Lather, the questions you raise just do not apply to the developed industrial world. The population of the United States is coasting along at just about the replacement level, whereas in much of Western Europe and in Japan population growth is at below-replacement levels.
As a matter of fact,according to an article I just read (Sunday?) in The New York Times, the projected huge decline in the Japanese population in the next twenty years are so is expected to have a very negative effect on the country's economic standing.
The population explosion that everyone is so alarmed about is taking place in the "Third World." There are a lot of reasons for that, of course. Among them is the widespread belief, in traditional societies, that children are "wealth," and that they are in any event needed to take care of the parents in their old age.And even when that belief has crumbled, there often is no knowledge of or access to modern birth control methods. And even when there is, there may be religious objections to limiting family size, especially, but not exclusively, in Islamic countries. And finally, the population explosion has probably been accelerated by improved medical care, which has led to greater longevity. And so forth, down the line.
Would you propose that we impose population limits on the Third World? Even if that were possible, don't you think we could reasonably be charged with discrimination? After all, if the citizens of the Third World were as wealthy and urbanized as we are, they would cut back on family size of their own accord. Intelligent development assistance, family planning assistance, etc. -- that's what we can offer, and hope for the best.
The questions you have raised about genetic engineering and population control do remind me, on some level, of those raised by the eugenics movemnt. Tell me what you think of this article:
techreview.com
Joan
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