Quotations
“Quite as important as the Four Freedoms… is a Fifth Freedom – from
excessive numbers of children. Far more than much of the world realizes, even
the partial achievement of the first four is dependent upon this last.”
Road to Survival by William Vogt 1948 (The Four Freedoms were freedom of speech
and worship, freedom from want and fear.)
“A problem which everyone talks about, is that of birth control,
as it is called, namely, of population increase on the one hand and family
morality on the other. It is an extremely grave problem.”
Pope Paul VI 23 June 1964 (Report in The Times 24 June 1964)
“the appeals for world peace and pity for the poor made by a man
whose action helps to promote war and render poverty inevitable do not impress
us any more.”
The reaction of 2600 US scientists to the 1968 confirmation of the ban on
artificial contraception by Pope Paul VI (The Encyclical That Never Was p244.
Sheed&Ward)
“The chief characteristic of the twentieth century is the terrible
multiplication of the world’s population. It is a catastrophe, a disaster.
We don’t know what to do about it.”
Ernst Gombrich OM, Art historian (Hobsbawm, 1994 Age of Extremes p 1)
“It is important to begin any account of the Third World with
some consideration of its demography, since the population explosion is
the central fact of its existence.”
Eric Hobsbawm 1994 The Age of Extremes 1914-1991 p 346
“Population control, by means other than mass famine and disease,
was the most urgent need of the Third World.”
J.A.S. Grenville 1994 The Collins History of the World in the Twentieth Century
p927
…the prime fact of modern history, the demographic revolution…
Paul Johnson 1987 A History of the Jews p356
“Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less
cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.”
Director General of UNICEF, quoted in A Joint Statement by 57 of the World’s
Scientific Academies in 1993 before the Cairo Conference. At the conference,
the scientists’ efforts were block by ideological pressure groups.
“Reducing population growth will not of itself solve Africa’s
problems, but without it they will become insoluble,”
David Coleman, Professor of Demography, Oxford University. Times 3 October
05
Why then - population increase being such an important and certain cause of extreme poverty - is it seldom mentioned in debates? Prof Coleman gives a clue:
“The pressure-group ideology that prevailed over science at the influential Cairo Conference on Population and Development of 1994, and subsequently, has managed to exclude population considerations almost completely from all the recent reports.”
(In fact, pressure group ideology has prevailed over science ever since the 1970’s. GD)
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