Population, poverty and the right to choose: three replies
Comments on socialistresistance.org2010sThree comments by Alan in the thread under “A reply to Alan Thornett’s review of “Too Many People?”” on socialistresistance.org.
The publication's own web text.
Editor's note. Later in the same thread. Jane Kelly wrote that women in poor countries have large families because many children die in infancy, because the family needs their labour, and because there are no pensions; once out of poverty, she wrote, women will “inevitably” have fewer children, so “targeting them for reducing the population is the wrong answer”.
23 January 2012
Jane is right to point out that infant mortality poverty and insecurity in health and old age are major pressures on women in third world countries to have larger families than they would otherwise choose. There are other such pressures as well, however, which can be equally strong, conservatism, religion, and patriarchy, which mean that family size does not necessarily fall with rising economic conditions. It is certainly not ‘inevitable’. Nor do these pressures mean that there are no unwanted pregnancies or demand for contraception or abortion facilities in such countries, far from it. As I point out in my review there are between 70m and 80m unintended pregnancies a year in the Global South. Globally 74,000 women die every year as a result of failed back-street abortions—a disproportionate number of these are in the South. Nor is it a matter of ‘targeting’ women in such countries, which puts a pejorative twist on it. It is a matter of supporting them in their struggle to gain the access to contraception and abortion facilities to which they are entitled along with women in the North and which they desperately need. Nor have I, by the way, talked about ‘reducing the population’ in the course of this discussion but only about future stabilisation.
Editor's note. PhilW then wrote that Alan and Sheila Malone stressed population but proposed only measures that empower women, which belong to the programme of women's liberation and “are better advocated on those grounds”. He asked for a population policy that was not already part of that programme.
27 January 2012
Phil says: "I’d like to hear of a “population policy” that the comrades advocate that ISN’T part of the women’s liberation programme: otherwise, all this talk about population doesn’t really have any purchase."
How about: lifting people out of poverty (the single most important), education, human rights, social justice and combatting the influence of religion. I have advocated all of these in the course of this discussion.
Editor's note. PhilW said that he had meant a new policy, outside the traditional socialist programme, and that the problem was capitalism, not the number of people.
29 January 2012
PhilW says: “Sheila and Alan state the importance of population in the ecological struggle, but don’t appear to advocate any specific (different) policies to address the issue. Instead, they support a whole series of measures that would empower women and enable them to control their own fertility: measures which have always been part of the programme for women’s liberation and are better advocated on those grounds.” My point throughout this debate is precisely that these demands should be advocated on both grounds. They are good for women, they are good for society in general, and they are good for the environment because they help to stabilise population growth. They are as I have said earlier win-win policies. The fact that liberating women also helps the environment simply gives it an additional urgency.
It agree that a world socialist system (I would prefer ecosocialist system) would put us in a better position to defend the environment and cope with rising population—but it is only a better position and not an instant cure. We are not, however, on the verge of socialist revolution despite the stunning revolts of the past year and waiting for it (even whilst working for it) is not an answer to the ecological crisis today.