Population Control III

While popular journals of the 1960s were showing more and more of the planet going "red" and it looked like the Soviet Union would encroach on more and more of the planet, a threat emerged that, in the opinion of many self-appointed protectors of the "free world" represented at least as onerous a threat: the pill. For a brief period of time, this chemical innovation threatened to undermine one of the bulwarks against anarchy, chaos and communistic "free love" -- the fear and trembling associated with sex and unwanted pregnancies. The Catholic Church, long a leader in the campaign against sex without fear, long a leader in the campaign against the dangers of self-realization at the expense of patriarchy and authoritarianism, and just as long in favor of the pacifying effects of submission and obedience, was at the forefront of the battle against family planning. In the more developed world, nominal Catholics disregarded the injunction against contraception with abandon. The oxymoronic anathema placed upon the right of a woman to terminate a pregnancy while, at the same time, prohibiting women from taking steps to avoid unwanted pregnancies was not lost on many of the otherwise faithful. But, just as the Catholic Church and its allies in other religions had sought to make their theology a matter of law with regard to abortion, that is, prohibited to all, not merely their own flock, it followed a similar course with regard to birth control. That position, more a political than a theological one, has come to fruition in the administration of George Bush, whose programme has emerged as one of the most reactionary since the Spanish Inquisition--torture and all.



Even prior to the current Bush regime, however, the battle against rational family planning had been furiously pursued. Starting at the time of the Reagan administration one heard less and less about birth control or population control. Abortion here in the U.S. was portrayed by segments of the Black community (who, in fairness, had been the tragic victim historically of various sexual experimentation) as a covert form of genocide. Population control efforts in India, for example, were at the same time, portrayed as racist or misogynistic. When China, historically alarmed at the prospect of feeding its billions, resorted to its one-child policy, the policy was depicted in the West as a fascist-like intrusion into the lives of its citizenry, with scenes of women being dragged to abortion clinics out of their rural cottages frequently shown on Western television.

What all of the propagandizing against population control efforts could not accomplish--the moral inveighing against abortion, the alleged dangers of the contraceptive pill, the intra-uterine device, the diaphragm, vasectomy and tubal ligation--the emergence of the HIV/AIDS crisis did. The era of sex without fear was ended with a vengence. This was so much the case, the disease had begun to take so many victims, that there were some who saw in the mysterious emergence of this modern plague the shadow of conspiracy. Traditonal opponents of birth control had always had as another of the tenets of their faith the injunction against homosexuality. The politicization of sex was interwoven into the fabric of law here in the U.S. There were laws against sodomy and antimiscegenation just as there were laws against the mere distribution of information about birth control methods. (An ironic footnote to the notion that China was inappropriately interfering in human rights.) Now, some saw in AIDS the hand of a vengeful god delivering his wrath against homosexuals and later, we came to understand, drug users sharing their needles. Soon, however, women were turning up with the disease.

The pill had rendered condoms more or less unnecessary. AIDS made condoms an imperative. Unwanted pregnancy was not the issue, but failure to use a condom could spell a sentence of death or a life shortened by a debilitating disease. While the medical community continues its efforts to find a vaccine and expensive drug cocktails keep most in the developed world alive, AIDS has begun to ravage many African nations. (In a feeble and transparent attempt to appear humanitarian, George Bush pretends concern here while standing by as one African nation after another falls prey to genocidal internecine political conflicts, the heritage of centuries of colonial rule. For the U.S. and the European powers who raped and plundered the sub-Sahara of its wealth and now essentially stand by, hands in their pockets, silent witnesses to the aftermath of their colonial adventures, this is a form of birth control they can live with.)

In Europe, the United States and others of the developed areas of the globe, Malthus has been disproved on a grand scale. If anything, the left critique of Malthus, namely that as a society develops there will be natural checks on the birth rate, is now seemingly vindicated. In Italy, where the bambinos were traditionally adored, middle class affluence has soured a society drugged on the delicacies of a consumer culture to the messiness and inconvenience of child rearing. Babies get in the way. Italy now has the lowest birth rate in Europe. In Russia, both the birth rate and life expectancy have gone down precipitously by modern standards, as alcoholism and depression take their toll in the wake of the failure of the soviet experiment. As developed nations try to digest changes in the role of women and a redefinition of family, ( a still evolving story), the imperative for cheap labor must be attended to, and thus immigration from the poorer nations must be tolerated.

While London, Paris and New York, now as much as Tokyo, indulge in $200 sashimi meals, almost eradicating blue fin tuna from the oceans, much of the world is still hungry, poor, and obviously procreating like crazy. In many quarters, this tendency of the poor to multiply is seen as a threat--Latinos and Chicanos in the U.S. or Palestinians in the Israeli occupied territories for example--but, over all, unchecked global capital now sees either growing markets or a seemingly endless supply of cheap labor. Thus, we now have the perfect confluence of reactionary forces--the moral whip of poverty and the economic whip of greed.

Some Americans can remember when "Made in Japan" was synonymous with cheap goods. We are already in the period when "Made in China" has gained status and is giving way to manufactures from such venues as India, Indonesia or the Dominican Republic. No, there will be no cry for population control. Scarce workers mean high wages and lower profits. Scarce populations mean smaller markets. Like all games of "chicken," however, this game carries with it the prospect of death or disaster--in this case, for the whole planet. Just as much as it was when Malthus cast his baleful eye on the global economies, the race is between limited resources and potentially unlimited appetites.

The truth is that we have now had enough time to see the future and to know that it doesn't work. The automobile is a blight on the planet. Even fuel efficient cars would continue to use up the lion's share of dozens of other limited resources in their production and pave over the landscape with roads. The U.S. is the most egregious example, particularly in its subsidizing fuel-guzzling automobiles while starving rail and other public mass transportation. Once seen as the answer to sprawl, the high rise building is either an unsafe environment in which to live and work or--even in its supposedly "green" manifestations, expensive and dehumanizing. All those miracles of food production are slowly killing us, making of our planet the setting of a dystopian novel. As the poor multiply, they tear down trees to make way for the plots they need to plant to sustain themselves, gradually denuding the planet of virgin forests and all of the varied life forms they are home to. For now, it is goodbye polar bears. Soon, unless the population of this planet is checked and even much reduced, it will be goodbye ladies and gentlemen. Greed will have done its work and the life form that came to fancy itself located on the Great Chain of Being just below God and his angels will give way to the flora and fauna we fancy ourselves so superior to.