Bless the Children

I don’t have kids. I think I was probably 14 or 15 when I decided that raising children was something I did not want to do. I don’t hate kids, I just don’t want any. Because of this stance, I have been accused of being selfish for my decision, and have even had people insinuate that I am somehow committing a transgression against God himself for not going forth and multiplying. My decision to remain childless is my own business, but I say to you here and now: To have more than two children is to help destroy the human race.

There’s no doubt in my mind that overpopulation is the single largest problem facing every living person on this planet. Consider these (estimated) numbers: In 1802, the world population reached one billion persons. We know for sure that there were thriving civilizations at least 4000 years ago, so let’s work on the assumption that it took around 6000 years to produce one billion people alive on the earth at the same time. In 1928, the population reached 2 billion. What took 6000 years had been accomplished in just over 100 and it didn’t stop there. Just 70 years later, the world’s population tripled to 6 billion. That’s five billion children born in less than 200 years.

The fact is that unless every person on earth of reproductive age agrees to have no more than two children, which would keep the tally where it is now, we will continue to grow. Even if such a thing were possible (which it isn’t), there are still those who would cry “foul!” and assert that no one should be able to tell them how many children to have, and they’d be right. Selfish, perhaps, but right. The trouble is, though, that the planet we live on will support only a finite number of people no matter how great our strides in agriculture. The simple fact is that we are heading, no, rushing toward a catastrophe that will affect every single one of us.

In 1973, a movie was produced called “Soylent Green.” It is a bleak and terrifying glimpse into the future of a world overpopulated and starving, decimated by climate changes. (Sound familiar?) Natural foods are available only to the very few rich, while the general populace subsists on wafers manufactured by the Soylent Company. The twist is that the wafers are made from the dead (an inevitable consequence of being alive). The more people there are, the more dead there will be, and since living people have to eat, well…it is the only logical solution to feed an overpopulated world that has procreated itself to the point where it cannot feed its ever increasing numbers.

Nature has ways of culling the population in the form of disasters and diseases, and we humans do a pretty good job of killing each other off as well. Unfortunately, we are able to replenish ourselves at a much faster rate. Perhaps the most fundamental right of people is to reproduce, and there is no moral solution to overpopulation. I am sure, however, that an immoral one will come along. You may say that I am foolish and cynical, and I hope you’re right, but make no mistake: If we do not stem the current rate of reproduction, the world of “Soylent Green” is the horrific, inexorable destiny of our species.

Epilogue:
I started this essay after reading about a “drop box” for unwanted infants in Japan, and got off on the tangent of overpopulation. I’ve been wanting to write about it for some time, and I finally found my impetus. Read about the drop box here and ask yourself if this is a good idea. I’m not even going to touch the abortion issue save to say that planning is the key to solving this problem we all face, no matter what the Catholics say. And for those who think I’m being a shrill doomsday prophet, you need only look to the millions starving in the world right now and tell them I’m wrong. Better yet, feed them anti birth control literature and tell them it’s God’s will that they are born to starve.