RELIGIONS BLIND TO BIRTH-RATE DANGERS

This letter appears in today's Leicester Mercury:

Religions blind to birth-rate dangers

I wonder if your correspondent Francisca Martinez, who seems to think that overpopulation of the planet is not merely acceptable but a positive movement, has ever been to Africa to see the consequences of her misguided views?

If she did then perhaps she would see the devastating effect that overpopulation has upon the lives and health of humans and upon the environment as a whole.

It is not merely poverty that has led to some of the problems we see in the world today. The most fundamental and insidious cause of current world problems is that of overpopulation – and poverty largely stems from this.

Overpopulation frequently leads to the erosion of human rights and restrictions on freedom and gives rise to despotic regimes.

The Earth is only capable of sustaining a finite level of life. Beyond that the ecological system as a whole collapses, along with it its closely-connected food chains, leading ultimately to the destruction of civilisations and human life.

This has been witnessed numerous times throughout history, with the collapse of civilisations through overpopulation leading to a breakdown of the environment that sustained the civilisation in the first place.

Ms Martinez shows her ignorance of history when she claims that Western Europe never suffered from hunger.

In fact, Europe has suffered numerous famines within historical times.

Europe has escaped overpopulation until recently because of the agrarian and Industrial Revolutions, leading to families choosing to have fewer children.

Contrary to Ms Martinez's claims, it is correct to link hunger and civil unrest in the Third World to overpopulation.

There have been 148 wars since the Second World War. Most of these have been population wars.

The evidence of a planetary population problem includes the cataclysmic increase in economic refugees.

It would seem Ms Martinez is basing her opinion on her faith in Catholicism, from which she chooses a credible pro-life stance.

The Vatican has opposed birth control for decades in the face of a global population epidemic and human misery.

In the 1980s, Pope John Paul II went to Nairobi and counselled Kenyans, whose population at the time was the fastest growing in Africa, to "be fruitful and multiply".

Such moral and spiritual irresponsibility marks a failure to respond or recognise the fundamental challenge facing humanity and the environment of the planet.

The Roman Catholic Church believes that contraception is intrinsically evil, regardless of the consequences.

Yet such reasoning appears flawed, based on insufficient firm biblical authority.

The scripture that mentions it refers to abortion or infanticide.

Furthermore, other ancient Christian texts forbidding contraception were themselves inspired merely by hostility to heretical Christian groups rather than to any moral objections to birth control.

The principle reason why the Roman Catholic Church forbids contraception is simply due to Papal attitude and church practice.

There seems more than a little self-interest in an institution that demands total obedience and authority over as many followers as it can control.

Having a demographic superiority over other religions and institutions ensures immense global power and hence why such an institution would wish to ensure the prevalence of as many Catholics as possible, irrespective of the dire consequences to mankind.

If you compare a map of the world's religions with that of regions where there is most overpopulation, there are many similarities.

The same goes for Islam, which not only demands to convert the world through demographic superiority but which is also found largely, though not exclusively, in countries with large populations.

"Unlike plagues of the Dark Ages or contemporary diseases we do not understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess.

"What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of the billions who are its victim." – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clive Potter, Leicester