The Need for Available Contraceptives
With each miraculous birth the world’s population heads further towards destruction due to overpopulation. Globally, the population is increasing at a rate of 1 billion every decade, a rate that mankind has never seen before (Bongaarts). Most of this huge increase in population is in developing countries where the population is currently 4.3 billion and is expected to more than double within the next hundred years (Bongaarts). Considering that the world’s resources are already being stretched to sustain the current population a high birth rate will be catastrophic if if is allowed to continue. This population boom must be stopped in order to ensure that future generations can experience the standards of living we enjoy today. Though the high birth rate is mainly due to developing countries, all of humanity must work together to overcome it. Hope for the future is only possible if the developed world supports the effort with funds and resources. The key weapon in this battle is birth control, which must be spread globally to those who lack means of controlling their fertility.
Although one little child does not put a significant stress on the world’s resources, the number of children currently being born will cause irreversible and unreasonable demands on the earth. President of the Population Institute Werner Fornos warns, “ Population growth is a leading contributor to environmental degradation” (“Keynote address”). Environmental degradation happens and will continue to happen as we pollute the earth, contribute to global warming, create landfills, and consume our precious and often nonrenewable resources (Bongaarts). Realizing the drastic damage our population h...
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Subsequently, the provided documents on the birth control movement did show the push and pull factors of the complicated and multifaceted debate. Americas push towards industrial growth, and technology demanded that the subsequent progressive reforms were needed for a society ushering in a new era. At the same time, fear and reluctance to abandon tradition and religious custom acted as the pulling factor. The birth control debate was a complicated and heavily charged debate teemed in religious, social, political, and racial rhetoric. Historical documents help shed new light on the things taken for granted today, even the most seemingly innocuous things like birth control were fought for, so that men and women today could be in charge of their own destinies.
... provides us with information to put the “panic” over population into perspective. She addresses both the benefits and side effects of family planning and that population growth can have environmental concerns. Whether offering an opinion or presenting an academic writing or investigation, each author has left the reader with a great deal to consider in regards to the relationship between population control and a growing population.
Educating the public about the importance of family planning is essential to reduce rapidly increasing birth rates. Human demographics have a profound effect on the population dynamics in both developed and developing nations. In more developed nations, there are significantly lower birth and death rates (Schneider). This would mean that the labor force of these nations is greatly limited. There is a risk of a bigger percentage of the elderly compared to the young generation. A higher older population undermines productivity, thereby inhibiting economic growth. In less developed nations, birth and death rates are high. Their economies struggle to maintain this high population. There is over-reliance on foreign aid. Labor is often transferred to the developed nations. The future of these nations is quite unpredictable (Das
The growing human population, if not stabilized, will create a strain on the natural resources. Many countries realize this and have been making changes to family planning. Two of the more notable countries are Brazil and China. China has been know to have a controversial and straightforward policy responding to this problem. Chinese law prohibited families from having more than one child. In contrast, Brazil has no official government policies concerning family planning yet still sees a stabilized population as a result of various improved social programs. In the long run, both were effective in eventually controlling population growth, but at what cost?
The world’s population is rising rapidly from seven billion to the estimated nine billion in 2050 (Ellis, Overpopulation is Not the Problem). Every human being adds stress to the Earth’s resources. Numerous places like Africa and China maintain a copious amount starvation and poverty. There are days when people go without food, water, or shelter. There is even such happening in the United States. In such places, it is difficult to find contraception, or birth control, which leads to unplanned pregnancies. These situations are rooted down to overpopulation, which is when there are too many humans. However, there is a multitude of ways to reverse such negative effects. Population control is a necessary act that will benefit the world through sparing natural resources, decreasing famine, and controlling unplanned pregnancies. A worldwide effort would have to take effect in order for a successful future.
At the U.S. Science Convention of 2011, the dire prediction was made that by 2050, we will have an “unrecognizable” planet by virtue of a huge population competing for a deficient number of resources. It is envisioned that the global population will climb to nine billion by 2050. Due to the increasing population, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay at the yearly meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The only effective solution is to “minimize population growth…through more effective family planning”. We are now witnessing the truth that lied behind the theory of the economist, Thomas Malthus, who foreshadowed the increase of population with minimal resources to support it.
While the world has issues with immigration, health care, drugs, gun control, taxes, and so on going on in the world we forget to think about the fact that our world is facing an issue as impractical as population growth. The idea that having a child will create issues for a country is odd, but it is the case for many countries, including the United States of America. “The U.S. is the third most populous country in the world and has the highest population growth rate of all developed countries,” ( Chamie 1) to further analyze this issue to put it in perspective of the global issue it actual is by comparing the United States current issue with population growth to the population growth issue in China.
To start, when it comes to population growth, many people believe that there should be measures taken to deal with the issue. The idea that population growth can eventually become harmful and it is important to put the human population on an environmentally sustainable path to prevent any potential complications. One strategy that could help diminish this ever-growing population growth would be to provide universal access to safe and effective contraceptive options for both males and females. This could definitely help with eliminating any unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and can insure that each child, or children, are wanted and will be welcomed in advance by their parents. Another strategy would be to end policies that
This essay will discuss the United Nations’ millennium development goals, specifically MDG 5, Improving Maternal Health and the progress that Ethiopia has made in meeting the targets. As suggested by Wills(2004), we can see the health issues in this country through a sociological imagination template that approaches to historical, structural, cultural and critical aspects (as cited in Germov, 2009). There are several determinants of high maternal deaths in Ethiopia; malnutrition from generic poverty status, communicable diseases, low empowerment, early giving birth, inaccessible health service. Best-case example, however, demonstrates that the government of Ethiopian set a target to further reduce maternal mortality ratio from 590 to 267 deaths per 100,000 live births by the year 2015 in the new HSDP IV (MoH, 2010).
The developing countries, are the main concerns for overcrowding. 1996 statistics show that 75% of the worlds population live in both Africa (13%) and Asia (63%). The overpopulation in these continents, is so much higher for many different reasons. The main reason being culture. When comparing a continent like Africa, to a continent like North America, there are many different, noticeable, differences. An example of this being the fertility rate. In Africa’s particular culture, having many children equals high fertility rates and this, they believe, is a great blessing from God. Also, here women are not educated, as well as the developed countries, and there is no or very little knowledge of contraceptives.
The cost of pregnancy prevention was drastically reduced when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the nearly 100%-effective birth control pill (the Pill) in 1960. Whereas in developing countries, contraceptives are difficult to obtain due to restrictions based on gender roles, socio-economic status and cultures and their beliefs. Population over the years has been increasing specifically in developing countries, due to the high mortality rate and need to keep procreating. Our planet, already staggering under 6.5 billion people, is expecting to add another 2 billion by 2030, and perhaps 2 billion beyond that by 2050. Nearly all of them will be born in developing nations. This rising population could be controlled more if ways to prevent pregnancies were less expensive and were accepted throughout society’s norms. Family dynamics and roles are ever-changing and because of this, there is no traditional family sense. Nuclear families are a modern-day concept that mostly resides in developed countries such as Canada and the USA, but in developing countries the family is made up of cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents: the extended family. Giving women the option of contraception is the single most important factor in achieving the "demographic transition"
Hence, to achieve a demographic transition, countries must focus on lowering fertility. This can be achieved by providing men and women with adequate information and services about family planning. Many women in developing countries wants to avoid becoming pregnant but do not use modern family planning method. This leads to almost 80 percent unwanted pregnancies. When women can themselves choose when and how often to become pregnant, they tend to have fewer children and are able to achieve the desired family size. A country’s population age structure can begin to change, setting the stage for demographic
Every minute of every day our world’s population is growing. It is growing at a rate of 1.13% annually with an estimated population change of 80 million people per year. Despite the popular stance taken by most that efforts to reduce human population growth are necessary, it goes against human freedom and denies people their rights to make decisions about family size on their own. However, family planning and other measures to prevent major population growth should be put in place, specifically in underdeveloped countries where people generally have large families. Limiting population growth by putting laws in place have not been successful in the past, for example, in China with their one child policy. These rules and laws also cause population
The question of overpopulation's impact on the environment is multi-dimensional and far beyond the scope of a single essay. The issue has to do with considering the environment a normal good while at the same time understanding the impact of industrialization on increased pollution levels. Relationships between industrialization, overpopulation, global pollution, regional pollution, resource depletion, and numerous other environmental and social concerns form a multi-dimensional series of feedback loops, all of which feed back on the original system. Computer models developed by economic research institutions to predict environmental and developmental impacts of population growth (ex. The World Bank, The Economic Research Service) are n-dimensional, only to be accurately evaluated using advanced statistical regressions and matrix analysis. As such, this paper will assume that there is a direct correlation between population and natural resource depletion (environmental degradation by way of pollutants is an entirely different, and more complicated issue), and the most cost-effective way of amelioration would be to restrain population growth. Given that, what is the correct means for policy to approach the population problem? The options include contraceptive distribution, family planning, general economic development, and gender equality among others. Essentially, policy has to address whether population can be restrained with a "tech fix" such as contraceptives or only after a broad socioeconomic shift.
...he second way to attempt to decrease the population is through increased active family planning programs. Especially in poor countries, it is a lot harder for women just to jump into the work force, and even harder for a poor country to become industrialized. For example, in Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries, birth rates have decreased from seven children per family to only 5.5. This is largely because forty percent of Bangladesh's woman now take part in some form of family planning.