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Men
and women aren't going to be motivated to practice
any form of birth control until they know that most
of the children they do bear will survive! As it
is now, the only way poor people can provide for
their old age is to have several children who will
care for them . . . and the only way they can be
sure of having enough living offspring is to have
many, many births. People must be sure that they
can meet their own basic security needs, and that
the children they bear will have a reasonable chance
to survive, before birth control can be considered
a realistic option. Only then, when people have
freedom from famine, can conscientious efforts to
teach and encourage family planning be successful.
-- Frances Moore Lappé |
"What
becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either,
1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese
and Lacedemonians; or 2d. it is stifled or starved,
as among other nations whose population is commensurate
to its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic
diseases; or 4th. it overflows, by emigration, to
places where a surplus of food is attainable."
-- James Madison,
1791, U.S. President |
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Population,
when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.
-- Thomas Robert Malthus
"We
must stabilize population. This will be possible only
if all nations recognize that it requires improved social
and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective,
voluntary family planning."
--Lester Milbrath
"When
the family is small, whatever little they have they
are able to share. There is peace."
--Philip Njuguna, pastor, Nairobi, Kenya
Either
a species learns to control its own population, or something
like disease, famine, war, will take care of the issue."
-- Chuck Palahniuk
When
motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning,
not the result of ignorance or accident, its children
will become the foundation of a new race.
-- Margaret Sanger
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"If
the world is to save any part of its resources for the
future, it must reduce not only consumption but the
number of consumers."
-- B.F. Skinner
We
have been God-like in our planned breeding of our domesticated
plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in
our unplanned breeding of ourselves.
-- Arnold Joseph Toynbee
"It
is not prudent to rely on science and technology alone
to solve problems created by rapid population growth,
wasteful resource consumption and harmful human practices."
--U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society
of London, joint statement
"The
key probem facing humanity in the coming century is
how to bring a better quality of life -- for 8 billion
or more people -- without wrecking the environment entirely
in the attempt."
-- Edward O. Wilson, scientist, Pulitzer prize winning
author and father of biodiversity
"Pressures
resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands
on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts
to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the
destruction of our environment, we must accept limits
to that growth."
--World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, signed by 1600
senior scientists from 70 countries, including 102 Nobel
Prize laureates