Sustainable Development and Population Control

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Sustainable Development and Population Control

A nineteen year old pregnant Chinese girl is forced to abort because she is "too young" to have a child. Iran, an Islamic nation, instructs religious leaders to promote contraception as a social duty. A Norwegian international banker worries about "migratory tensions" that would engulf his nation with waves of third world immigrants. A Los Angles Times article decries the lack of an official United States population policy. What do these statements share in common?

The underlying theme in each of the sentences above is population control. In each case the rationale is that the earth's six billion people exceed the planet's "carrying capacity." The planet is on the brink of a demographic catastrophe. The consumption of precious resources (land, food, water, clean air) threatens the earth's environment and the diversity of species. Short of exterminating half the world's people, what is to be done?

A policy of controlled development -"sustainable development"-was codified at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. Momentum had been building since United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm in 1972. At Stockholm the outline for sustainable development was first drafted and presented to the world's leaders and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) was born. More than a dozen international conferences followed, culminating in the Rio Conference.

At Rio several key global plans were initiated: Agenda 21 (a manifesto for development for the twenty-first century), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Framework Convention on Clima...

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... give the UN the power to force changes in the Chilean constitution which protects life in the womb.

There are legitimate concerns for the environment, for the fair and proper assistance developed nations must extend to developing nations, and for equitable educational opportunities for women. The Holy See Mission at the UN consistently promotes these authentic goals minus the snags of population control measures. It is the Catholic task to promote the human good without eliminating the humans.

SOURCES CITED:

"The Millenium Assembly of the United Nations."

http://www.un.org/millennium/summit.htm

Pontifical Council For the Family.

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/family/

"United Nations International Conference on Population and Development."

http://www.iisd.ca/linkages/cairo.html

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