Vaccine vs Condoms : Human Population Ethics in Question
You have probably heard about foreign aid on TV on in political debates or articles. Lets examine the ethics of foreign aid. Sure it makes sense to help the poorest of people, but are we really helping them?
Questioning the Ethics of Foreign Aid
The relationship between overpopulation and poverty is an irrefutable fact. The more mouths there are to feed the more complicated and dire the situation. In poor developing nations where millions of people die every year from preventable disease, does it make sense to vaccinate these people?
When we as developed wealthy nations provide foreign aid with food and resources to developing poor nations are we also giving these people education and reproductive technology to help them make choices that will solve part of their poverty problem?
I see advertisements for the Christian Children's fund and Unicef that make my heart ache. They show people in abject poverty scavenging through trash dumps for food and resources. I see all of the obesity and excess in this country and can help but shake my head and the gross global inequity of it.
I sit here typing on a device that costs more then the annul food budget of these impoverished people I speak of. I live in country that takes enough grain to feed 2billion people: and feeds this grain to cattle that live in concentration camps without a blade of grass in sight; to produce fast food obesity and high fructose corn syrup for type two diabetes to keep the stomachs of some 300million swollen with cardio-vascular disease and joint failure. I know for fact that meet consumption is directly proportional to wealth: animal protein is expensive.
The poorest of earths people have to live directly off the land: the products of plants and fishing producing most of their food. If the season changes, or weather pattern shift, massive famine results. What would happen if we saved all of these people? How many more billions of humans would we have if the poorest of people were made healthy with medicine and access to wealth? Actually I believe we would have much fewer than 7 billion people if wealth, education and reproductive technology was universally accessible. It is infact the inequities and injustices (sin) that is causing over population. The poorest of people dont know enough and cant help themselves to address this problem. They dont have access to the information or technology or wealth that we do.
I cant help but wonder when I see media presentations of the poorest people:
"would these people not benefit greatly from access to birth control technology?"
"I wonder if they understand that their over population is the primary driver of their poverty?"
"How can a country like oil rich nation like Nigera treat its people with such disturbing inequity?"
"How can any resource wealthy nation be so full of poverty?"
"Perhaps the carrying capacity of the landscapes in those nations has been exceeded by over population."
"Perhaps if those people in Bangladesh engage in moderation in their reproductive choices, millions fewer would have to endure the suffering of large scale abject poverty".
It is easy for me to sit here and cast a critical view on a situation with which I have no working experience: only knowledge of. From this knowing however I have formed an opinion:
I think the worlds poor need a lot of help, not just vaccines and condoms; a lot more then that!
The only way we can address human over population and the poverty that it causes is through education. We have an ethical obligation to treat the people that are here alive fairly with fair trade and help: to bridge the inequities with generosity and love in our hearts: thankful for the intense wealth and blessings that we enjoy.
Seeing other people through the eyes of love: I only want to help them to not add more people to their problems. More people will only make it worse for the poorest of people, spreading minimal resources thinner, exacerbating poverty further. We have a moral and ethical obligation to educate these people about the relationships between over population and poverty.
I don't have a lot of nice things to say about China normally: but at least the leaders there are coherent enough to implement a policy and law to address the population/ poverty problem. Not here in the US; oh no: we have uneducated inarticulate people like Duggards parading around their private army on national TV: taking waste and selfish excess to the extreme and promoting that as normal. This is many ways more disturbing then the Kardashian/ Jonesy excess promoted elsewhere in the media; especially consider the scope, magnitude and impacts of having 7 billion humans exploiting the natural world to chase the Jones. Have you seen pictures of China recently?
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"Obesity is a common and preventable disease of clinical and public health importance. It is often a major risk factor for the development of several non-communicable diseases, significant disability and premature death. There is presently a global epidemic of obesity in all age groups and in both developed and developing countries. The increasing prevalence of obesity places a large burden on health care use and costs. Weight loss is associated with significant health and economic benefits. Effective weight loss strategies include dietary therapy, physical activity and lifestyle modification. Drug therapy is reserved for obese or overweight patients who have concomitant obesity-related risk factors or diseases. Population-wide prevention programmes have a greater potential of stemming the obesity epidemic and being more cost-effective than clinic-based weight-loss programmes. Ghana is going through an economic and nutrition transition and experiencing an increase in the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related illnesses, especially among women and urban dwellers. A national taskforce to address this epidemic and to draw up a national policy on related non-communicable diseases is urgently needed."
ReplyDeleteKeywords: Obesity, Overweight, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, Cardiovascular Disease, Non-communicable Disease
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790820/
I agree, people die for a lack of knowledge...
ReplyDeleteThe over-population of our world is one of many reasons why I will never have children.
The Duggards should be forced to pay a High tax for their stupidity and waste, we are not living in a time where such behavior is intelligent or needed, long ago I can understand why people did such things, those times are long past. It is unbelievable that people actually waste time watching that junk!
Hello, I don't know enough about the Duggars to comment on that, but I will comment on what you said on the Chinese policy. The Chinese government forces women who do not want to to have abortions to forcibly apply their one child policy. They will do this even if they have to kidnap the mothers, which has happened more than rarely. And these are not all 'safe' abortions. There are negatives to the Chinese one child policy, even if you admire their connection of population and poverty. Also, China certainly hasn't solved the poverty problem, despite these and other programs.
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