Family planning as a solution for climate change. Bioethical dilemmas in the context of Sustainable Development (original) (raw)
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Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability: Assessing the Science
Is there a scientific evidence base demonstrating that the use of family planning contributes to environmental sustainability? This report explores that question based on a two-year collaborative review of more than 900 peer-reviewed research papers from around the world published from 2005 through early 2016. No scientific discipline systematically examines or confirms the influence of voluntary family planning on environmental problems. Looking at pathways that lead through the slowing of population growth and the empowerment of women, however, the Family Planning and Environmental Sustainability Assessment (FPESA) found a wide-ranging literature generally affirming that this influence is both real and constructive. FPESA identified considerable evidence supporting—and very little refuting—the statement that the practice of voluntary family planning promotes environmental benefits and that expanding access to it can help bring about an environmentally sustainable world that meets human needs. The diversity of researchers interested in the family-planning connection to the environment is high, the report also concludes. The report features the project's findings, perspectives on major related issues by eight authors, and an annotated bibliography containing assessments of 50 of the most compelling papers relevant to the linkage. Through research and outreach that inspire action, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute's top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing.
Climate ethics and population policy: A review of recent philosophical work
WIREs Climate Change, 2021
It is well-established that human population growth is a leading cause of increased greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating global climate change. After decades of neglect, philosophical ethicists have, over the past decade, taken up the issue of climate change and population policy and there are now numerous articles and books which explore the subject. Both rights-based and consequentialist approaches seek to balance reproductive rights against other human rights and interests threatened by overpopulation and ecological degradation. While biocentric ethicists have additional reasons to advocate for smaller human populations, even anthropocentrists affirm the need to balance reproductive rights against reproductive responsibilities in order to promote the well-being of future generations. There is a particularly strong consensus on the value of choice-enhancing population policies that reduce fertility voluntarily, such as securing universal access to modern contraception and promoting equal rights and opportunities for women. There is strong support for government policies that incentivize smaller families, some support for policies that disincentivize larger ones, and little to no support for punitive policies. Many ethicists warn that failure to enact reasonable population policies now may necessitate harsher policies in the future, a common theme in climate ethics generally.
2009
The links between rapid population growth and concerns regarding climate change have received little attention. Some commentators have argued that slowing population growth is necessary to reduce further rises in carbon emissions. Others have objected that this would give rise to dehumanizing "population control" programmes in developing countries. Yet the perspective of the developing countries that will be worst affected by climate change has been almost completely ignored by the scientific literature. This deficit is addressed by this paper, which analyses the first 40 National Adaptation Programmes of Action reports submitted by governments of least-developed countries to the Global Environment Facility for funding. Of these documents, 93% identified at least one of three ways in which demographic trends interact with the effects of climate change: (i) faster degradation of the sources of natural resources; (ii) increased demand for scarce resources; and (iii) heightened human vulnerability to extreme weather events. These findings suggest that voluntary access to family planning services should be made more available to poor communities in least-developed countries. We stress the distinction between this approach, which prioritizes the welfare of poor communities affected by climate change, and the argument that population growth should be slowed to limit increases in global carbon emissions. The paper concludes by calling for increased support for rights-based family planning services, including those integrated with HIV/AIDS services, as an important complementary measure to climate change adaptation programmes in developing countries. Une traduction en français de ce résumé figure à la fin de l'article. Al final del artículo se facilita una traducción al español. املقالة. لهذه الكامل النص نهاية يف الخالصة لهذه العربية الرتجمة
Population Ethics and the Prospects for Fertility Policy as Climate Mitigation Policy
The Journal of Development Studies, 2021
What are the prospects for using population policy as tool to reduce carbon emissions? In this paper, we review evidence from population science, in order to inform debates in population ethics that, so far, have largely taken place within the academic philosophy literature. In particular, we ask whether fertility policy is likely to have a large effect on carbon emissions, and therefore on temperature change. Our answer is no. Prospects for a policy of fertility-reduction-as-climate-mitigation are limited by population momentum, a demographic factor that limits possible variation in the size of the population, even if fertility rates change very quickly. In particular, a hypothetical policy that instantaneously changed fertility and mortality rates to replacement levels would nevertheless result in a population of over 9 billion people in 2060. We use a leading climate-economy model to project the consequence of such a hypothetical policy for climate change. As a standalone mitigation policy, such a hypothetical change in the size of the future population-much too large to be implementable by any foreseeable government programme-would reduce peak temperature change only to 6.4°C, relative to 7.1°C under the most likely population path. Therefore, fertility reduction is unlikely to be an adequate core approach to climate mitigation.
Climate Ethics and Population Policy
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, human population growth is one of the two primary causes of increased greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating global climate change. Slowing or ending population growth could be a cost effective, environmentally advantageous means to mitigate climate change, providing important benefits to both human and natural communities. Yet population policy has attracted relatively little attention from ethicists, policy analysts, or policy makers dealing with this issue. In part, this is because addressing population matters means wading into a host of contentious ethical issues, including family planning, abortion, and immigration. This article reviews the scientific literature regarding voluntary population control's potential contribution to climate change mitigation. It considers possible reasons for the failure of climate ethicists, analysts, and policy makers to adequately assess that contribution or implement policies that take advantage of it, with particular reference to the resistance to accepting limits to growth. It explores some of the ethical issues at stake, considering arguments for and against noncoercive population control and asking whether coercive population policies are ever morally justified. It also argues that three consensus positions in the climate ethics literature regarding acceptable levels of risk, unacceptable harms, and a putative right to economic development, necessarily imply support for voluntary population control.
World, 2023
Driven by increasing consumption and population numbers, human demands are depleting natural resources essential to support human life, causing damage to crop lands, fresh water supplies, fisheries, and forests, and driving climate change. Within this century, world popula-tion could increase by as little as 15% or by more than 50%, depending largely on how we re-spond. We must face the challenge of accommodating these additional people at the same time as virtually eliminating the use of fossil fuels and other activities that generate greenhouse gas-es, reversing environmental degradation and supporting improved living standards for billions of impoverished people. The response to this challenge is handicapped by a lack of common understanding and an integrated agenda among those contributing to the response. This report offers a strategy to protect natural systems and improve welfare through expansion of reproduc-tive justice, a concept that includes family planning, reproductive health, and gender equity, and preservation of the environment and climate.
Reproductive Choices and Climate Change in a Pronatalist Context
2024
This study contributes to a better understanding of how individuals make decisions about childbearing according to their views on climate change and how they rationalize their reproductive choices in a pronatalist country, Hungary. Using forty-four semistructured interviews conducted between September 2020 and March 2022 in Hungary, we found that women are more concerned with the future of their children than the carbon footprint of their (potential) children. Most interviewees consider having children to be an important part of a woman's life, and some even regard it as a duty not only to maintain the population size but also because they believe future generations will be more environmentally aware and provide solutions for the climate crisis. In addition, there are condemnatory attitudes towards those who do not want children because of the consequences of climate change. We also found a pattern of planning to have fewer children or planning alternative routes to parenthood (adoption) due to climate change-related concerns. While climate change was acknowledged as a relevant issue, overpopulation was considered less concerning, and there is a prevailing belief that efforts to decrease fertility rates should primarily target developing countries. generally, interviewees support the Hungarian government's pronatalist family policy; nevertheless, some feel that the state degrades women by treating them only according to their roles as mothers.
2020
This thesis departs from scientific literature which suggests to "have one fewer child" as the most effective individual lifestyle choice to reduce one's contribution to (and even actively fight against) climate change. By employing critical discourse analysis of this literature, I explore how childbearing and carbon emissions have been coupled, and what the implications of this phenomenon are. Throughout this work I seek to show that quantifying an unborn child in emissions savings and suggesting to restrain from them must be understood in the socio-political and historical context which drives the individualization of climate causes and solutions; gives authority to "value-neutral" science to produce and naturalize reproductive recommendations; and ignores the patriarchal history of reproduction within capitalism. I essentially argue that "have one fewer child" conceals the gendered nature of reproduction in capitalism, accelerates the instrumental treatment of both childbearing and the climate crisis, and implies that female bodies and sexual life should serve a greater purpose and thus remain manageable. I also suggest that the latter is likely to get a grip in the (m)Anthropocenea human-dominated era in which human has become the biggest threat.
The journal of population and sustainability, 2021
The fulfilment of reproductive health and rights may have a synergistic relationship to environmental sustainability because it leads to lower fertility levels. With this in mind, and with the objective of increasing the legitimacy, funding and acceptance of reproductive health and rights, I conducted a mixed-methods qualitative study consisting of an online survey followed by in-depth interviews. I reached out to two groups of participants: stakeholders of the reproductive health and rights movement, and stakeholders of the environmental sustainability movement. I explored how stakeholders perceived the linkages between family planning, population growth and environmental sustainability. Results indicate that these stakeholders overwhelmingly support the integration of the reproductive health and rights ideological framework in a wider sustainability frame reflecting environmental considerations. I identified three barriers to both addressing and implementing the linkage: responsibility allocation injustice, colonialism and discrimination, and marginalisation. Environmental sustainability and reproductive health and rights stakeholders appear in favour of applying what could be considered 'environmental mainstreaming' to the reproductive 10.3197/JPS.63772236595233 Open Access-CC BY 4.0