One Billion Too Many

The American public has plenty to say when it comes to who Jennifer Aniston is dating and how much money they lost in the stock market, but when it comes to serious issues like over-population everyone is hush, hush. By now the majority of us understand and even acknowledge that over consumption has pushed us into the economic crisis we face today, but no one wants to acknowledge the cold hard facts—we are outgrowing our resources at a dangerous rate.

In America alone around 4 million people are born a year, and because of improvements in technology and in the medical field, only half as many people die a year. Americans are at the beginning stage of making the necessary changes to curb our addictions, but what about our addiction for life? We fight tooth and nail to stay alive for as long as possible, and we consider every pregnancy to be a "blessing," whether it is forced or implanted by a doctor, and yet this obsession with life is actually killing our earth and eventually our species. In this day and age in the United States there is no real reason for a couple to have more than one child (it's not like we need our kids to work in our fields or on our farm), and it seems selfish to have more than one biological child, especially when there are thousands of kids all over the world that need a home.

Speaking of people with a large family, I have been thinking a lot about the octuplet mom scandal. I can't remember any other time when the public has been outraged by multiple births such as this; in fact, I recall how in the past the public has treated these births as "miracles" and rushed to help out the overwhelmed parents, so what makes this mom so different? Maybe it is because of the recession, or the fact that the octuplet mom already has six kids, or that she is honest about her obsession with having children, but whatever the reason may be, the public is outraged to the point of harassment. People claim they are angry because the taxpayers are going to have to be the ones paying for the octuplet mom's irresponsibility, but I would like to think that maybe the public is recognizing in their anger what a huge problem overpopulation is but they are just too scared to voice their feelings.

There are a lot of negative connotations surrounding population control, and in the U.S. we are quick to associate the word "overpopulation" with communism and being Un-American. In reality, the one-child policy of the People's Republic of China might not have been perfect or implemented correctly, but at least they were acknowledging that there is a problem and I think we could learn a lot from our world neighbors on this issue. Our first step is to recognize this is a serious issue, and then to let the communication flow from there.