Respect Life: Population Control

Population Control

Are there too many people in the world?

Thomas Robert Malthus certainly thought so. His book, An Essay on the Principle of Population, was published in 1798 and argued that the food supply couldn’t keep up with population growth and that placing limits on human reproduction was essential. His dire predictions about imminent starvation turned out to be wrong, of course, but that didn’t keep twentieth century proponents of eugenics from suggesting that it was necessary to eliminate or reduce the populations of certain “undesirable” races to protect their own races.

Want to see the proof that contradicts the popular narrative that our planet is direly overcrowded?

There are multiple articles offered at the USCCB (U.S. Catholic Bishops) web site here. Note that some of them are a few decades old—because the arguments against population control really haven’t changed. As you can see in the article from Dr. Jacqueline Kasun, the idea that the world is crowded isn’t really as new as Malthus. Saint Jerome of Stridon, Doctor of the Church and translator of the Vulgate Bible, complained that the city of Rome was far too crowded—in the fourth century.

Another excellent resource for common sense information about world population is Population Research Institute. This site explains where the theory of population control came from, its scientific basis, and who is imposing it.