Reproductive health, population growth, economic development and environmental change
Lincoln, D.W.
Ciba Foundation Symposium 175 197-212; Discussion: 212-214
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0300-5208 PMID: 8222991 Document Number: 332488
The interrelationships between reproductive health, population growth, economic development, and changes in the environment are much debated. One school adheres to the Malthusian view that population growth outstrips the capacity of the earth to provide necessary sustenance until it is checked by crises. They see evidence in the fall in the human sperm count, the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Africa, recurring famines, and ethnic and religious conflicts in areas of high population. Another school argues that mankind has the ingenuity to provide technical solutions, but they fail to address the planet's capacity to absorb environmental destruction and the enormous inequality in resource consumption between the North and the South. Other predict that the inability to control advanced technology will eventually precipitate an irreversible global disaster (e.g., the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the conflagration of the oil wells in Kuwait in 1991). World population will increase by 1000 million, or by 20%, within 10 years, with 95% of this increase in the South. In the 1990s, annually, 40-60 million pregnancies will be terminated and 5-10 million children will die within one year of birth. AIDS-related infections, notably tuberculosis, will undermine health care in Africa and probably kill 15-20% of the work force before 2000. 2-4 million people will have died from AIDS-related infections by 2000, and a father 100-120 million will have come infected with HIV. In Tanzania, agricultural production has already fallen by 10-20% because of AIDS-related morbidity within the work force. The key issues are migration, the spread of disease, the supply of water and the degradation of land, and fiscal policies with respect to family planning, pharmaceuticals and Third World debt. Full education of women, and more effective family planning in the South can alleviate the problem. Otherwise the developed countries will be engulfed by the health, economic and environmental problems of the South, with its projected population of 5400 million people for the year 2000.