Government population control policies and their impact on low-income women

¶ … government force poor women to limit the number of children they have?

The so-called population problem has flirted with becoming a mainstream policy debate in the west. China, with its population of more than one billion people, has already implemented "family planning." Discussion over adopting kindred policies in the United States, and much of Europe, must take this trailblazing example into account. For the Chinese government, family planning is "a strategic policy that suits national conditions." Are one-child policies, typically directed at the poor, motivated by politics or benign attempts at saving the planet? According to China, (1, HY Conference)

The population problem is an important question that touches upon the survival and development of the Chinese nation, the success or failure of China's modernization drive as well as the coordinated and sustained development between the population on one hand, and the economy, society, resources and environment on the other. It is a natural choice that the Chinese government has made to implement family planning, control population growth and improve the life quality of the population a basic state policy on the basis of a wish to make the state strong and powerful, the nation prosperous and the people happy."

First, would the leaders of the United States be interested in institutionalized family planning? In fact, it seems likely that influential leaders in western governments are keen on the idea. That such a policy has taken on so similar a character across the board, might hint at a certain level of coordination among nations. Dr. Nina Federoff, the technology advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, told a BBC program, "There are probably already too many people on the planet…We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Federoff said. (2, Watson)

Dr. Federoff has in the past been an advocate of widespread use of genetically modified foods, vehemently disagreeing with opponents on the issue: "We wouldn't think of going to our doctor and saying, 'Treat me the way doctors treated people in the 19th Century, and yet that's what we're demanding in food production."

Jonathon Porrit, one of Gordon Brown's leading green advisers, warned last year, "Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure." He said that Britain has no choice but to drastically reduce its population so as to build a "sustainable" society. The trust of which Porritt is a part, Optimum Population Trust (OPT), released data last year suggesting UK population be cut to 30 million persons in favor of sustainability. The represents a fifty percent cut in the UK population. Whether or not an economic downturn has caused Porrit to rehash his ideas is unclear. (3, Leake) Other proponents of such programs cite the need for governments to supply unprepared parents with Food Stamps, Health Care, Child Care as a reason for limiting the amount of children poor people have.