Would it help if I gave you my bona fides as a not full blown feminist type? I am a Catholic who agrees with all my heart and mind with the teachings of my church. So you can bet that my beliefs for the most part run counter to the feminist mind set.
However population control is racist. It must be remembered that population control did not arise isolated out of science or philosophy or religion. It is the beloved child of Eugenics.
The Eugenics movements history can easily be researched on the web. Some names you might want to give a more than fleeting glance to are Margaret Sanger, Francis Galton
( cousin of Charles Darwin), Joseph Fletcher, Kingsley Davis and Lothrop Stoddard.
I haven't even mentioned the money men behind to movement. But today one of the most prominent and influential is John D. Rockefeller who follows in his families footsteps by giving millions to population control efforts.
Paul Jalsevac has written an excellent paper titled
" The Inherent Racism of Population Control"
it can be found at www.lifesite.net
some of the works of the Population Control Advocates cited there include:
Margaret Sanger's " A Code To Stop Overproduction of Children" Also " The Negro Project" was a program of Margaret Sanger's. Suffice it to say it was not pro Negro.
Lothrop's " The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy" Both of these texts are just a small sample of eugenic writings that proposed inferior races were a threat to the US and the world at large.
The philosophy that drove Malthusians, eugenicists, population control advocates are from the same root. That there are too many of the wrong kind of people. Whether it be the poor, the Jews, the Africans, the Asians, the Eastern Europeans or the disabled. It arises out of the belief that individual rights and human dignity must at times be sacrificed for the better good of society. This philosophy can be seen not only in population control support but in the arguments for euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research and selective abortion.
You mock that women are forced to undergo sterilization. Yes it happens. Maybe not in the direct Carrie Buck case style but in other unjustifiable ways. The main way in which women are forced to undergo sterilization or to artificially control the birth of children is one you might have not given thought to.
Economic pressures put on their native countries by such bodies as the UN and the World Bank. After 1968 the World Bank began forcing countries to accept family planning programs they wanted to keep their loans. In 1966 the UN called for special aid for countries that were willing to decrease their population. The United Nations Fund For Population Activities " takes pride in being the
' the world's largest international source of population and reproductive health programs ' Reproductive health programs pretty much means abortion.
You may think that the economic pressure on countries to toe the population control line is ineffectual. But access to the purse strings have always been a great motivator. For people as well as nations.
One aspect of population control often not touched upon is that it always claims that the high birth rate of poor nations is a scandal not only because of the effect they have on resources but because of the very high infant mortality rate. What the second part of that justification fails to mention is that very little money
( in comparison to the cost for funding population control) needs to be spent to help overcome high infant mortality rates. Access to immunizations, clean water, ant-diaharrea medications or supplements,advocacy for breast feeding programs to train midwives and simple sanitation procedures would do a lot towards lowering infant mortality rates.
Non of these are overly costly and the lasting benefits to the people of the countries given these tools to improve infant survival rates is immeasurable.
So yes this loyal the the Church Catholic agrees that population control is racist. I agree with this statement
From the beginning, the great obstacle to the eugenics movement has been the Catholic Church, and the Church's position has been repeatedly distorted. A sketch of the Church's position can be found in: Gaudium et Spes or The Church in the Modern World the Vatican II document explaining to all people of good will why the Church wants to be involved in discussions of the problems facing the world and what she thinks she offers;...
You are probably aware that the Catholic Church can hardly be classified as being in the good graces of the full blown feminist types. So the above argument arise not from radical feminism but in the teachings on human dignity by the Catholic Church.
Great post.