Adoption and Population Control

Today, Wednesday, April 22, is Earth Day, so my posts this week focus on being environmentally responsible. When I first thought of adoption and the environment, I immediately came up with adoption and its role in population control. I then immediately discarded the idea as too controversial. Then, last week, Stroller Derby posted an article about population control. I decided it was a sign.

When it comes to population control, all most people think about is China’s failed “one child” policy. However, there is a movement known as Zero Population Growth. The premise is that the birth rate equals the death rate, resulting in a stable population. It’s most easily described as: every person gets to have one child to replace him- or herself.

Why? Well, the Earth currently holds 6.8 billion people. We’ll hit almost 10 billion by 2050. Those who advocate population control argue that the Earth can’t sustain that many people. We humans aren’t very kind to our only home. We tend to take more resources than we give back. The increase in population means increasing demand for water, energy, land, and food – all of which are finite resources.

My best friend Penny is an expert on climate change. She studies it and does terribly complicated work involving it. She holds a PhD in atmospheric chemistry. If you want to be depressed about civilization, she’s the one to talk to. We matched with my son’s birthmother on October 16, 2005. Penny was visiting. She proceeded to tell me about “peak oil” – the point at which we hit maximum oil extraction, after which production declines to eventually become zero. So, less oil means less of many, many things, including fuel, plastics, jobs… the impact is incredible. Furthermore, because we’ve ignored the dangers of “global warming” (now called “climate change” for those people who think it’s funny that “global warming” causes blizzards in May), we may see catastrophic weather events soon, within our children’s lifetimes. Hearing all of that on the same day I found out I was going to be a mom made me angry with Penny for the first time in my life. Fortunately, I got over it. But I never forgot it.

I chose to adopt for many reasons. One of them is that I don’t think it’s socially or environmentally responsible to bring more children into the world than the world can handle. I have every desire to be a mom, but no desire to bear children. Jack was going to enter the world, regardless. Instead of adding a genetic Mini-Me-and-Husband to the world, I chose to adopt the most wonderful little boy on Earth.

According to UNICEF, there are 133 million orphaned children worldwide. There are 150,000 children in the US foster care system. Unfortunately, there aren’t any statistics as to how many children are available in the US for private adoption. Clearly, there are a lot of children in this world, with more arriving at the rate of about 10,000 per hour. Conversely, only about 1,041 people die every hour, according to Poverty.com.

Do I think governments should force population control? No. But I do wish people like the Octomom, Jon & Kate, and my ex-manager with the eight kids gave a little more thought to the resources they consume. When I see large families, I wonder if the parents gave any thought to how much of an impact their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have on the planet. I’m not looking to end large families. I’d just like people to think for a minute.

I do, however, get angry when I read about situations such as the one an acquaintance of mine is in. She adopted a young boy from foster care. Apparently, he’s baby number 8 or 9 for his birthmother. He and his siblings have all been taken by the state for gross neglect. She continues to have babies, and they continue to be taken away. I don’t advocate forced birth control, but it’s situations like these that make me at least understand why someone thought of it.

Population control advocates don’t generally want to force family planning decisions upon anyone. What they do want is access to family planning resources and birth control for women worldwide. According to Population Connection, 41% of pregnancies worldwide are unplanned. Of course, “unplanned” doesn’t mean “unwanted”. However, both Population Connection and the Optimum Population Trust claim that 200 million women would prefer to “delay or end childbearing” but they don’t have access to contraceptives. At this level, population control is really about women’s rights. When women are educated, conception becomes a choice – one of several opportunities available to them.

Population control is controversial, mostly because there’s no bullet proof way to do it. In addition, when the youth population decreases, and the aged population increases, you have a retired class that has no social welfare, so some people (like the entire continent of Europe) have a vested interest in encouraging population growth. Too often, population control is construed as the government telling women how many children they can have. However, population control is really about giving women the power to decide how many children to have.

To be clear, I don’t think population control should be mandated. I don’t think that the ability to have and raise children should be based on education or income. I don’t think people who have large families are bad. I don’t think people should be forced to take birth control or be sterilized.

I do think that population control should be discussed. I do think that people need to realize the impact that having children has on the environment. I do think that women need access to education and the ability to determine their own reproductive rights.

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