up their fertility or have an abortion for money.
Doug, as a father would you feel responsibility for the health and safety of your unborn offspring? If so, then how do you reconcile that with your support of a woman’s right to kill that child and with your own lack of empathy for the 21 month old baby that gets delivered alive and left in a dirty linen closet to die? Correct me if I am wrong but you did say you’d be ok with a woman choosing to do that if it is more convenient for her then nurturing the baby to life/health, right?
Doug, you can twist and turn and roll over and explain all you want… but, the fact is that murder is the illegal killing of another human being. Most pre-RoeVWade abortions were illegal and therefore murder. Doctors were not involved cause doctors considered killing unborn babies to be inhumane. They were not done by doctors and were done in an underground by freaks who butcher women for a buck. It’s really not that much different today except for the fact that the SCOTUS deemed it to be legal and the freaks came out from the underground.
Doug, as a father would you feel responsibility for the health and safety of your unborn offspring?
TS, I’m assuming my wife and I would want to have a baby here – yes, although it’s in her body, so the guy’s roll is really limited at that point.
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If so, then how do you reconcile that with your support of a woman’s right to kill that child and with your own lack of empathy for the 21 month old baby that gets delivered alive and left in a dirty linen closet to die?
Good grief, Truthseeker, I have never said I had no empathy for the born baby, should it be able to suffer. I did say to you, perhaps on another thread today, that I’m not for the baby suffering, regardless of how long it lives.
I think the stories Jill told about the lack of care for those born babies was sad indeed.
On reconciling it with being pro-choice, were my wife to be pregnant, and were we not to want to have a baby, then I would not be against her having an abortion.
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Correct me if I am wrong but you did say you’d be ok with a woman choosing to do that if it is more convenient for her then nurturing the baby to life/health, right?
Yes – as said many times before – I’m for elective abortion to viability (roughly) or 22 weeks (specifically).
the fact is that murder is the illegal killing of another human being. Most pre-RoeVWade abortions were illegal and therefore murder. Doctors were not involved cause doctors considered killing unborn babies to be inhumane. They were not done by doctors and were done in an underground by freaks who butcher women for a buck. It’s really not that much different today except for the fact that the SCOTUS deemed it to be legal and the freaks came out from the underground.
My friend, that was really just a rant. All I can say is that you’re making a fundamental mistake in logic. By your logic, the fact that Dachsunds are dogs would mean that all dogs are Dachsunds.
Yes, murder is the illegal killing of a human being. That does not mean that all illegal killings of a human being would necessarily be murder. Seriously, do you see other pro-lifers claiming that prior to Roe, getting an abortion or a doctor doing an abortion was held to be murder?
Some Dogs are not Dachsunds. Some illegal killing of human beings prior to Roe – abortions – was not murder. The unborn at that time did not have the status of legal human beings. Sure, the act of abortion was often illegal, but that did not mean that personhood was attributed to the unborn, and it didn’t mean that the say-so of two doctors didn’t make the abortion legal.
I didn’t have time to read all the posts, but wanted to answer the question.
*can* the earth be overpopulated? Theoretically i’d say yes. God told us to fill the earth, and anything capable of being filled can also be overfilled. We’re fallen humans who, by and large, act against God, His plan, and His commandments (as a group, individuals are better or worse at it on an individual basis), so it’s just as likely that we would *eventually* overfill the earth as we would underfill it.
BUT realistically, no, I don’t think we can. I don’t think the time it would take to overfill the earth will be ours to have. the earth and universe have a finite lifespan, and I just don’t think there is enough time for humanity to truly fill the earth.
Certainly portions of the earth might be filled, might even be overfilled (and since I think cities are inheriently unbiblical, portions of the earth *are* overpopulated) but *most* of the earth is sparsely populated or unpopulated.
You could fit every single man, woman, and child in standard apartment style housing in the UK and have the whole earth left over for food production, item/mechanical production, waste/recycling, hunting, vacation, sport, preserves/reserves, and future growth. But that kind of density wouldn’t be very fun. How about giving every family a ranch/farm house in Texas, we’d all fit comfortably and then the rest of the world could be used for etc, etc, etc
When every human on the face of the planet could be contained in a singe state in a single country you don’t have an overpopulation problem, you have a resource management problem (which I agree we have in spades). Part of the big problem is humanities current love of cities which almost always are placed smack dab in some of the most fertile, best irrigated, and overall favorable places for food production/animal husbandry. If the farmers and ranchers of the world had the good land and the cities and towns had the poor land (after all they already ship in everything anyway) even most of the very poor countries would be capable of sustainable food supply. Unfortunately refusing to spread out and fill the *earth* (as opposed to tiny, population dense spots of it) has been one if mankinds most enduring, constant, and unanimous rebellions.
Doug, if the pre-RoeVWade baby wasn’t considered a human person with rights then why were women forced to get two doctors to sign off on the medical need in order to commit abortion legally?
Correct me if I am wrong but you did say you’d be ok with a woman choosing to do that if it is more convenient for her then nurturing the baby to life/health, right?
Yes – as said many times before – I’m for elective abortion to viability (roughly) or 22 weeks (specifically).
Doug, you said ”I really would not say that it’s “worth it” to give up their fertility or have an abortion for money“? And I said I didn’t know if I believed you. Tell me why are you for elective abortion but against elective abortion for money?
Doug said: I did say to you, perhaps on another thread today, that I’m not for the baby suffering, regardless of how long it lives.
Doug, the baby has gender and is a human being; there fore the baby is a he or a she, and not an ‘it’. You have been blinded and hardened to the point where you would call a born-alive suffering baby an ‘it’. Can’t you see how wrong that is?
ken,
No fair! I pointed out weeks ago that most of here were “birthers” – in that we support births over the revolting alternative. :)
Doug, you say you wouldn’t want the born-alive baby to suffer so I am guessing that means you are granting the baby some type of personhood status at that point. If that is so then please refrain from calling these babies “it” when talking about them. Calling them an ‘it’ only serves to dehumanize them.
I think cities are inheriently unbiblical
Jespren, another cool post by you, and yes – cities are dens of iniquity!!!! Ahahhahhaaaa!!!!!
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Part of the big problem is humanities current love of cities which almost always are placed smack dab in some of the most fertile, best irrigated, and overall favorable places for food production/animal husbandry.
Well, with global-warming (regardless of the degree to which it comes from human activities) and the rising ocean levels, quite a few of them will be “irrigated” indeed, heh heh heh.
Truthseeker: Doug, if the pre-RoeVWade baby wasn’t considered a human person with rights then why were women forced to get two doctors to sign off on the medical need in order to commit abortion legally?
Because the act of abortion was proscribed in the most common circumstances. The doctors were happy about this since then the midwives could not authorize abortions nor legally do them. That which the doctors felt was their “rightful territory” was preserved.
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“Yes – as said many times before – I’m for elective abortion to viability (roughly) or 22 weeks (specifically).”
Doug, you said ”I really would not say that it’s “worth it” to give up their fertility or have an abortion for money“? And I said I didn’t know if I believed you. Tell me why are you for elective abortion but against elective abortion for money?
TS, my presumption is that if an abortion would be done because money was given, then without that, it was already wanted, on balance, by the pregnant woman or the couple. I simply do not see a third-party giving money (or one of Kel’s Happy Meals, either) as a good reason to have an abortion. For that matter, I don’t see it as a good reason to continue a pregnancy, either. I think that if there’s going to be a baby, then it should be wanted for itself. That said, if a woman is okay with giving the baby up for adoption, and the prospective parents are paying, that too is okay with me.
I know there are many things you can say to that. As far as “doing things for money,” I think it carries greater weight with giving up one’s fertility. But I do extend it to abortion (or not) as well. When it comes to elective abortion, I think that first and foremost it should be the pregnant woman’s decision, not the choice of somebody who proposes giving her money.
Not claiming there is any “objective” aspect to this. It’s like how many pro-choicers, me included, see sex-selection as a “not good” reason for abortion, though we’re for legal elective abortion in general. It’s how we feel.
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Doug, the baby has gender and is a human being; there fore the baby is a he or a she, and not an ‘it’. You have been blinded and hardened to the point where you would call a born-alive suffering baby an ‘it’. Can’t you see how wrong that is?
:: laughing :: Good Grief, TS. You could as well say, when giving burping instructions, “Lay the baby on its belly, and gently pat its back.” Yes, I could have said “he” or “him” or “he or she,” etc. Truly meant no offense nor that the baby we are talking about is necessarily or merely an “it.” Gotta say, though, “it” was being used in the exact same manner as “the baby,” so it’s somewhat hard for me to see logical objections.
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Doug, you say you wouldn’t want the born-alive baby to suffer so I am guessing that means you are granting the baby some type of personhood status at that point. If that is so then please refrain from calling these babies “it” when talking about them. Calling them an ‘it’ only serves to dehumanize them.
Dang…. Okay, dude.
Regardless of any and all debate about abortion, I see the situation as pretty clear once the baby – he or she – is born. At that point he’s a legal human being – legally protected, from the Constitution to the “Baby Doe” laws. He’s out of the woman’s body, thus her bodily autonomy is no longer an issue. In addition, (even if death is 99.999% certain in the very near future), I think there is a standard of care that the hospital would, or certainly should, adhere to. Once again – Jill’s example of sentient babies being allowed to die without alleviating their suffering – they were cold, etc., well now that is truly sad to me.
Yes, if we are saying that the baby is capable of suffering, then indeed I do see some personhood there, as I do for fetuses in general, in the womb, past a point in gestation.
Thanks Doug. :) and I think it’s less that cities are dens of iniquity (although they certainly are) but rather the lack of proper solitude. The Bible says (and I’m paraphrasing because I don’t have the exact verse memorized) ‘woe to those who build house upon house until their in no where left to be alone with the lord’. It’s important to feel the silence and solitude that comes with a natural environment at times, after all the ‘Heavens proclaim the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork’ there is nothing like the true and comfortable aloneness that is found in nature. While in a city there is always sounds, sights, and reminders of man, and much less so of God. Yet at the same time the sheer volume of humanity breeds a false sense of disconnect and isolation that tends to insight a lonely depression rather than a contented solitude.
Doug, Would you say the teenager was vomiting so I turned it over on it’s back so it wouldn’t choke on the vomit? No, then you shouldn’t say that the baby was burping up so I turned it over on it’s stomach. That is my point exactly. You and many members of society referring to a baby as an it only tends to dehumanize. Babies are not ‘its’. When you casually call a baby an itlike saying “I turned it over to change it’s diaper”; that shows your prejudiced (and possibly unconscious)predisposition to referring to babies as persons.
Do you have the same aversion to babies suffering in the womb? If so, then how can you be for partial borth abortion. A 20 week old baby can definitely sense pain and suffer when ‘he/she’ gets delivered to the shoulders and stabbed in the head with a scissors or when the womb gets injected with saline etc to kill before birth. If you want to be consitent then you need to move your ‘ok’ abortion time prior to viability to the point where babies can feel pain.
Would you say the teenager was vomiting so I turned it over on it’s back so it wouldn’t choke on the vomit? No, then you shouldn’t say that the baby was burping up so I turned it over on it’s stomach.
Truthseeker, you have a point there. To an extent it’s just what is common usage, and if we don’t know the sex of the baby, then to me, saying “it was aborted” (for example) is the same as saying “the baby was aborted.”
Like saying, “there was a baby, and it was born in…” Seems quite natural to me.
However, in no way am I saying that it *need* be that way, and if it bums you out, I’ll try and not do that.
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That is my point exactly. You and many members of society referring to a baby as an it only tends to dehumanize. Babies are not ‘its’. When you casually call a baby an it like saying “I turned it over to change it’s diaper”; that shows your prejudiced (and possibly unconscious)predisposition to referring to babies as persons.
There is some difference there, since when you are talking about a given baby, you probably know the sex of that baby, versus instructions about babies in general. Yet again, though, I’ll try not to say “it.” No “dehumanization” was meant – I’ve agreed all along that the baby, the zygote, even the sperm and egg are just as human as you and I.
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Do you have the same aversion to babies suffering in the womb?
Yes, but when “in the womb” applies then there is also the pregnant woman or girl to be considered, so the argument will not necessarily be the same.
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If so, then how can you be for partial borth abortion. A 20 week old baby can definitely sense pain and suffer when ‘he/she’ gets delivered to the shoulders and stabbed in the head with a scissors or when the womb gets injected with saline etc to kill before birth. If you want to be consitent then you need to move your ‘ok’ abortion time prior to viability to the point where babies can feel pain.
It’s not agreed that 20 week babies can truly feel pain. By 26 weeks, I do feel that most fetuses will be sensate. It’s been argued a lot – and the range of 16 to 22 or 23 weeks is a “gray area,” if anything, I think. Perhaps it matters just how we define “pain.”
Doug, you are just kidding yourself here about the pain. Just what criteria does Dr. Doug use to be comfortable with his 22 weeks before baby is able to feel pain theory. The baby will writhe and kick while his/her pulse will skyrocket and if the baby could scream it would be blood curdling. And seriously; wouldn’t you want to err on the side of caution when dismembering live healthy babies?
Doug, ‘it’ is not uncommon for people to call a baby an ‘it’ but ‘it’ is dehumanizing to the baby to do ‘it’. thanks
Doug, I have to chime in briefly (hope you don’t mind Truthseeker), humans need three things to feel pain: nerve pathways, nerve endings (receptors), and a hypothalmus. Pain is one of the most basic senses of humanity. You can feel pain in your sleep, in states of minimal consciousness, even in some comas! Pain is still felt by otherwise profoundly brain damaged people, because a functioning brain isn’t needed, just the hypothalmus. Even people who were clinically dead and were revived frequently state pain was the last thing to fade (hearing is usually 2nd to last). Humans have nerve pathways, receptors, and a functionally formed hypothalmus at EIGHT WEEKS. Not 16, not 20, not 26. At just 8 weeks, prime abortion age, humans have all the physiological necessities to feel pain. In all logical senses, it’s likely the only thing they are capable of feeling at this age (general touch developes shortly thereafter starting on the back, spreading to the torso and limbs and finally the palms of the hands and feet by about 12 weeks if I remember correctly, maybe 16 weeks for full nerve development). There is *no* reason to believe that someone with all the physical requirements to feel pain can’t feel pain unless you have an a priori stake in such a belief despite the evidence. With the ability to place cameras in the womb there has been photographic evidence of distict and purposeful movement either towards or away from stimuli even at this stage (apx 8 weeks) of development. Abortions, almost all of them commited, in every rational, physiological sense of the word, inflicts horrendous pain on a living human. Pain that is likely all that more horrific for being the first and last feeling that human being will feel.
Any discomfort, mental or physical, a woman might go through carrying a pregnancy to term is surely far less than the medieval pain of being drawn and quartered. The vast majority of women get pregnant because they submitted, even anxiously sought, sexual intercourse when they knew it could cause pregnancy. There is absolutely no way that an innocent who is only in existance because someone asked him to be there (implicitly or explicitly by having pro-creative possible sex) should be subjected to an execution we wouldn’t accept for the most depraved of criminals just because he ‘isn’t wanted’ is ‘inconvienent’ or any other negative from his mother’s perspective. His mother has a responsibility to protect him until he (raising) or another (adoption) is capable of doing so. I know I’ve said it before but I exclusively breastfed my youngest for 6 months, and am still nursing at 16 months. My body 100% supported her’s for not the first 9 months of her life, but the first 15 months of her life. And I would have been (properly) guilty of murder if I had starved her of breastmilk (even if it was painful, unwanted, inconvienent, etc) without supplying another form of nurishment. For many years, and certainly for some people today (formula is expensive!) breastmilk is the only option. Should these exclusively breastfed babies, just as reliant upon the mother’s body (some pregancy books/experts even list the newborn month as ‘the tenth month of pregnancy’ or the first 3 months of infanthood as ‘the 4th trimester’ so dependant is baby upon mother) as they were a few months earlier be allowed to be drawn and quartered because their moms desire it? Humans aren’t ‘viable’ without outside help for many *years* and some of us will never be viable without outside help. What’s more, how can needing one form or help be a reason to be at another’s mercy for a guesome death when another isn’t? Or even the say form of help at a different age. Some 20 year olds only live because of a breathing machine providing them oxygen, other only because of frequent blood transfusions (and I’m sure you could find *someone* out there who needs both) how if that different from the placenta? How can you say mom can kill when babies placenta (the placenta belongs to the baby, other humans need other people to create their life-sustaining ‘machines’!) is used for those functions but caretaker (mom or otherwise) can’t do it when an ECMO machine does it?
Ascribing a capacity for pain is pre-empathic. So long as people do not ascribe this capacity to the Other, they have no fear that empathy can arise to call into profound question their indifference to — or outright hosility to — the Other.
It’s all about defense mechanisms. Ironically, pro-choicers resist any acknowledgement that might induce their own existential pain: appropriate guilt.
Jespren, more later, but for now:
Humans have nerve pathways, receptors, and a functionally formed hypothalmus at EIGHT WEEKS. Not 16, not 20, not 26. At just 8 weeks, prime abortion age, humans have all the physiological necessities to feel pain. In all logical senses, it’s likely the only thing they are capable of feeling at this age (general touch developes shortly thereafter starting on the back, spreading to the torso and limbs and finally the palms of the hands and feet by about 12 weeks if I remember correctly, maybe 16 weeks for full nerve development).
Those are necessary, yes, but also a cortex which is developed, connected, and operational enough for true conscious pain perception to occur. This is the place later than 16 weeks.
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Ascribing a capacity for pain is pre-empathic. So long as people do not ascribe this capacity to the Other, they have no fear that empathy can arise to call into profound question their indifference to — or outright hosility to — the Other.
Rasqual, I don’t really disagree, there. Also think that we really can’t have empathy with others unless there is the capacity to suffer, have emotions, etc. in the other.
TS: Doug, you are just kidding yourself here about the pain.
Truthseeker, no, no “kidding going on. It’s a valid, and very interesting – argument.
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Just what criteria does Dr. Doug use to be comfortable with his 22 weeks before baby is able to feel pain theory.
That there at least has to be the conscious, mental capacity to truly feel pain. Reflexive movement – which is indeed present early on in the fetus, even in the embryo (perhaps, not sure about the embryo right now) is not any certain indication of feeling pain.
I also did not say I’m drawing the line for pain or not right at 22 weeks – that’s based also on viability.
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The baby will writhe and kick while his/her pulse will skyrocket and if the baby could scream it would be blood curdling. And seriously; wouldn’t you want to err on the side of caution when dismembering live healthy babies?
TS, yes, all other things being equal, then erring on the side of caution is fine with me. When we consider the woman’s bodily autonomy, then things are not necessarily “equal” any longer.
Are you really sure that such a premature baby would reallly kick and scream etc.?
Doug, the answer is definitely yes; these babies really kick and scream.
My undrstanding is that the pain receptors send their signals to the thalmus and not the cortex. And those receptors and the thalmus are present as early as 7.5 weeks. You could speculate anything you want but every study I have seen comes to the conclusion that there could be no doubt that a twenty week old fetus would be capable of sensing pain. In fact, the point where they could sense pain would likely be much earlier; perhaps as early as 8 weeks. Have you ever researched fetal pain studies?
So Doug when can we kill them????
8 weeks 6 days and that is the limit so then we can kill them. But not at 9 weeks.
OR
15 weeks and 6 days and that is the limit so then we can kill them. But not at 16 weeks.
OR
21 weeks and 6 days and that is the limit so then we can kill them. But not at 22 weeks.
OR
23 weeks and 6 days and that is the limit so then we can kill them. But not at 24 weeks.
You are so full of crap, Doug. Honestly. When is Doug “comfortable” with the killing? Always some arbitrary, imaginary line you draw dealing with a baby that has to “feel” or “think” or “emote” or “draw breath” or “be independent.”
Sorry but I have had enough. 4 years. 4 years of reading your words about when Doug thinks it is fine to kill.
Try this instead.
ALWAYS ERR ON THE SIDE OF LIFE.
NO EXCEPTIONS, NO APOLOGIES.
Doug, you don’t need a functional cortex to feel pain. In fact this is often an arguement made for terminating patients in a ‘vegetative state’. Since their cortex and higher level brain activities are not functioning they are *only* able to feel pain. It’s often used by the medical profession as a arguement in favor of euthansia as a life that is nothing but pain sensation is a horrible thing to contemplate. What I said is fully medically accurate the ONLY things humans need to feel pain are developed and there at 8 weeks. Are they ‘conscious’ at this state? Highly unlikely, but that doesn’t mean they can’t suffer. I knew a 40+ year old who had no consciousness to speak of. Her ability to comprehend, react to, and interact with her suroundings were quite a bit lower than a standard newborn (or even most 23 week old premies, in some ways lower than an 8 week old inutero babe as she was incapable of intentional movement except a minorly controlled eye roll and a slight gurgling verbalization). But she was loved by her family and well cared for and even though there are those that would say she should be euthanised ‘for her own good’, even the most die hard euthanasia enthusiast wouldn’t suggest we rip her limb from limb . And until you address: 1) how all humans are only viable within their natural environment, and it’s considered murder to kill someone by placing them in an unnatural enivronment 2) a mothers body and other’s bodies/energy/time are/can be used for mandatory support during all other times of life and to remove that support would be murder and 3) the baby is an invited guest in the womb and under no other circumstances can you kill an invited guest who is within your control unless they are a real and immediate danger to your life (and for the extremely rare cases of pregnancy via rape, at no other time can you kill a benign but uninvited guest unless they pose a real and immediate threat to your life.) Your stance is, at best, nonsensical and hypocritical.
abortion is NEVER NECESSARY! NEVER! There are doctors that specialize in high risk pregnancies for those who have more difficult pregnancies.
You don’t think a child in the womb feels pain> Imagine yourself as a pre born baby, growing in the womb. You’re about 10-11 weeks old. You’re already starting to kick in the womb, even if the kicks aren’t felt yet. All of a sudden, a sharp instrument is aimed at you, its purpose is to cause your death. What would you do? You’d try to squirm away from it. You can bet you’re feeling pain as the sharp instrument cuts your tiny body to shreds because you weren’t conceived at the RIGHT TIME!