Food, Population, and Abortion: The Christian Response
I receive a surprising number of e-mails and blog comments such as the following, left on a recent post:
It gets tiresome listening to people belly aching about abortion without offering any real alternative. Let’s face it–we are fast approaching the point when the world will no longer be able to feed her people. So what is YOUR solution? What would the population of China be if she did not have her one child pro-abortion policy? Is the Catholic approach to save all life until it strangles us all?The glib answer, of course, is that Thomas Malthus warned, in An Essay on the Principle of Population, that "we are fast approaching the point when the world will no longer be able to feed her people"--in 1798. Since then, every 20 years or so, a similar doomsayer has released equally dire predictions--all of which have, for over 200 years, proved untrue. (And, of course, each prophet of overpopulation has believed that the answer is contraception and, in more recent years, abortion.)
Pointing out the errors of such prophets is necessary to maintain a sense of historical perspective, but it is also true that the world faces certain challenges today that it did not in the past. Pope Benedict XVI discussed one of those challenges in his Angelus Message on Sunday, November 9--Thanksgiving Day in Italy. The Church in Italy has attached a scriptural theme to Thanksgiving: "I was hungry and you gave me food." Reflecting on this theme, Pope Benedict said:
"I unite my voice to that of Italian bishops who, on the basis of these words of Jesus, draw attention to the serious and complex problem of hunger, made even more dramatic by price increases in certain basic foodstuffs. The Church, while reiterating the fundamental ethical principle of the universal destination of goods, puts this into practice following the Lord Jesus' example, with many charitable initiatives. I pray for the rural world, especially for smallholders in developing countries. I encourage and bless those who undertake to unsure that no-one lacks healthy and adequate nourishment: those who help the poor help Christ Himself."The problem of hunger in the modern world is very real, but the solution does not lie in the destruction of unborn human life. Pope Benedict's reference to "smallholders"--small farmers--is very important. Many of the localized shortages of food that have caused famines in recent decades have their roots in the destruction of traditional agriculture.
Governments in Africa and Asia, having seen the West make tremendous production gains for a while with modern agricultural techniques, forced farmers to abandon traditional techniques, modernized farms, and forced rural populations off the land and into the cities. The results were not what they expected. Indeed, the one-child, pro-abortion policy that the commenter admires was China's response to the unintended consequences of government-mandated agricultural modernization.
The good news is that, around the world, traditional agriculture is being revived, in part because modern agricultural is so heavily reliant on oil. As rural communities are revitalized, population and food production come back into balance. This is the long-term solution to the problem of human hunger, as aid agencies such as CARE International have recognized in recent years.
The solution to human misery can never be the destruction of humanity. The quickest way to "strangle us all" (in the words of the commenter) is to make us less than human, by our callous rejection of the least among us.
First of all, I am a Catholic. But I find the Church’s stand on overpopulation self-delusional.
It is an undeniable fact that the human population must stabilize at some point and there are only two factors at play – the birth rate and the death rate. If one does not favor a lower birth rate, then by default that person favors a higher death rate. Either the earth can support a smaller population living long lives at a high standard of living, or a much larger population with a short life expectancy living in poverty. The Church clearly favors the latter.
Abortion is an abhorent practice and doesn’t even need to be factored into a rational discussion of options available to reduce the birth rate and stabilize the population. It can easily be accomplished through contraception and economic incentives for people to choose smaller families.
Regarding the subject of embryonic stem cell research, it seems hypocritical of the Church to support the creation of excess embryoes for the purpose of invitro fertilization, embryoes that are clearly doomed to destruction, and then oppose their destruction for useful medical research. If you oppose the destruction of embryoes, then oppose the creation of more embryoes than are going to be implanted.
It’s time for the Pope and the Church to come out of the dark ages and be part of the solution to the world’s problems instead of aggravating them.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
there are only two factors at play
Actually, there are many factors at play, including our agricultural practices, climate, the availability of natural resources, etc. To reduce questions of population to birth rate and death rate means closing off many other avenues.
it seems hypocritical of the Church to support the creation of excess embryoes for the purpose of invitro fertilization
It would indeed seem hypocritical, if what you wrote were correct, but it isn’t. The Church does not approve of in vitro fertilization or any other reproductive technology that works outside of the natural sexual process. The production of embryos for IVF is in direct opposition to Church teaching.
I remember reading somewhere that ‘all the world’s population could be fed by subsistence-farming an area of arable land equivalent to the area of Texas’. (Presumably the unremembered author was factoring in the space required by three-crop rotation etc.) Is this true? Where have the absolute numbers been crunched?
The problem may not be the lack of food, but lack of water to produce it.
Richie, that’s a good point, and it’s another area where traditional agricultural methods are better than modern industrialized agriculture, which relies heavily on large swaths of land that need to be irrigated.
Thanks for addressing my e-mail in your article. For the record I do not approve of abortion. I just wanted to point out that an argument based on strictly idealistic lines will fail. There are too many ideals out there to choose from, and people choose for their personal convenience. The energy crisis has brought world hunger to the fore. As prices increase so do the food riots.
When Thomas Malthus was born in 1766 the population of the world was 750 million. Today it is 6.6 billion. In 2050 it will be 10 billion.
Nonabortion means having more kids. Having more kids cannot be the remedy we put forward. If we as Catholics believe that God does not give us a challenge too big to handle, then praying as a Church for an answer that all people can embrace is the thing to do.
We still need an answer. As long as we are faced with a global catastrophe avoiding abortion on strictly idealistic grounds is part of the problem. I say pray.