Three’s a crowd? The battle over population and reproduction
Where does ‘family planning’ stop being about individuals and couples making their own reproductive decisions and become a moral imperative that people should make the ‘right choices’? Are fears about population growth a new form of an old panic, or is the expanding carbon footprint a problem we need to address by limiting population growth? This debate at the Battle of Ideas, supported by bpas and the Wellcome Trust, features Dr Austen Ivereigh, Catholic commentator and West London Citizens organiser; Dr Ellie Lee, University of Kent lecturer and co-ordinator of Pro-Choice Forum; Adrian Stott, Optimum Population Trust trustee and Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust.
Recommended links:
- Article by Jenny Bristow: Population reduction: a war on women’s bodies
- Article by Steve Connor: Is Britain going to be able to support an ever-expanding population?
- Article by Juliette Jowit: Three’s a crowd
Related topics: Debates, Science & Progress
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margo_ said:
This OPT guys is quite scary … I strongly believe that in worldbytes’s motto: the more the merrier. People shouldn’t be considered as the problem but the answer.
redvan said:
Great debate yet and nice to see the OPT get a kicking. The population debate strikes me as totally hysterical and overblown. The third world doesn’t need NGO’s wading in with stern lectures and bags of condoms, but serious industrial and economic development.
Vivien said:
Whenever i hear someone from the Optimum Population Trust speak my skin crawls. They are ridiculous though. This time the OPT guy tells us that if we really want to reduce our carbon footprint then we need to stop Ethopians coming to England and wanting to live like us as when he was poor in Africa his carbon footprint was 160th less then ours! He goes on to say that this is a numbers game, purely statistical fact that we need to stop populating. Like WORLDbytes says in our our film ‘celebrating more people’ – I am not a number.
David said:
Best debate yet on population and reproduction the OPT guy is quite a frightening doom merchant fortunately Dr Eliie Lee rocks
Praz said:
The more the merrier! I think the OPT are amongst the most anti-human and dangerous organisations around at the moment. Their rise seems to be linked to the decline in belief in the possibility of human political or social solutions. Down with the whole neo-Malthusian lobby!