On December 10, 1974, the United States (US) of America promulgated the National Security Study Memorandum 200, dubbed The Kissinger Report. The report detailed an aggressive strategy in promoting population control in 13 developing countries: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Colombia. The policy would make it easier for the US to exploit the resources of these developing countries (Clowes).
Apparently, the US could gain more minerals by limiting the population of these developing countries. The problem with mineral acquisition is not its scarcity but the division between the countries involved. The less population a country has the fewer minerals it needs. Thus, US’s hyper consumerism could be sated.
Mineral acquisition is not the only prospective gain with the population policy. There are a lot of other issues but one common factor among them is that the report acknowledges that a population policy in these 13 countries would benefit the US. Up to now, the memorandum is still in effect.
The concept of population control has been around since 1798 when Thomas Malthus first published his book titled, An Essay on the Principle of Population. However, it was more popularized when Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, a book forecasting the doom of overpopulation, in 1968. But The Kissinger Report appears to be the first opus that details how such a policy could be promoted in the international field.
Imperialistic as the US nature of population policy may be, it could not be dismissed easily. Not even a responsible Catholic should dismiss population control despite the Church’s clear stand on population control without examining it. Not even in the Philippines, virtually a Catholic country.
Congressman Edcel Lagman drafted a bill supporting reproductive health. It, more than anything, advocates contraceptives and intends to use state funds for it; and promotes two as the ideal child number a family making it a very subtle form of population control. The blatant disdain toward the Catholic teaching, particularly Pope Pius XVI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, drew staunch opposition from the Church, which comprises 82.9% of the Philippines’ 88.57 million-large population from the last 2000 survey.
In defense, Lagman draws from the age-old Malthusian doctrine that unless population is controlled, its growth would outstrip the food production of the world. Lagman, like most other supporters of population control, begins from the assumption that the Philippines—or the world at that—is overpopulated. This overpopulation theory captured the imagination of the world when Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. Ehrlich warns the world that humanity is procreating toward oblivion (Hartmann 3, 13).
These two beliefs has become too indoctrinated that it has become conventional wisdom (Hartmann 3, 13). People easily declare that the world is overpopulated without batting an eyelash. Debaters could easily use overpopulation as an argument without reference to raw data. In fact, virtually, no one challenged these doctrines for more than a century—other than the Church.
The Church’s doctrine on the infallibility of the Pope regarding faith and morals is one of the most important parts of the creed of a Catholic. This is also one of the defining factors to call someone a Catholic faithful. However, in this era where everything is doubted unless explained scientifically, such a doctrine is hard to swallow. As such, it would require a great deal of reasoning to discredit population control. That is what this paper seeks—a rational explanation why population control is counterproductive.
It is clear that this issue should be tackled at its head. Population control purportedly promises a stable if not progressive economy. It assures us that scarcity of food would not be a problem. This paper attempts to prove it wrong. However, in such a case that it fails to do so, population control would still be something despicable from a political science viewpoint. Many checks regarding the relationship of government and the state are violated by population control programs. It strikes even the ideology championed by its originator, US liberal democracy. With the politico-economic perspective, a basic principle of psychology and anthropology should offer us a scenario that exposes to us the anomaly of population control.
Economic Suicide
Theories are tested by time. The Malthusian theory is no exception. One curiosity of our age is that Malthus’ forecast has proved wrong. Food production now has surpassed any recorded history (Kasun 26). Malthus’ assumption that food production increases in an arithmetic progression—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on—while population increases in a geometric progression—1, 2, 4, 16, 32, and so on—proved to be false (Hartmann 13). In fact, population growth hastened technological innovations that explain the rise in food production (North et al 8).
A simplistic explanation to this trend could be adopted. People, particularly those in the third world countries, produce more than they can consume. This is particularly true in agricultural countries.
But more than this, population growth encourages relentless innovation. A ‘continually growing population ensures a continually growing market.’ Thus, entrepreneurs become bolder in investing in innovative equipment. Because of the little risk of running out of customers, businessmen are willing to fly new heights in coming up with new methods or equipment to accelerate production (Spengler 24).
This can be easily explained by the law of supply and demand. In a large population, the demand for goods is so great that suppliers have an incentive to create new and easier methods of production to satisfy the demands of the market. Demand is a ‘major economic force (Seron 19).’
After seeing all these, one can easily conclude that population growth is the ‘prime mover’ of economic progress (Hartmann 14). Where there is no population growth, otherwise called zero population growth, there would be an economic stagnation. But population controllers, as what China and most other Western countries did, are actually promoting negative growth.
In China, they implemented a one-child policy. In Thailand, Lee Kwan Yew moved for a two-child policy. In Western states, there was really no definitive family size but it was conventional to stop at two. There is a problem with this because the ideal replacement fertility level is 2.1. This means that a family should, in an average, have slightly more than two children to replace the older generation.
To be more graphic on this, picture ten couples. Adopting a two-child policy, there would be a total of 20 children. Now, not all of these would live up to majority age of 18. Some may even die at birth. Some may choose not to marry. Some may have no capacity to bear a child. More than that, there is no assurance that the ratio of male to female is one-to-one. What we would have then is a smaller population, say 16, which is already a generous assumption. We have now only eight couples.
These new generation would then be the working generation. Our first set of persons is now old and is incapable of work. They would now rely on the pensions acquired from the taxes of the working generation through the social security system. Since the working generation is smaller in number, the old generation puts a heavy burden on them. Take also into consideration the scientific breakthroughs today particularly in the field of medicine which allows for a longer life but not necessarily a longer working capacity.
The hypothetical nation would then realize that negative population growth destroys their economy. So, they would start bringing up more children to reverse the situation. These children of the working generation are also incapable of work, and so they add yet another burden to them. In this very long span of time, the national economy would have suffered greatly, particularly the social security system.
The mental exercise above illustrates what happened to European countries that encouraged migrants to populate and work in their countries. This explains why US, for example, would pay a couple when they bear more a child. That is what people call, the ‘graying population.’
The Philippines, well-known for its skilled Overseas Filipino Workers, should not advocate population control for the benefit of the international community and its economic development. They are one of the reasons why Dr Bernardo Villegas, a renowned Harvard economist, forecasts a positive fate for the Philippines amid the global financial crisis. In a lecture, Villegas said that the Philippines would endure the crisis precisely because it has a large population who are capable of working in other countries. Money within the Philippines would also still continue circulation because the Philippines could sell its goods within itself. He describes the reproductive health bill as ‘economic suicide.’
Politically muddled
It is ironic that the US, champion of liberal democracy, is guilty of promoting a policy that is undemocratic. A population control policy, or to be more specific, the reproductive health bill, is undemocratic in two accounts. First, it is anti-poor. Second, it invades the private sphere.
The reproductive health bill is anti-poor. Underlying the crusade of population controllers is their blame of the ‘poor for their poverty and for their procreation,’ which causes the ‘population problem (Bondestam et al vii).’ In section 3, paragraph d of the reproductive health bill, the bill recognizes that manpower is the principal asset of this country. Representative Teodoro Locsin Jr. made an interesting inquiry as to why the bill is limiting population if it recognizes at the same time that manpower is the Philippines’ asset, which naturally comes from the population. The answer is that population control advocates see a certain part of the population as unproductive and does not contribute to the manpower of the country. This part of the population is the poor, also the handicapped (Locsin 14).
What the bill aims to do is to reduce the poor so that the rich could enjoy more wealth. Section 3, paragraph e: ‘the limited resources of the country cannot be suffered to be spread so thinly to service a burgeoning multitude that makes the allocations grossly inadequate and effectively meaningless.” Nothing could have put it better. Who is the burgeoning multitude? What is it in them that money spent for them becomes meaningless (Locsin 14)?
Second is that the reproductive health bill or any family planning program at that invades the private sphere. In a democracy, there are two spheres of life, the public and private. The public is where the government is sovereign but it cannot in any way invade the private sphere. When the government starts promoting contraception, it starts meddling in the method by which couples should have sex. This is an outright violation of the private sphere. This bill and policy is undemocratic.
One of the bill’s guarantees is its capability to give informed choice. It is here that we see the population planners distrust of the individual’s ability to make the right choice, even if in fact fully informed (Kasun 25). The bill heavily throws its weight on the promotion of informed choice yet allots a lot of space and funding for contraception. It compensates for natural family planning for example by simply saying that they would respect the individual should he/she opt for the natural method. But more outrageous than this is the mandatory sex education for elementary level pupils. Should parents disagree with having their child educated about condoms at school, they cannot do anything for it would be illegal if they withhold such information from their son. The bill guarantees a ‘freedom of informed choice.’
Speaking of informed choice, one of the most common misconceptions of IUDs, birth control pills, etc. with the exception of condoms is that these prevent conception, thus contraception. That is a mistake. The birth control pill, for example, simply weakens the uterine lining. The sperm meets the egg cell at the fallopian tube forming an embryo, which is already capable of life. After that, it goes back to the uterus to implant itself to the uterine lining where it would start growing. But since the pill has weakened the lining, the embryo cannot cling to it. The uterine lining along with the embryo would be excreted in the form of menstruation. Now that is killing a possibility of life. The 1987 Philippine Constitution guarantees the protection of the unborn from the moment of conception.
Psychological foreboding
Lee Kwan Yew of Thailand has promoted a two-child policy in his country not long ago. Now he saw what was earlier illustrated. He started encouraging women to have four children or more. But his new call was met with scorn. One of the stories goes that a woman told him to ‘try being a woman and get pregnant.’ This illustrates for us two of the main points of this paper.
The story confirms for us the economic damage population control may inflict. As what was previously illustrated, an attempt to correct the wrong would follow. But Lee Kwan Yew’s action emphasized the undemocratic factor of population planning. He effectively thought that he could yet again dictate to people the number of children they could have. He attempted to direct the women on how many children they should have—earlier, two; then, four. Nothing could be more blatant.
But why did the women of Thailand find it hard to readjust? A very simple concept in psychology and anthropology should help us understand.
Enculturation is the process by which an individual absorbs the requirements and values of the culture that surrounds him. Such values become deeply entrenched that it is very hard to uproot them. This is the danger we would run with the reproductive health bill. Even if it only moves for promotion of two children, not really coerces, the bill would create an atmosphere of valuing two children only.
In fact, it has become my habit to ask my friends how many children they want to have. You could try it yourself. What is your ideal family size? Many, if not all, answered two children. Now that may be surprising but if you look at it, the explanation is quite easy to grasp. Remember that The Kissinger Report was implemented in 1974. It was so subtly done during the Marcos administration. All textbooks, even kindergarten books, always depict families with a father, a mother, a son, and a daughter; occasionally there would be a baby but that is rare.
Such popular depiction of the family has been entrenched at a very early stage of life. The individual grows without realizing the effect those pictures had on him. This is the domain of psychology. This is propaganda.
People get used to what they see and what they are told that they no longer are aware of having acquired the virtue or vice. It is the same as the overpopulation myth.
Now, after all the exhausting yet limited arguments, could we still say that there is a promise in population planning? Why do we blame the population for poverty when there are numerous controversies and more pressing problems that contribute to poverty? Limiting population growth, even if it is indeed a cause of poverty, is just cutting off the grass. We need to be radical and go to the very roots of poverty.
