At some point in the day yesterday a baby was born that took the current world population to seven billion people.
It seems as though every continent was claiming to have witnessed the birth of THE landmark child with lavish ceremonies, but while some pockets of the globe are celebrating the milestone others are abandoning festivities with a cautious concern.
As the number of people on earth has more than doubled in the last 50 years, scientists are counting the cost on the climate with theories of overpopulation and humanitarian organisations are warning that the world might not be equipped with enough food, clean water and other basic amenities to cope with such an exploding global population.
At Compassion we believe in the sanctity of life, that every baby born is deliberately purposed by God and bearing His image. How can we take this understanding of the precious and God-given nature of life into a debate like this?
What’s your take on it? Are you joining the party or watching it from afar with a sober-minded restraint?
Tags: climate change, food crisis, global warming, overpopulation, population
How many TV ads have we seen asking for money to help babies and young children who are dying because they were born into poverty? How many of them didn’t have to be in the first place? Would anyone in their right mind chose to start a family when they can’t even feed themselves? I think we have to feed and educate the adults first so that if and when the time is right and they work themselves out of poverty, then they can start a family. But ultimately we need to look to God for wisdom on these issues and trust that it’s all in his compassionate loving hands.
Hi Gemma. Excellent comment, thank you very much. I think one thing to bear in mind is that some families consider having children because it will mean extra hands to help maintain the crops or livestock or bring in an extra income to the family when the parents are old, so the nature of ‘family planning’ is vastly different to what we’ve come to know it as in the west.
It seems a bit harsh to expect people to ‘work themselves out of poverty’ before expecting them to have a family. Besides not being practical, as contraception is reasonably expensive and children can help to provide income for a family, we (as ‘The West’) are not innocent of causing and perpetuating poverty around the world which doesn’t really put us in a position to dictate how others should live their lives.
There’s enough food in the world to feed everyone. Enough resources to go round. It’s just a shame we haven’t learned to share yet.
Cheers Joe yeh I know the mentality is very different, I think that’s why we need to educate people. And these charity appeals on TV seem to suggest babies are being born into extreme poverty where mothers can’t even feed themselves, and they urgently need money and resources to cope – it doesn’t seem right. Perhaps some of these people would actually like sex education/contraception and regret having the children in some way, as awful as that sounds? I certainly would if I was struggling to feed myself and suddenly found myself with another little poor mouth to try and feed. And Sid sorry I didn’t word that very well I didn’t mean they should work themselves out of poverty I meant if we help people by feeding and educating them so that they can get out of poverty, then that’s the right time to start thinking of starting a family, not before when people are dying of hunger themselves. I just think we should start at the route of the problem. It’s not fair for babies to be born into poverty when their mothers can’t even feed themselves let alone the little ones. Would contraception not be cheaper than trying to look after all these babies that are being born into extreme poverty, as well as the adults? Totally agree with your comment ‘there’s enough food in the world to feed everybody, just a shame we haven’t learned to share yet’ – absolutely! Makes me sad to see so much waste in the west and how much we take for granted. But I still think we should start at the route of the problem. For some families yes, children can bring wealth and help look after them, but there’s a difference between families like that and those in extreme poverty who can’t feed themselves and then bring an innocent child into the world. It just makes a difficult situation worse.