Re: Six Billion People and Counting!

Bargyla Rateaver (brateaver@earthlink.net)
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 06:11:28 -0700

The reality has nothing to do with statistics, food, etc. The real fact is
that there is a poor woman in Africa (let's pick that country), who already
has five kids. One is tied onto her back. She has to find a way to feed all
the family. Then her husband goes off to the city, apparently to "look for
work".. If he ever gets any, he is almost certain to not send it home to his
struggling wife, but spends it on himself, maybe gets drunk, loafs around,
gets some other woman pregnant, before he finally loafs home to berate his
overburdened wife for something she has struggled to do that he should have
been home to do.
The woman is gone to the fields. There, with a child on her back, she uses
a heavy, clumsy hoe on hard clay fields. No one ever told her to incorporate
the rice hulls she throws away ever day, or the corn shucks. After a hard
day's digging with a miserable tool, she has to carry pails of water on her
head, from a water pump a mile away, to water the plantings. Then head for
home with more water in a pail on her head, and carrying some of the wood she
picked up here and there, to stagger home and cook a meal for a man who
complains about it, and 6 hungry children, then cleans up and lies down on a
hard soil floor to try to sleep a little before she has to struggle up the
next morning to another hard day.
So why would she have yet one more child? Ask that dastardly male whose
sole interest in life is his sex affairs and food.
STOP blaming the women, who are mere victims. They take all the abuse, all
the workload and all the responsibility.

You think I am prejudiced? Ha. Just read and read and read. Or go live there
and see for yourself.
STERILIZE males !! and the world situation is solved.

Anita Graf (Staff) wrote:

> Six Billion People and Counting!
>
> Walker Bennet brought to our attention the matter of sixth billionth
> person to the planet, and I have a few comments. As I agree that
> population and access to appropriate contraceptive methods is a very
> important topic, I am usually frustrated by the direction that
> discussions of world over-population take. It is usually argued that
> it is the sheer number of people that is depleating our resources and
> increasing contamination and poverty. But I think this is only a
> small part of the issue. I think that the real issue is the
> amount of resource depleation and pollution PER person. The
> statistic that sticks out in my mind is that an average person
> (whatever that is!) in a "developed" country uses 12 (that's TWELVE)
> times the resources of an average "developing" country person. In
> other words, if I have one child, that child is the same as my
> counterpart in Bangladesh or Nigeria having 12 children. Wow. Now,
> one wonders, who is *really* overpopulating the earth?
>
> Another part of the story... Statistics also clearly show that as
> infant mortality rates decline and the opportunity for education
> increases, fertility rates decline (much more so than the
> availability of contraceptives alone). That is, when people can be
> sure that a given child is likely to survive to adulthood and they
> are willing and able to invest in that child, they are likely to have
> fewer children. (The move from agrarian society to non agrarian is
> also an important factor.) Having lived in and married someone from
> a "third world" country, I live somewhere between the two realities,
> and I experience the differences everytime I try to explain to
> my in laws (for example) why we haven't had children yet... In most
> countries of the world, the potential benefits an additional child
> are felt to be much greater than the cost of feeding one more mouth.
> But that's because they don't agonize over how they will buy more
> health insurance (no one can afford it anyway), how they will pay for
> a decent education (doesn't seem attainable anyway), how they will
> afford to add another bedroom, another bed, baby seats, cribs, toys,
> clothes, a new minivan and on and on. The things that seem to us in
> the US to be basic needs when raising a child are just not reasonably
> attainable realities in most countries. So another child just seems
> like it requires a bit more food, a few more hand-me-down clothes,
> and a few more prayers. (Small price to pay for gaining another
> possible source of family income.) Of course, this is much less
> resource-intensive!
>
> So the issue is more than just that some parts of the world are
> reproducing too often. Other parts of the world are also consuming
> too much. And declines in reproduction are usually met with
> increases in consumption. So what's the answer? Well, there's
> obviously more than one answer, but a big chunk of the solution is
> related to why this thread has a place on this list.
>
> Anita
>
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