Rejecting forced population control.

With the popularity of Marvel/Disney's Avengers and the story line concerning Thanos, it's probably inevitable that people would start talking about overpopulation. And some of those conversations are going to bring out people who support eco-fascist ideas like forced population control. It think it's essential to reject these ideas as strongly as possible.

Bodily autonomy, and reproductive rights are very important topics that everyone should make an effort to educate themselves about. We only have to take a look at the history books to see why concepts like forced sterilization or selective breeding must be consigned to the dustbin of history.

Whether a woman chooses to have a baby or not must be her choice to make.

Eugenics.

We all know about the National Socialists of 1940s Germany and their attempts to engineer a "master race", but it was not only jack-booted Far right movements who were involved in attempts to control human reproduction. It's important to remember that concepts like Eugenics were a strong (and regrettable) part of the Socialist and Liberal movements in Britain, Europe and the United States. 

Because our attitudes have changed so much in the time since, it can be hard to imagine how much widespread these ideas were.

In 1937, a Gallup poll in the USA found that 45 per cent of respondents supported euthanasia for “defective infants”. 

Though there was a worry about overpopulation, even then, Eugenics was mostly about breeding "better humans" or ways to avoid being "swamped" by "inferior" ones.

For those on the Left, the focus was often on disability with the justification that it would create a fitter race of people and relieve the "burden" created by those unable to look after themselves. But we now know that many disabilities are caused by environment and deprivation not genetics, so it should be hardly surprising to us that many of the victims of these programs were ethnic minorities and people in poverty. 

Victims of Agent Orange.

Since they were exposed to the worst hardships, birth defects, mental health problems and industrial injuries were most common in these communities. A lack of education would have made them seem less intelligent. Walking around the slums of London in the 1900s a middle class observer would have seen a lot of "sick people" and "idiots" who must have seemed worse than useless.

It's shameful to me to read about how many socialists, like Keynes or George Bernard Shaw, while promoting equality, supported what amounted to ethnic or social cleansing. 

Sidney and Beatrice Webb, founders of the Fabian society, were also ardent fans of Eugenics.

Can we forgive them because of their lack of knowledge, flawed reasoning or because their motives were well intentioned? Looking at how the policies were implemented, often using force or coercion, taking away people's control over their own body, threats and segregation, it's hard to find much forgiveness or justification.  

We must also look at the consequences of their support for the movement.

Eugenics policies, supported by well meaning people who claimed they only wanted to reduce human suffering, also acted to cover and support those whose goals were racial purity and supremacy. Ideals which should have been opposed by progressive citizens found their way in to the mainstream.

We must not fall in to that trap again.

Social reformers in America and Britain wanted to create a perfect society, but the kind of society they envisaged contained an intolerant, illiberal, authoritarian dimension which allowed no place for disabled people. As Isaiah Berlin once put it, “Disregard for the preferences and interests of individuals alive today in order to pursue some distant social goal that their rulers have claimed is their duty to promote has been a common cause of misery for people throughout the ages.”

Of course, it wasn't just the UK and USA who followed these practices. 

Sweden sterilized 60,000 disabled women from 1935 until as late as 1976. Other countries which passed similar sterilization laws in the 1920s and 30s included Denmark, Norway and Finland.

And even when the eugenics aspect is removed, and the focus falls on controlling population growth, the victims of forced sterilization remain essentially the same because the same flawed reasoning prevails.

Those people having "too many children" are usually those trapped in poverty.

An alternative. 

Conditions in the "mad houses" of the 19th and 20th centuries were appalling and it would have been easy to see sterilization as a mercy for people committed there. 

But it was this very system of segregation which was to blame. By reforming the way that disabled people were treated, the moral argument for controlling their reproduction was shown to be false.

We now know that the best approach to helping people with disabilities is social integration. Empowering disabled people by making a more accessible society, means they are no longer a burden but an asset to society.

At least in the western world, improvements in environmental health have reduced birth defects and made disabilities much rarer. But what about the situation in the third world?

Theresa Kachindamoto, the "terminator" of child marriages.

For our generation, looking at conditions in the developing world, we might believe that it is overpopulation which causes the suffering there. We could be tempted to imagine that forcing poor people to have fewer babies would solve all their problems.

In 1900, the world population was less than a quarter of what it is now. Consumption rates were much lower too, but it's not like most humans at the time lived a life of luxury.

In the developing world today, just as in the slums of London a hundred years ago, high birth rates are the result of poverty.

"Because I lacked basic needs from my parents I decided to have a boyfriend and I became pregnant."
-Glory Mwale

"I think it’s not good to get married early, just because some lack basic need like soap. And others get beaten up. So I’ve decided not to get married until I finish my education, so I can get employed."
-Benedeta Matison

Where women and girls are given a choice, when they are educated and protected from forced marriage, the result is less poverty and fewer children.
The best way to stabilize global population is through combating poverty and inequality, and by empowering women to make their own choices.

Of course that has to be achieved through sustainable development. A world where everyone lives like first world "hyper-consumers" can't support even half the population we have now. If everyone lived like the average American, we'd need 5 Earths to satisfy their needs.

For any ecological movement, reducing consumption and poverty have to be the primary aims, not reducing population.