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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (22882)	6/13/1998 5:12:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Bill, I'm going to try to respond to both of your posts at the same time. First, I understand the biological argument that when we save the weak, we are going against the processes of nature. It is really hard to watch babies and small children starve to death, nonetheless, when we could help. As I said a couple of days ago here, forty-thousand children a day die of easily prevented illnesses, so this cruel natural process definitely is in play. Many of the famines in Africa are complicated by ruthless dictators who steal all of the food coming in to feed the hungry, and by widespread social chaos. Most of Africa could become self-sustaining with stable governments and help by industrialized nations in harnessing appropriate technologies to ensure clean water and bountiful farming. And some of Africa--Ghana and Botswana come to mind immediately--are making a lot of progress towards prosperity. In Jimmy Rogers' column in Worth magazine, he has suggested investing in the leading local companies in these countries. Does China really have to have a policy where women are forced to have abortions late in pregnancy? This seems like a huge human rights abuse. I agree that strong measures were needed to control the Chinese population, but this seems very harsh. The Europeans are not even reproducing themselves anymore. Social stability and a high standard of living, including education for women and easily available, reliable birth control seem like much less barbaric ways to accomplish the same goal. However, I understand that China was faced with an immediate crisis, and could not wait for social evolution to curtail its population growth. Was there a viable alternative for the Chinese that would have accomplished the same goal?