Is population control ethical?

Question

As the human population grows and resources decrease we may be forced to artificially control the human population using systems similar to China's one child system. However is this social engineering ever morally acceptable.

Answer 1

Murder is never ethical.
Limiting a family to one child may be acceptable but killing the second child isn't an option. (Abortion is still murder as well.)

People need to be educated about birth control & be responsible.

Personally I'm doing my part. I don't plan to have children. It's just not something that I ever wanted. I have friends that don't want children either. It's strange but people don't seem to believe you when you say you don't want kids. Especially my married friends "Oh, you'll change your mind!" One of my friends gets quite angry because it's a life choice that she made. She doesn't believe it's right to bring more children into the world when the world is such a mess & there are so many children without parents. She feels that it's better to adopt if anything.

It's a tough call.

The world usually finds a way to control the population when it gets out of hand (natural disasters, war, disease, pestilence, plague etc) though it isn't pleasant.

People need to be responsible. People should only have children if they love each other so much that they want to create a family & they should only have as many children as they can realistically care for. Too many people have children for the wrong reasons & neglect or mistreat them & it brings more unhappy people into the world. It isn't just about controlling the population. If each person had control of his/her own life & made responsible choices, the world would be a better place...

Answer 2

Whether or not it is ethical or not I think it will become necesary at some point. The world is already overpopulated and the population continues to grow at an exponential rate. If we keep going like this there would eventually be so many people that we would exhaust the earths resources and many people would die. The best thing to do is encourage population control through education and easy access to birth control and abortion services.

Answer 3

Like all moral choices there is the intuitive answer, and the tougher but more useful answer.

Intuitivly people will want to say "only communisit countries can restrict people that way, let us choose" but this is ignoring quite a large part of the issue involved here.

The questin of wether population controll is moral or not is similar to the question of wether reducing carbon footprint per person is moral or not, by alowing each person to chose based on "this is what i want for myself" we would be alowing the problem to spiral out of control as a sacrafice to individuality.

People as a group ought to be looking at ways to help each other to come to terms with the fact that we are growing to fast as a species, either we will need to slow our growth, or increase dramaticaly the skill we can bring to bear on living sustainably with our environment.

Basicaly the argument that population controll is ethical rests on the idea that if the growth of human population is not controled then we will have comited an unethical act against future generations. this may not be a wholely sustainable position, but it alows a way to make the counter intuitive point that individual choice should not be unfettered.

Yes people should be alowed to chose the way they live their lives, and the size of family they want to raise, but those choices must be fitted into a set of realistic reasoning about society as a larger whole so that they are led to make choices which are a compromise between their own desires and the needs of others.

Answer 4

Well, war and disease are far better population controls. Given that most people frown upon these, the next idea would be to sterilize the less desirable members of society (the poor usually are first) but this seems far less moral to most (starvation is somehow more moral). The religious right is against masturbation, homosexuality or teaching contraception (any of which would help to control the situation (homosexuals are far less likely to have children)). So the morally acceptable solution seems to be to legislate family size. So unless more people start dieing the only way conserve what we have is government mandated population control or to start finding another inhabitable planet.

Answer 5

In some ways all child birth is social engineering. The use of men on the battleground that ultimately changes the gender mix is social engineering of a king.

So is birth control moral. If this saves millions of other lives because they have access to scarce resources will it become more acceptable.

To me one of the key issues will be how the birth control is done. If say by use of condons this will be much more moral than forced abortions.

Answer 6

No, I do not think population control is ethical- but we may have to consider it about 10 or 20 years from now. There is a fine line to morality to existence- and if we run out of resources, we will have to somehow curb our rampant breeding. I think some people should actually have PERMITS before they HAVE children. Too many Jerry Springer rejects in the gene pool as it is..

Answer 7

Morally acceptable ? - no, as it infringes the basic human right of freedom of choice.

Economic necessity ? - yes, as you rightly point out, our burgeoning population is reaching the point (if it hasn't done already) where the existing resources cannot sustain it. We either accept that social engineering is a necessity to control this, or we accept that we shall see more scenes of starving people.

Having said the above, many Western economies are now starting to struggle as the population starts to age and shrink.

Answer 8

Not to me. In China it has brought about more social problems. Because a boy child is needed to carry on the family name many couples choose to abort any female fetus. Another moral issue. Also, this practice causes an imbalance in the ratio of male to female.

Answer 9

ethical?!!!! what does ethical mean? it is just an agreement between some people that some others have a different one! in this case people act by their mind bcz they think if population be so much they won,t have enough facilities even to grow their childs,in the other hand it is a complicated game the one who must born will born!

Answer 10

I think pop. control is a necessary thing. Russeau and Marx said that morality and ethics were inventions of the uppper class imposed upon all members of the lower classes. SO, ethics are based solely on the views and opinions of those who are in power.