Mass birth-control programmes
The ethical problems of mass birth-control programmes
Many people think that God's command to "be fruitful and multiply" can be taken too far. It's generally accepted that over-population will seriously damage the earth and the lives of most people on it.
Large increases in population have already damage the environment and condemned many people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to poverty.
In the last few decades, the effect of population control upon the environment has emerged as a justification for regulation of fertility in dependent of economic concerns.
However many people believe that there serious moral objections to plans to use contraception in order to control population.
One objection that isn't covered here is that the real cause of poverty and damage is over consumption by a few, and that if rich nations stopped consuming far more than their fair share of resources there would be no need for population control to be applied unfairly to poor nations.
There are a number of general objections that can apply to any mass contraception programme.
Here are some of the general ethical objections:
- Imperialism: Both the following can be regarded as forms of imperialism:
- rich countries funding contraceptive programmes in the third world
- rich countries demanding the implementation of birth control programmes in exchange for financial or other aid
- Cultural imperialism: Bringing birth control to a community that has previously avoided it inevitably changes the relationships and power dynamics within that community. It's important to take appropriate precautions to minimise the impact of contraception on cultures to which it is introduced.
- Human rights: Mass birth control interferes with a person's right to have as many children as they wish
- Eugenics: Mass birth control programmes may be used to reduce the birth rate of certain classes, castes or ethnic groups
- Gender bias: The majority of mass birth-control programmes operate by controlling only female fertility. This is because there are long-term female contraceptives such as the pill, hormone implants, and IUDs, but no male equivalents. As a result:
- women unfairly bear the burden of population control
- female fertility is treated as something dangerous that needs to be controlled
- this gender bias operates regardless of the good intentions behind programmes of mass contraception
There are particular ethical objections to birth control programmes that use incentives of money, food or other benefits to reward people who take part:
- Coercion: Using incentives to get people living in poverty to practice birth control amounts to coercion and violates the reproductive freedom of poor people
- i.e. offering people on the edge of starvation food or money to use birth control amounts to an offer they can't refuse, and so deprives them of freedom of choice
- Unfairness: Incentive programmes are only likely to work on poor people - that's unfair
- Eugenics: Incentive programmes which only work on poor people will tend to reduce certain classes and castes in society by causing them to have smaller families.
- Human dignity: Such programmes offend human dignity by treating children as a commodity -something that people can be paid to do without
- Abortion: Such programmes may encourage people to abort foetuses in order to obtain the benefit of small family policies if their birth control method fails