Would it be morally acceptable to advocate zero population growth?

[1Lord1Faith]

he managed to ruffle some feathers by saying people “shouldn’t multiply like rabbits”.

He said people shouldn’t feel compelled to multiply like rabbits. I’m guessing he meant compelled by Catholicism or the Bible or something. If he were to say something that compelled Catholics to have small families, like “the world has finite resources, please be considerate when you breed” then that would be something different.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If he were to say something that compelled Catholics to have small families, like “the world has finite resources, please be considerate when you breed” then that would be something different.

And I wouldn’t have a problem with that either, whether it were coming from the Pope or anyone else, as long as I weren’t being asked to use immoral means.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all in favor of large families, and I want to see even NFP-using couples have the courage and selflessness to ask themselves “do we really have a grave, serious, or just reason to use NFP at this time?”. However, the other side of the coin might be “do we have an obligation to consider that the world has finite resources, and what’s going to happen if the world’s population keeps multiplying exponentially?”. Ultimately, no one can answer either question, except for the individual couple. (That is not to keep us from saying that they could — I said could — ask a confessor or spiritual director if their reasons for using NFP were indeed justified. Sometimes a disinterested third party sees things we can’t see.)

 

[Rau]

As far as that goes, I don’t believe anyone has the authority, moral or not, to advocate that people only have a certain amount of children.

I’m not sure one needs to have authority simply to propose something. Others are welcome to reject the proposition.

 

[BornInMarch]

If a couple wants to have children then the government has no right to stand in their way. I will oppose any and all population control measures as the barbarism that they are.

There’s still plenty of space on Earth, technological advancements allow humans to live less wastefully every day, and one day humans will colonize other planets. Even if we only colonized the moon that extra space would ease the population pressure on Earth.

 

[Vico]

…

Compel, verb: force or oblige (someone) to do something. (Oxford)

 

[Montrose]

The world is not and never will be overpopulated.

The problem is the inequitable distribution of resources and not too many people.

 

[MarkRome]

population is outstripping resources, the planet Earth is in great trouble due to the activity of mankind.

but to keep on doubling and doubling the world’s population will end up ruining the planet for all of us

It’s just not true. We aren’t running out of resources.

Even Pope Francis, probably our most environmentally focused pope to date, rejected population control:

Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of “reproductive health”. Yet “while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development”. To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues. It is an attempt to legitimize the present model of distribution, where a minority believes that it has the right to consume in a way which can never be universalized, since the planet could not even contain the waste products of such consumption. Besides, we know that approximately a third of all food produced is discarded, and “whenever food is thrown out it is as if it were stolen from the table of the poor”. Still, attention needs to be paid to imbalances in population density, on both national and global levels, since a rise in consumption would lead to complex regional situations, as a result of the interplay between problems linked to environmental pollution, transport, waste treatment, loss of resources and quality of life.

 

[Bernoulli]

One problem with appeals to limit procreation is that like many things in nature, procreation is also competitive.
Groups who are not willing to limit procreation will outgrow those who are, and this will affect both international relations and domestic policy.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

1Lord1Faith:

As far as that goes, I don’t believe anyone has the authority, moral or not, to advocate that people only have a certain amount of children.

I’m not sure one needs to have authority simply to propose something. Others are welcome to reject the proposition.

And that’s all I was doing — proposing.

The doomsayers may be completely wrong. Maybe we should have 50 billion people on planet Earth. Maybe there needs to be a worldwide concerted effort to reduce the effects of mankind’s consumer and industrial activity on the earth, while not hindering population growth. Maybe we need to figure out ways to make the deserts and the vast interior lands bloom. I don’t know.

But the conventional wisdom is that there need to be limits on population growth. The worldwide acceptance of contraception, and its handmaidens sterilization, abortion, and homosexual activity, only reinforce that wisdom. I’m not sure how we would sell the world on an “exponential growth is good” message.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Lol…we see this a lot these days from liberals.

You know @HomeschoolDad, that old modernist liberal.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

yankeesouth:

Lol…we see this a lot these days from liberals.

You know @HomeschoolDad, that old modernist liberal.

Busted! Who knew?

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

It’s just not true. We aren’t running out of resources.

Even if we accepted that we aren’t running out of resources in the near term, even the most optimistic would have to admit that there is a theoretical point at which we would.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

Lol…we see this a lot these days from liberals.

You’re probably joking, but suggesting that any attempt to understand Scripture that isn’t limited to a straightforward literal approach is somehow liberal waffling strikes me as very Protestant/fundamentalist approach.