Population, Resources, Environment

...We should read the book criticaliy and then look for good solutions to the problems, though we need not necessarily ascribe to his solutions...

...and not least, psychological trauma and impairment of the human spirit invariable result under condition of overcrowding...

...But, according to those vocally advocating indiscriminate abortions, those inconveniences are not really the important points...

...allow each child to be born and raised to near maturity when its character and talents, or lack of them, can be identified, at approximately eighteen or twenty years of age...

...with excess population there will be food shortages and wars...

...At present, the fetus has a number of legal rights: the fetus can inherit, can be the subject of negligence suits and has a legal right to support, enforceable by a guardian...

...What universal rule can be made to determine who warrants protection as a human being and who does not...

...After one week's development the organism attaches itself to the mother, using a "lifeline" composed of its cells...

...too many people befoul the environment and upset the world ecology...

...My modest proposal is that of reason: do not abort the unknown and unrecognizable fetus...

...The book is ample in reference, illustrations and graphs...

...I am assured by members of the medical profession that the sight of pieces of skull, tiny hands, feet and ribs is far more repulsive than the sight of the intact body of a condemned adult...

...Ehrlich maintains that the environment is probably the greatest threat to individual liberty that has ever existed...

...Paul Ehrlich has been one of the leaders in environmental studies...

...It must be remembered that each tiny embryo, no matter how young, with or without a soul as you please, is an absolutely unique combination of genetic factors, a combination never before produced and one that never again will be produced...

...corporations tell us, in ads of course, how ecological they are, and gasoline is sold not for what it does to the automobile but to free the air...

...Some clergy, and a certain proportion of the medical profession, particularly those interested in psychiatry and the social sciences, argue for removal of all restraints, both legal and moral...

...every cell which develops from the fertilized egg will carry this unique, human, genetic specification, clearly distinguishing the organism from its mother...

...What kind of thing is a human embryo...

...The Alternative December, 1971 13 The book begins with a statement of the problems followed by a discussion of population studies and nomenclature...

...Anyway, few arguments have been made on behalf of abortion which could not be extended to the killing of others, such as infants...

...Since Earth Day, 'environment" itself has become part of the general pollution...

...First, there will be no argument against the proposition that liberalization of abortions is one answer to the problems of world population growth...

...Certainly this is a reasonable attitude...

...Television has crammed one program after another down our collective throats...

...Secondly, since no one now-a-days pays much attention to religious scruples, and the clergy are listened to only when they renounce the teachings of their faiths in favor of some popular movement, I will not discuss this issue in a religious reference...

...Young people would listen to their elders and be respectful to them...

...This is not the time to nitpick...

...Then, and only then, a just atLd dispassionate decision can be made...

...The fetus doesn't "seem" to be a human being...

...His training is in biology but recently has turned his full attention to human ecology...

...Gone would be the longhaired Hippies and Yippies, the cheaters, petty thieves and shop-lifters...

...Neither did the slaves seem to be human to many of the slave-holders...

...Surely, on the basis of reason alone, and reason is supposed to underlie all the arguments of the abortion supporters, my modest proposal should be adopted...

...If it is "'merely a part of the mother," like a hangnail or an appendix, then of course she has the right to have it removed...

...Ehrlich, in this book, points out the urgency of a problem that has been remote, however obvious, to most people...

...Noonan and his contributors discuss the moral quandaries which result from acknowledging the claim that the fetus has human rights, and they differ on some of the borderline cases: the deformed, the products of rape or incest, the children of the mentally retarded...

...Imagine how it would be received if the Joint Chiefs of Staff justified war as another population control strategy ! ) The abortion advocates have been skillful propagandists...

...Haldane, a British geneticist, has suggested that we might breed legless humans for use as astronauts...what if Morn wanted you to be an astronaut...

...Among these he will find his prize animals and he will, in time, have an outstanding herd...

...Paul Ramsey, a professor of ethics at Princeton, directs much of his essay to this question...

...Three powerful currents of contemporary thought have swept aside the contern for life: the sexual revolution, women's liberation and the population crisis...

...We would solve the problems of our crowded cities, correct ecological imbalances, and take care of the unwanted, unloved and starving people of this world...

...The earth can support only a finite number of people...

...Consider how the world would be changed for the better...

...The limits are imposed by arable land, water, air and space...

...Ehrlich thinks that our right to live the "good life" and pass that right on to whatever childern we do have is more important than maintaining the right to unlimited reproduction, pollution and destruction...

...Their arguments pertain to the benefits to society, and certainly my proposal would deal with that aspect more scientifically, without the loss of all these potentially great individuals...

...Because many burdens are unfairly borne bywomen, some think that any burdens unique to women are unfair...

...all agree that the mother has the right to abort her child to save her life...

...Yet the abortion question has subtleties usually glossed over by those terrible simplifiers whose arguments center around "the butchering of women" or "a woman's right to do as she pleases with her own body," and this excellent collection of essays delves into the underlying issues...

...Thirdly, it seems inconceivable that the unborn will ever be allowed to vote...

...We recognize that it would not be right to force a human being into an environment in which he will die (throwing a non-swimmer into deep water, for example), except under special circumstances, even if such a human being had proven to be a grave inconvenience or embarrassment, or seemed "too deformed...

...At present the state has the equipment to restrict liberty...

...Ramsey's italics...

...There are"too many" people...

...It is much more multifaceted than one might think...

...I think the author has made his point...

...With this simple and humane plan all of the reasonable goals of the abortion supporters would be met, except, of course, for the minor inconvenience and expense of carrying the pregnancies a full nine months and raising the child for eighteen or twenty years...

...I herewith humbly submit my proposal...

...Aldo Somers, M.D...

...If the unborn can be killed, what else can be done to them...

...Until some way is found to be absolutely sure of what one is dealing with, a policy of abortion at will will destroy the potentially great while sparing in equal measure the potential criminals, the neurotically incompetent and the antisocial burdens on society...

...As the biological sciences give mothers and other persons the ability to alter biological characteristics of the unborn (see, for example, "The New Genetics," Time, 19 April 1971), we may find the results appaUin_g, J.BIS...

...The unborn child has an underdeveloped brain, so do others...

...the undesirables, all those whom the world considers unwanted, can be eliminated...

...As incentives to produce were weakened and production failed to keep pace with population growth and rising expectations, those who once told us America had a "'distribution problem" (rather than a "production problem") now are telling us that we have a "population problem...

...It is not until four to eight weeks after this that fetal movements are felt by the mother, an event called "quickening," which has been the source of some traditional distinctions regarding abortion...

...Ehrlich then makes proposals that might help us avoid the most extreme solutions...

...That apparently insignificant bit of protopla~n might grow into an Abraham Lincoln, an Einstein, an Albert Schweitzer or a Hubert Humphrey...

...From the moment of conception, the fertilized egg, unlike either the sperm or the unfertilized ovum, has a full complement of chromosomes which are uniquely its own (unless duplicated in an identical twin...

...12 The Alternative December, 1971 Whether or not to abolish the anti...

...But what...

...The next section is devoted to exploring the limits of the earth...

...However, in spite of the many and reasonable arguments in favor of a policy of easy abortion, there still remains for some the barrier of human conscience...

...The author thinks the key to any solution of the world's problem is birth control...

...Lest the sentimental reader feel revulsion at the execution of millions of young people, let me remind them that a gas-chamber assembly line is far less grisly than the bloody piece-meal dismemberment of a fetus by an abortionist...

...The main issues are about to be obscured by the smog created in pursuit of the ecological dollar...

...He observes the growth and potential of each animal, keeping always the best...

...Ironic, isn't it, that many of the same people who are eager to defend seal pups and baby bears and salmon eggs from harm see nothing wrong with the killing of embryonic human beings...

...He conveys .a feeling of concern by writing dramatically, but in doing so he occasionally overstates a point...

...A political advertisement for a Massachusetts politico who favored abortion legalization carried the voice of one of his supporters saying, "I know it's a human being, but...

...His Population, ResourCes, Environment is a primer in the field...

...Crime would be almost eliminated, for most criminals display such a proclivity in their early teens...

...When survival is threatened, the measures used to survive can only be speculated...

...Although, some people profess to see a great difference between the child bern and the child as yet unborn, it is hard to grant that eight months after conception a child born prematurely has full rights to life, but his counterpart still in the womb does not...

...Many believe the laws should be repealed...

...Hence, this justifies so drastic a method of popular reduction as abortion...

...So I have, after much soulsearching and study, found a plan which should accomplish what is desired by the abortion suDvorters while eliminating the possibilities for serious error which indiscriminate abortion is bound to produce...

...Why choose the unborn for death rather than the aged, the less fit or the willing humanitarians...

...these formal elements are already determining the organic life to be not only generally "human' but also the unique indwidual human being it is to be...

...Though such a fortuitous probability may be small, there is still an excellent chance that it might grow into a useful public servant, a bank president, a doctor or a very wonderful mother...

...Democratic forms of government have never survived in overpopulated urban modes of life...

...Ehrlich states that we must act now to control the exploding population even though technology may offer improvements...

...What if Morn wanted a docile child or a hyperactive achiever or a drone to help with the housework...

...A fa2'mer wishing to control the quality of his stock does not blindly slaughter every other little piglet or send to the market half of his best breeding stock...

...What rights could they retain...

...My proposal stems from the proposition that apparently world opinion no longer will tolerate the addition of millions of unwanted people, more mouths to feed in a hungry world, the unloved and uncared for who will be liabilities to society rather than assets...

...Perhaps "rights" are, in the final analysis, rules governing haman behavior which if followed would lead to the greatest happiness to the greatest number...

...that those measures might be extreme cannot be denied...

...Psychotics and neurotics would be weeded out along with those physically defective, We would greatly reduce the incidence of inheritable diseases such as diabetes and asthma...

...It is indiscriminate...

...A BraveNew World may be dawning, fellow Alpha's and Beta's, a world shaped by the frightful possibilities of the "fearful (continued on page 14...

...These problems of too many people are very real ones...

...Once one understands the nature of the unborn child, one must ask to what degree such an entity qualifies for the rights accorded a human being...

...He may be criticized for specific issues and taken to task for poor references and statistics, but his thesis is correct...

...Because many traditional constraints on human sexuality seemed illogical, all came to be questioned...

...The fetus is highly dependent, so are other human beings...

...Whatever the nature of rights, those who advocate legislation should discuss its consequences and compare them with the consequences of not making such legislation...

...There is no way of knowing the potential of any proposed victim of abortion until it has nearly reached maturity...

...However, there is one great flaw in this method of eliminating the unwanted...

...In short, the fetus is a complex, genetically human organism which is biologically dependent upon the mother as a "'parasite...

...Some demand that abortions be provided at minimal expense to any pregnant woman who wants one, for whatever reason, are even encouraged to defer population growth...

...Ehrlich states the issues, the alternatives, and thankfully makes some value judgments...

...At the end of eight weeks, the organism becomes a "fetus," and although it is only an inch long "there is readable electrical activity coming from the fetal brain...

...Legal abortions are now available in New York for anyone with the wherewithal to make it to Gotham (97,881 abortions were performed there in jtist eight months), and other states are now liberalizing their abortion laws...

...Why would one prefer a system of rules which gave lessthan the greatest happiness possible...

...abortion laws which have accumulated through the past few centuries has become one of the hottest debates of our time...

...With the prospect of judgment at the age of eighteen instead of at the Day of Resurrection, their behavior in the preceeding years would be exemplary...

...Furthermore, this proposal would have a very salutory effect on our youth...

...In New York, on the other hand, the fetus may now be killed at the mother's discretion...

...These ~vho are willing and able to make a beneficial contribution to society would be spared...

...Three to four weeks following fertilization, while the woman is wondering whether or not she might be pregnant, the embryo "has a head, rudimentary eyes, ears and brain, a body with a digestive tract, heart and bloodstream, simple kidneys and liver....The differentiation is sufficient for heart pumping to occur...